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Grants and Foundations Review
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About Grants and Foundations Review™
The thousands of grant writers and funders who are members of CharityChannel have contributed hundreds of articles to Grants and Foundations Review over the years. Articles cover all facets of grantsmanship, and tackle just about every topic imaginable.
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What are we really saying?
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
by Rebecca Vermillion Shawver, MPA
Seldom do I chuckle out loud as I read the newspaper — especially one that focuses upon higher education issues. But as I read David Galef’s “Translation of the Last Department Meeting,” I found myself giggling and tearing up with laughter. (Inside Higher Ed, 03-12-2010, http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/03/12/galef.) His translations were insightful and funny. As I read through his list of common phrases and comments heard at faculty meetings, the faces of several of my colleagues floated through my mind as I thought about their words, and the hidden meaning behind them.
As most of you know, grant writers aren’t necessarily known for their humor. We are typically very serious professionals that focus upon facts, figures, outcomes, and implementation plans. But we all know that to survive in the grant field, we must develop a sense of humor.
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Grant Management Tasks You Don’t Want to Overlook
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
by Stacie Marsh
So your grant application was funded. Congratulations! While celebration is in order, don’t loosen your boot straps just yet. No matter the size of the grant award or sophistication of the funder, there is a universal list of tasks to be followed to effectively manage grant awards from private and corporate foundations, starting from the moment you open the award letter. (This article is less applicable to federal, state and local government grant awards.)
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Conflict
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
by Teri Blandon
I hate conflict, and will do almost anything to avoid confrontation. But conflict is sometimes unavoidable, especially in the workplace where proposal deadlines, fundraising pressures and colleague’s work styles can easily create tense situations.
In the course of writing grant proposals, I have found that conflicts usually occur when one of the following situations are present.
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Ten Ways I De-stress My Work Life
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
by Rebecca Vermillion Shawver, MPA
We all know co-workers who are never happy. I know that I do. These folks never seem to be having a good day. They have permanent frown lines etched across their faces and furrowed brows that are only fertile ground for growing more unhappiness....
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Staff Grant Writer vs. Contract Grant Writer: The Ups and Downs of Each
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
by Alyssa Hanada
I have to admit I was never a big fan of working the standard eight to five and reporting to someone. Growing up with an independent mom who had her own business always inspired me. So when I found a career path that would allow me to be my own boss, make my own hours and choose the agencies I wanted to work with, it sounded like a dream! Of course life as a consultant is not always easy. It requires staying on task (which can be difficult if you work from home and see that pile of laundry!), strong communication with clients and being a professional organizer!
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When Does One Become a Professional Grant Writer?
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
by Jeanne Donado, GPC
Several years ago I was hired as the grant writer for a mid-size health system. It was my first entirely grant-focused job and their first time bringing in a full-time writer. Their community health organization had previously worked with a consultant writer. But when I reviewed her work it was clear she had been selling skills she did not fully have. What she had produced showed she simply was not familiar with the range of skills needed to do good grant work.
I wondered why she had been hired. But as I began introducing myself around the health system, it was apparent there was little awareness of what grants are or what they can help accomplish. Clearly ground work needed to be laid, so I rolled up my sleeves to take on the task....
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Letters of Interest Lead to New Funding Opportunities
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
by Rebecca Vermillion Shawver, MPA
As a new grant writer, I was always uncertain what to include in a letter of interest (or what many of my colleagues refer to as a pre-proposal letter). With such limited space, there never seemed to be enough room to list all the information that I thought necessary to persuade the grant officers to request a full proposal from my organization. Thus after dropping each envelope into the mailbox, all I could do was hope and pray that my words would convince them that my agency was deserving of a chance to tell our full story. Sadly, more often than not, I was disappointed.
I finally came to realize that the funders had a different reason for requesting a letter of interest from me than I had for writing one. I needed to adjust my thinking and writing to address their needs – because after all, they have the money!
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Please Don’t Call Me a “Grant Writer” — I Am So Much More
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
by Toby Fox
I truly hate being called a “grant writer.” Yes, I do write grant proposals, but I do so much more than simply put words on paper. Please don’t misunderstand me. I love writing grant proposals, but I also love doing the myriad other tasks that are involved in the development and implementation stages of grant proposals.
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Test Your Collaborative Powers
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
by Saadia Faruqi
Let’s be honest: how many times have you – a grant professional – looked at a grant’s requirements and thought “we would be perfect for this if only we had a partner”? How many times have you tried to convince your program or executive director that a partnership with another area nonprofit could be the ticket to a major grant? How many of you have found that in your experience, a large number of grant opportunities that come across your desk are only applicable to collaborating nonprofits?
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Help! Our Organization is Sinking! Quick, Let’s Get a Grant!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
by Karen Joyce Williams
For every development professional or grantwriter who has encountered some version of this desperate refrain from an organization as a rallying cry to raise needed funds, there exists ten cautionary tales, a few well-worn red flags, and a cadre of development professionals who have survived similar demands – reminding the rest of us what it really means when an organization sends up a financial S-O-S and expects the development staff to come to the rescue.
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What Your Program Officer Thinks Your Grant Application Says About You
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
by Suzy Meneguzzo
We’ve all been there. You send that grant application off, confident that funding is just one approval away. You’ve read all the guidelines; the project is a perfect match. You’ve poured over the language; it is an eloquent description of a strong and important program. The budget document is a veritable master piece in accounting. You followed all the rules, got it in on time, with the right number of copies. Yet…that rejection letter comes in. So, what happened?
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Collaborations: Myths or Predictions?
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
by Rebecca Vermillion Shawver, MPA
Recently, the Council for Resource Development’s listserv was abuzz with a discussion focused upon what appeared at first glance a routine topic. A CRD member had read a blog posting by Isaac Seliger of Seliger + Associates. On his blog, Seliger (a grant consultant) had posted his views regarding mandated collaborative partnerships imposed by funders through published guidelines. The posting was entitled, “What Exactly Is the Point of Collaboration in Grant Proposals? The Department of Labor Community-Based Job Training (CBJT) Program is a Case in Point.” (Isaac Seliger, Seliger + Associates, 04-05-10, blog).
Seliger shared with his readers that collaborations between nonprofits are as “unlikely” to succeed as one would expect from a “collaboration between McDonald’s and Burger King.” In fact, he pointed out that there are federal laws that oftentimes prevent, to help maintain beneficial competitions, for-profit companies from forming partnerships. So, why should nonprofit agencies be allowed or forced to do so?
Frankly, I only need one reason to disagree with nearly every statement that he made—lying is wrong....
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Getting the Information Your Proposal Needs from Others
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
by Cheryl L. Kester
I have written articles for Grants and Foundation Review and spoken at conferences about the vital role that grant professionals play in program planning because they know how to turn a project idea into something fundable. Almost inevitably, someone raises a hand and asks the age-old question, “How do you get the information from the program people (or the financial people, or the fill-in-the-blank here people)?!”
Usually the person is frustrated, with a specific experience in mind. But the bottom line is the same. How do we....
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Freshen Up
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
by Alyssa Hanada
As a staff grant writer or a consultant that works with organizations in an ongoing capacity, it’s easy to get into a trance when developing grants for the same familiar programs. The words may start to blur together as sentences are recycled and you click those magical godsends: “copy” and “paste.”
In order to keep things interesting for both you and the funders that continue to support the programs, it’s important to refresh templates and make sure that spark of excitement comes back to the page. As a grant writer, it’s easy to get into a pattern of sitting behind the desk with a dollar goal in mind and to forget about the people and the stories behind the programs.
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Positive Thinking - A Grant Writer's Most Valuable Asset
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
by Rebecca Vermillion Shawver, MPA
Any proposal writer that has been in the business for more than a few years knows that emotions can run deep when a much wanted (and needed) grant application is rejected. We feel a wide range of conflicting feelings. We ask ourselves if the reviewers’ were biased in some way. We incessantly review the narrative in our mind. What should we have done differently? How can we improve it for the next submission opportunity? Is it our fault that clients will go without needed services?
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Health Care Reform Legislation and Its Impact on Federal Grant Programs
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
by Stacie Harting Marsh and Catherine Parker
In the past sixteen months, two major legislative changes have grant seekers and writers closely monitoring Grants.gov (the federal government’s web portal for identifying and applying for grants) for changes and additions to the federal grant application calendar.
The first significant legislative change was....
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Grant Proposal Basics
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
by Joyce Luhrs
A proposal requesting a specific grant can be the most complicated or the easiest document to complete. The key is to understand the funder’s requirements thoroughly before sitting down to write the proposal. These are some basic rules that will guide any organization that contemplates preparing a proposal.
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Are You Looking for 7-Foot Bars to Jump Over or 1-Foot Bars You Can Step Over?
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
by Pamela Grow
I don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for1-foot bars that I can step over.
—Warren Buffett
While Warren Buffett was certainly referring to the business world in the quote above, his philosophy applies equally well to setting up a grants system for the small nonprofit organization with not enough time or resources.
Just as in the business world, the world of foundation grantmaking has always followed trends. And because foundations’ founders and their leadership tended to be from the corporate world, there was a major push in the 1980’s through the 90’s for nonprofits to be “accountable and goal driven.” That usually meant that funding was directed to short term projects – ones that could deliver measurable outcomes.
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What I Wish Grant Developers Knew About Foundation Program Officers
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
by Suzy Meneguzzo
It was with excitement and a little bit of fear that I opened my CharityChannel email in February and clicked through to Toby Fox’s article entitled “What I Wish Foundation Program Officers Knew About Grant Developers.” As someone who is responsible for making grants at my foundation, I knew all about the horror stories — program officers who don’t read the material, don’t return calls, etc. I feared that I might find a description of some of my own worse habits inside.
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Grant Agreements Come in All Sizes
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
by Teri Blandon, CFRE
Congratulations! Your agency just received a grant. But before the check is cashed and the project begins, you need to look carefully at the grant agreement.
Grant agreements come in all sizes. Sometimes it is a one-page letter from the funder indicating the grant amount, time period, and reporting requirements. Other times, it is a multi-page document with much detail. No matter the length, it is a legal contract between the funder and your agency, and it must be reviewed carefully.
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Seeking Grants for Disaster Recovery
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
by Cecilia Blanford
I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Cecilia Blanford and I am the Grant Director for Lutheran Social Services of the South, Inc., a 129-year old nonprofit human services organization based in Austin, Texas. In the past 10 years, I have been instrumental in raising nearly $54 million across 280 private, state and federal grants. Lutheran Social Services and its affiliated ministries serve more than 42,000 people in Texas and Louisiana regardless of religious beliefs, ethnicity, gender or age. Its ministries include children's centers, therapeutic foster care, adoption, senior health care, retirement communities, adult day care, emergency services and disaster response.
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What Now? Potential Career Paths for the Grants Professional
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
by Stacey E. Abate
I have been the Director of Grants at a small college for almost 5 years. Prior to that, I was a grants consultant for 5 years and a grants coordinator for the 3 years before that. That’s 13 years spent exclusively writing grants. Unlike many grant writers, I do not write grants while also serving as an executive director, teacher, principal, project director, clinical researcher, or VP of something important. I have done nothing but research, identify potential grant sources, meet with project staff, write, submit, and report since 1997. While for the most part I still love it, lately I’ve been wondering, what comes next? What exactly is the logical career path for a full-time grant professional?
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I Think It’s Time to Take an OJP Program Officer to Lunch
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
by Rebecca Vermillion Shawver, MPA
Those of us that work as grant consultants are well aware that at times foundations and government agencies don’t always view us in the most positive light. But just in case we weren’t fully aware of their commonly held misperceptions, the U.S. Department of Justice has printed their viewpoint for all to see in their “Guide to Grants – FY10 Edition.” In it the Department states....
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Community Analysis is Key to Getting Funded
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
by Saadia Faruqi
A dirty word in the nonprofit sector for several decades, “business planning” is now becoming more acceptable and even desired by nonprofit leaders and funders alike. The good news is that grant professionals are in a unique position to encourage business planning before developing new programs or expanding old ones, and especially before pursuing grant opportunities.
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The Good, the Bad and the Job Interview
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
by Shelley Uva
Some people think interviewing for a job is similar to dating. Since I’ve been married for 35 years, I can’t remember what dating is like. But if my recent job interview experience actually resembles dating in any way, I worry for the future of our species.
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Would You Like to Write for CharityChannel?
CharityChannel was created in 1992 as a community of nonprofit-sector colleagues who shared a vision to create a professional community where members can help each other by sharing their expertise with each other. One of the most important avenues for the exchange of expertise is the opportunity to write original, down-to-earth articles. CharityChannel contributors have penned thousands of articles over the years, and they're just warming up – in the next weeks and months, we're going to expand the article subject areas.
If you have at least several years of experience in the sector and a specific expertise, as evidenced by a demonstrable record of accomplishment, in any of the topic areas listed to the left, you are invited to raise your hand to join one of our Contributors Panels organized around each topic area.
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