​INTRODUCTION TO THE FIFTH EDITION

ONCE AGAIN we are preparing a new edition of The Only Grant-Writing Book You’ll Ever Need in a climate of change and uncertainty. One day maybe this won’t be the case, but we’re starting to have our doubts. As in past editions, our purpose is to help you write the best proposal possible, whatever the climate, to enhance your chances of getting funding for your organization, educational institution, or personal projects. And, as for past editions, we have turned to foundation officers, outstanding nonprofits leaders, and government officials to seek their best advice. Always in the past we have been able to assure you that, even when the search was difficult, there still would be plenty of grants available if you knew how to find the right funder and present your case clearly and forcibly. This still is true for many foundation and government grants, but we need to sound an alarm to organizations that depend largely on government grants and contracts.

If you have been reading the newspapers and listening to pundits over the last few years, you are aware that the federal government is engaged in major changes and that budget concerns may force significant retrenchment in many service areas. Many state and local governments traditionally receive and pass on federal funding to ​educational institutions and nonprofits. But we hear from government officials that there are likely to be fewer grants and contracts to state and local governments and to nonprofit organizations over the coming years. Local governments that have managed to keep needed programs afloat in the face of recent federal and state cuts may find it harder and harder to do so. And we hear from foundations watching this process that they are unlikely to be able to pick up the slack in funding. Although there is hope that such conditions may change over time, organizations that do not prepare for cuts in government funding in the near future may not be around to benefit in the long run.

So a new purpose for this book is to encourage you not only to perfect your grantsmanship skills to function in an even more highly competitive era than in the past but also to identify and implement fundraising methods that do not depend on grants. We will mention, but not discuss in this book, common fundraising methods that many of you already use—annual appeals, fundraising events, crowdfunding and other social media, events and journals, and more. We believe you need to increase your outreach in your communities to enhance the unrestricted income that you bring in from these activities. There are many excellent books and online resources to help you do this.

We also want to introduce you to some innovative, and sometimes controversial, fundraising methods described by our foundation and government contacts, presented in more detail in an updated introductory roundtable on the funding environment and in a new chapter, Lesson 18. These methods, increasingly used by the most far-seeing organizations, include formalizing and increasing the role of volunteers to enhance existing programs and services, identifying and implementing opportunities for business enterprises that serve your mission, collaborating with other nonprofits and local businesses, and implementing fees for service when possible. Your grant-writing skills will be as vital in these initiatives as they are in seeking grants; we will show you how in Lesson 18, in a section on writing a business plan.

​Many organizations currently use the simplest of these methods—for example, having parents help teachers work with children on reading skills, having volunteers serve meals to seniors, running bake sales and auctions, or collecting a nominal contribution for meals or activities. We touch on these methods and more in Lesson 18 because too many organizations acknowledge that they have done very little to diversify funding. And even these simple methods can be expanded and institutionalized to bring more resources into your organization.

We are suggesting broader approaches as well, incorporating both a planned and systematic use of volunteers and what we will call business-oriented or entrepreneurial sources of income (sometimes called social enterprise). In many organizations this will require something of a cultural shift because staff are committed to providing services “for free” to needy individuals and families. Unfortunately, these services are not “free”; they have been supported by government and foundation funding. To continue providing the essential services you know are so vital, you must find new ways to support them.

Because one of the authors of this book is a rabid baseball fan, we are once again using our national pastime to illustrate how organizations can think outside the (grant-writing-only) box when it comes to surviving when money is tight—and, by the way, when isn’t money tight?

There probably isn’t a baseball fan around who wouldn’t agree with this statement: “Boy, has baseball changed.” Most readers over 30 grew up never hearing of sabermetrics, a term that came into use in the early 2000s and was featured in a book (which became a hit movie), Moneyball by Michael Lewis. To make a long story short, sabermetrics replaces baseball managers’ hunches and years of experience with actual statistics. No longer do managers say, “I know that Mighty Casey will hit a homerun now, even though (a) he’s a lefty and so is the pitcher, (b) he can’t hit a curve ball and this pitcher throws only curve balls, and (c) he’s faced this particular pitcher 10 ​times and struck out all 10 times. He’s due.” Today there’s no way, with all the data and statistics available to the manager, that Mighty Casey would bat against this particular pitcher. The batter would instead be the player with statistics that make him the most likely to have success. Today teams keep track of everything about players—from how hard they hit the ball to how fast the ball comes off their bats to what direction the ball travels. Suddenly “launch angle” is all the rage in baseball. And all this information, these analytics, are loaded onto the managers’ tablets and used for in-game decisions, which is why fans watch as fielders shift around before each pitch is thrown so it will be a little more difficult for the batter to get a hit.

But in spite of all these newfangled ways of doing things, baseball itself hasn’t really changed: all but a few minor rules are the same as they were back in the day. Still, the successful teams are generally the ones that are using all the latest technology. They are always looking for a way to be better, smarter, more open minded, and more creative. And, as usual, the players are trying to get stronger, healthier, faster, and more skillful.

Like baseball, grant writing^* really hasn’t changed either. The basics are the same. But now most grantmakers look for increased diversity of funding sources, and a winning proposal is likely to include and highlight supplementary strategies the organization is using to bring in money and stay afloat when other funding is scarce (see Lesson 13, on sustainability). The questions on the grant application may look the same as they looked 10 years ago, but the proposal that answers the questions in a way that reflects the entrepreneurial spirit of the organization is the one that has the best chance of getting funded. And although a grant application may not include a question that says “Describe the entrepreneurial spirit of your organization,” you will be able to find many places in your proposal where ​you can easily describe your efforts to “think outside the box”—a phrase funders themselves use frequently. If you’re not there yet, Lesson 18 will give you some ideas about where to start.

WHAT’S IN THE BOOK?

The Only Grant-Writing Book You’ll Ever Need organizes the whole grant-seeking experience into three parts (preparation, proposal writing, and follow-up) and 18 lessons. Each lesson is designed as a workshop, starting with opening remarks followed by discussion questions and concluding with a short “pop quiz.” These questions give you an opportunity to practice what we preach, so we hope you give them a shot. (We provide the answers—with explanations—in Appendix 6 so you can see how you did.)

But there’s a lot more to grantsmanship than just the proposal. So we’ve included a chapter on writing with style; a chapter on “intangibles,” with information that’s usually not communicated anywhere because you’re assumed to know it; and “roundtables” with suggestions from grantmakers, government officials, and nonprofit leaders about what they think it takes to write a good proposal and about how you should approach the economic and social climate in which you’re writing.

We’d especially like to call your attention to two items in the book: Roundtable I: Grantsmanship and the Funding Environment, which follows this introduction, and the new chapter mentioned earlier, Lesson 18: When Grant Funding Needs a Boost, Build a Business!, which makes some of the issues and suggestions in this roundtable more concrete.

After the financial meltdown in 2008, and again in 2014, we asked our panelists for views on grantmaking in that environment, and presented them in economy-focused roundtables in the third and fourth editions. For the current edition, we reviewed those roundtables, checked in with grantmakers, and found that most of what our panel had told us is still relevant. So we’ve kept many of ​the comments from the earlier editions and added what we’ve heard more recently about their concerns regarding federal budget cuts and the current climate for grantmaking.

After the roundtable, Part I starts you off with prerequisite lessons: Identifying who you and/or your organization are, what kind of funding you should be looking for, where to look for it, and how to make sense of grant-application packages. We discuss differences (and similarities) in the approach to grants by nonprofits, government agencies and schools, and individual grant seekers.

We also give you some strategies to ensure that you will be a more well-rounded and successful grant writer than ever. Like the baseball player who is always looking for an edge over the competition, you can gain an edge as well. What makes a successful grant writer (besides good writing, of course)? Part I ends with a discussion of intangibles that affect grantsmanship, including some thoughts on the role of a grant writer in the organization.

Part II opens with some rules and guidelines on good writing and the opportunity to practice writing sections of a grant proposal. In the remaining lessons in Part II, we take you through the process of developing each element of a typical grant proposal.

Submitting a proposal isn’t the end. In Part III we talk about steps to take after you learn whether you have been approved for funding—or not. This section ends with the new chapter on entrepreneurial approaches to fundraising and on ways in which excellent proposal-writing skills can be transferred to the development of a business proposal.

At the end of each part, we present a lively Funders Roundtable, giving you the responses of a large and diverse group of grantmakers from government funding agencies and foundations to a slew of pertinent questions on the topics and issues covered in that part. Their answers will help even experienced grant writers gain new insight into the grant process and an understanding of what the money people really look for.

​We also have updated the appendices. Appendix 1 offers tips to improve your chances of winning a grant (drawn from our own experiences, the comments of our panel of grantmakers, and successful grant seekers). Appendix 2 is a proposal checklist to help ensure you have touched all the right buttons. (We urge you to create your own checklist for each new proposal that you plan to write.) It is followed by an extensive, updated glossary of common terms used in the grants world (Appendix 3). In Appendix 4 we give you some model application forms and letters; in Appendix 5, which is updated and annotated to reflect major changes in some important websites, you will find notes on a few useful sites. Appendix 6 provides the answers to the pop quizzes.

We want to note that the title of this book is aspirational: We do hope that it is the only grant-writing book you’ll ever need. Throughout the book, we have tried to demystify the process of developing programs, writing proposals, and winning grants so that anyone—even those with the least experience—can succeed. Although readers with relatively little experience or those changing careers may be the ones who find the book most useful, we are doing our best to provide helpful information—about what the grantmakers are saying, and especially about diversifying funding—to even the most experienced.

ABOUT THE FUNDERS ROUNDTABLES…

As you’ll recognize if you’re a longtime grant seeker (or work for one), or as you will understand one of these days, experienced proposal writers can become a little presumptuous at times and, at least where grants are concerned, turn into opinionated know-it-alls about how to do it. Because we had written so many proposals and won millions of dollars in grants (we’re not mentioning right now how many grants we didn’t win); because we’d attended so many bidders’ conferences where applications were explained in minute detail ​and participated in so many foundation workshops; and because we’d taken (and given) grant-writing seminars over the years, we got to be pretty sure we knew what the funders wanted.

But we can confide in you: Every now and then we were secretly a little afraid that just maybe we really didn’t know exactly what grantmakers love or hate. So for each edition, we talked with funders and nonprofit leaders representing foundations and organizations of all sizes in all parts of the country, as well as with government officials. And we got some insights and surprises that made the effort worthwhile for us and, we hope, for you.

Then, because the first edition was in preparation during the attacks of 9/11, we addressed with grantmakers the impact of terrorism on grant funding. Not to suggest we’re a jinx, but the second time, just after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, we asked funders about the effects of natural disasters, disaster planning, and other issues on the grants landscape. For the third edition (just after the financial industry’s meltdown) and the fourth (prepared after more than a year of federal budget crises), we asked about funding in a volatile economic climate. Now, on top of many more devastating hurricanes and wildfires, we face a federal government that is more than a trillion dollars in debt and promises years of cutbacks in a wide variety of programs. More than ever, we felt the need to know what government and foundation grantmakers had to say about grant seeking, and they very kindly gave their time to answer our questions.

Although we call our conversations “funders roundtables,” we didn’t really go the roundtable route. Instead, we interviewed each individual alone, following essentially the same interview format. We wanted to give the interviewees the opportunity to frame their answers independently and without being distracted by things other panelists said. In addition, early on we started interviewing successful nonprofit leaders who have invaluable insights into and experience with the grants process.

Many of those we interviewed were perfectly happy to speak on the record, but others felt that they would have to hold back if they ​were going to be quoted directly, or even if they were only acknowledged by name in the book. Because our purpose was to get their uninhibited good advice, we decided not to quote anyone by name. The grantmakers and others whom we interviewed couldn’t have been more forthcoming, more giving of their time, more willing to share their expertise and insights, or more clearly committed to the needs of grant seekers and their communities. Whether we name them in our acknowledgment section or not, we are deeply grateful to all of them.