July 24, 2003 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Only Grant-Writing Book You’ll Ever Need
by Ellen Karsh and Arlen Sue Fox
This book is designed to help nonprofit organizations write proposals for grants from companies, foundations, and government agencies. It describes the qualities of a winning proposal, and outlines the steps grant writers should take both before drafting a proposal and after one has been submitted.
Ellen Karsh, a writer and former director of the Mayor’s Office of Grants Administration, in New York, and Arlen Sue Fox, executive director of Sunnyside Community Services, a social-services organization in New York, say the application process runs more smoothly if fund raisers do the “proper homework and legwork” first. They suggest that an organization clearly define its mission and research the problems it aims to solve. The authors give advice on how to find a grant maker whose priorities match the fund raiser’s mission, and they provide a summary of online services to help groups search for, and learn more about, sources of financial support.
The book also explains how to design a budget, how to develop a plan to evaluate programs, how to prepare for a site visit from a grant maker, and how to solicit feedback if a proposal is rejected.
Each section of the book includes comments from grant makers from corporate-giving programs, foundations of various sizes, and government agencies, who discuss what they look for in a proposal and some of the common mistakes that lead to rejections.
Publisher: Carroll & Graf, 161 William Street, 16th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10038; (646) 375-2570; fax (646) 375-2571; http://www.carrollandgraf.com; 384 pages; $14; I.S.B.N. 0-7867-1175-2.
