February 26, 1998 | Read Time: 5 minutes
Funding Sources for K-12 Schools and Adult Basic Education, First Edition
This directory lists 1,500 sources in the United States and Canada that provide funds for primary and secondary schools; for educational programs at libraries, museums, and public-television stations; for adult basic education; and for adult vocational and life-skills training.
The grant makers represent a mix of foundations, corporate-giving programs, and federal and state agencies. Each entry, listed alphabetically, provides a description of the grant maker’s history and giving philosophy — or, in the case of government, a description of the program supported — as well as application information, restrictions and requirements, contact information, and sample grants.
Indexes arrange entries by state, by sponsoring or affiliated organizations, by subject (such as environmental education), and by program type (such as curriculum development). The book also offers a list of related World-Wide Web sites and an essay on proposal planning and writing.
Publisher: Oryx Press, P.O. Box 33889, Phoenix 85067-3889; (602) 265-2651 or (800) 279-6799; fax (602) 265-6250 or (800) 279-4663; World-Wide Web http://www.oryxpress.com; 720 pages; $34.50; I.S.B.N. 1-57356-143-6.
In Search of America’s Best Nonprofits
By Richard Steckel and Jennifer Lehman
This book explores the attributes that non-profit leaders say make a charity worthy of emulation and donor support.
Mr. Steckel, president of the Denver-based consulting company AddVenture Network, and Ms. Lehman, a consultant at the company, asked dozens of charity officials to name which organizations they most admired and why. The authors then sent those non-profit groups a questionnaire intended to shed light on their operations.
The book’s first part provides profiles of the lauded organizations and their top officials. The second part is a guide for employees and managers of non-profit organizations that are looking to cultivate some of the characteristics of exceptional groups.
The final section outlines a method through which donors, job seekers, and employees can assess a non-profit organization’s worthiness.
Each chapter ends with a “tool kit” for such evaluation. For example, the “job-seeker’s checklist” provides seven questions to ask when scrutinizing a prospective employer.
Appendixes reprint the questionnaire that was sent to the organizations named and list 26 categories used by the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities for researching non-profit groups. Sprinkled throughout the book are the names of the charity leaders surveyed and their three or four picks of the non-profit groups they most admire.
Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 350 Sansome Street, San Francisco 94104-1310; (415) 433-1767 or (800) 956-7739; fax (800) 605-2665; World-Wide Web http://www.josseybass.com; 218 pages; $25; I.S.B.N. 0-7879-0335-3.
Sustaining Innovation: Creating Nonprofit and Government Organizations That Innovate Naturally
By Paul C. Light
The spark of a new idea shouldn’t come from the occasional bump against uninspired thinking, asserts the author of this book.
Instead, writes Mr. Light, director of the Public Policy Program at the Pew Charitable Trusts, innovative practices at non-profit organizations and government agencies can occur regularly — if the right elements are in place.
Through a five-year project financed by the Ford, McKnight, and General Mills Foundations, Mr. Light studied the governing structures and external forces that shaped 18 non-profit groups and eight government agencies in Minnesota. He chose the organizations based on what he saw as favorable track records in fostering innovation.
He writes that those groups shared four traits: a lack of barriers to creativity, an ability to adapt the external environment to the organization’s benefit, leaders who create the conditions for others to succeed, and internal management systems that accelerate good ideas. Mr. Light stresses that innovation is not just what’s new to a given organization but something that shakes up the entire playing field.
For example, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis successfully transformed itself into a “safe place for unsafe ideas,” writes Mr. Light, by showcasing diverse art works without becoming too radical for most patrons. The Walker holds a “Minnesota monopoly” as a home for modern art, he writes.
He concludes that when individual accomplishment is de-emphasized, new ideas will crop up naturally.
“The goal is not to create immortality but to improve the odds that innovation will become an organizational habit,” he says.
Appendixes provide statistical data from the study, including information on the groups’ budgets, demographics, and internal structures.
Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 350 Sansome Street, San Francisco 94104-1310; (415) 433-1767 or (800) 956-7739; fax (800) 605-2665; World-Wide Web http://www.josseybass.com; 336 pages; $29.95; I.S.B.N. 0-7879-4098-4. OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Coping With Cutbacks: The Nonprofit Guide to Success When Times Are Tight, by Emil Angelica and Vincent Hyman, offers strategies for non-profit groups facing a financial squeeze due to dwindling support from the federal government. Mr. Angelica, a consultant, and Mr. Hyman, editorial director at the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation in St. Paul, offer ways to cut costs, bolster revenues, and revamp the structure of the organization to insure stable financial management. They include checklists and worksheets and share the results of a survey that asked 63 non-profit groups how they intend to respond to budget cuts. Publisher: Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, Publishing Center, 919 Lafond Avenue, St. Paul 55104-2198; (612) 659-6024 or (800) 274-6024; fax (612) 642-2061; 128 pages; $25 plus $4 postage and handling; I.S.B.N. 0-940069-09-1.
Environmental Funding in Europe: A Directory of Foundation and Corporate Supporp for Environment Programmes in Europe profiles 190 grant-making organizations worldwide that support environmental projects in Europe. Corporations and foundations in 28 European countries make up the majority of the listings, which contain contact information, grant-making history, program areas, languages spoken, and, where available, financial information. Indexes list the grant makers by country, subject, geographic region, and types of support provided. Publisher: European Foundation Centre, 51 rue de la Concorde, B-1050 Brussels; (011) 32-2-512-8938, fax (011) 32-2-512-3265; e-mail efc@efc.be; World-Wide Web http://www.efc.be; 276 pages; $55; I.S.B.N. 2-930107-03-0.
