This website has become the driving force in finally creating the second, revised edition of my book about grants, grant seeking & grant making. I am revising the text now, and you can be certain that there will be plenty of publicity about the new book when completed. This will include who is publishing it where, and how you can purchase it.

The book was initially titled Grantwriting, The Model Proposal & Other Nonsense. It was originally printed by this writer on a wonderful HP Laser Jet, long since consigned to the printer trade-in realm. I would schlep the spiral bound version around to training events and make it available for a few bucks.

I came up with the original title for my own amusement, to signify my irreverence about some of the so-called conventional wisdom that bounces around in the nonprofit realm (There is no such thing as grantwriting; there is no such thing as a model proposal).

When it was suggested, however, that my book might be an item for broader consumption by a larger audience, this seemed to call for a title that might fit such an arrangement. Hence, Getting Smart About Getting Grants: An Opinionated Workbook, the title of the book to come.

In considering the emerging version of the original book, the author has spent an inordinate amount of time contemplating its texture and its innards. I am now of a mind to stick with a lot of my original thinking that lead to the original. The very maelstrom of burgeoning data in the arena of grants-related pursuits that has had me musing really changes nothing about why I would do such a book. It seems to me that a sensible, occasionally skeptical, and ultimately positive take on the prospects embodied in going into going after grants is still a good thing. What's to come will necessarily include more information on the implications of Electronic Medialand, aka the internet, on the grants realm.

What remains most important to this grizzled practitioner is the connection that I rarely see made between what constitutes a solid funding proposal and a solid nonprofit organization. This excerpt from the book gets at this.

"Grants are represented here as a fundamental aspect of nonprofit existence and sustenance. They are important to nonprofit organizations looking for important ways to support the people for whom they exist.

They are also visualized as seductive; often the focus for what is an unrealistic, unjustified amount of attention by people in nonprofits. This can present itself in the phenomenon of applicants going after funding they have absolutely no business going after. As in pursuing a grant, the focus for which has nothing to do with an organization's professed reason for existence. Or pursuing a grant when the applicant organization's capacity to do anything fruitful, even if funded, is questionable.

Strange to say, even with the obvious allure of grants, I have also learned how often grant seeking is a step-child in the nonprofit organization family. How many times have training participants related that they, and they alone, are expected to conjure the magic in bringing grants to their organizations, and do so as the last of the many tasks they are expected to undertake.

These are the people expected to represent the interests of nonprofit organizations as a whole in developing funding proposals. Too often, they are expected to do this brilliantly without knowing or being given enough information about the substance of their organizations. It's a set-up for frustration, if not failure.

Many are the tactics to consider as this publication unfolds. In it, I hope you sense my challenging what passes for conventional wisdom in how people in nonprofits pursue grants.

This will include looking at the craft of writing proposals from the perspective of the person doing the writing. We'll emphasize the importance of writers' labors, and argue that they deserve more respect and support from others within their organizations."

"You are your proposal. The process of pursuing funds is likely to involve a number of events, not the least of which is the creation of a written proposal. Since this is so, let's consider the opportunity this written product presents your organization to answer the question of why it should be funded. (If you think about it, and by any measure of common sense, there's no more important aspect to a funding proposal.)

This can be done by demonstrating the following within the proposal: that your organization is a strong, effective one which enjoys support from the community for which it was created; that the organization exists for important reasons, that is, to help resolve challenges to members of such a community, consistent with its stated mission; that this is accomplished through care-fully planned & developed programs, funding for one of which is likely being sought; and, that such programs will be judged by proposing to take responsibility for documenting their impact and ability to bring about progressive community change.

Let's consider some clearly reasonable characteristics for an effective nonprofit organization. Such an organization: is a strong one because it represents a community and enjoys its support; exists for important reasons, specifically to help community members overcome challenges and barriers, always consistent with its mission; accomplishes the above through carefully planned program delivery; and, takes responsibility to judge the programs it delivers by assessing their impact and ability to bring about change for the better.

Get the drift? The repetition, often found and rarely justified in funding proposals, is intentional here. So, we can make a connection between the characteristics of a solid nonprofit and its solid proposals. And we can offer the proposition that building proposals reinforces organizational capacity which, in turn, provides the context within which compelling proposals will emerge. It's a powerful circular construct, and what tempted me to exercise some writer's license to contend that you are your proposal. This only makes sense, however, if the 'you' in this instance is an organization with a healthy, intentional perspective about how to develop proposals and how to present itself. So, how about your organization?"

Harvey is hard at work on an updated version of this book. Purchase details will be made available here soon. He has two other books in the works.