May 18, 2000 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Insider’s Guide to Grantmaking: How Foundations Find, Fund, and Manage Effective Programs
by Joel J. Orosz
The author offers practical advice for people who give away money for a living, or for those considering careers as program officers.
Mr. Orosz, a senior program director at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which financed the book, writes that the best way to regard such an odd profession is to view it as inspiration tempered by practical rules: “a calling with a canon.”
He explains how different types of foundations operate; how to review, decline, and respond to grant proposals, outlining the qualities that mark winning programs; how to conduct site visits; and how to overcome “stage fright” when making a formal presentation for funds in front of a foundation’s directors.
He also covers ethics and cautions against the “seven temptations of philanthropy”: flattery, arrogance, cynicism, doubt, sloth, succumbing to a bleeding heart, and regarding the foundation’s money as one’s own.
“Grantseekers report this as a widely indulged peccadillo among program officers,” writes Mr. Orosz of the last temptation.
Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 350 Sansome Street, San Francisco, Calif. 94104; (415) 433-1740 or (888) 378-2537; fax (415) 956-3158 or (888) 541-2665; http://www.josseybass.com; 303 pages; $32.95; I.S.B.N. 0-7879-5238-9.
