Customer Reviews

How to Write Knockout Proposals: What You Must Know (And Say) to Win Funding Every Time

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Joseph Barbato has written a very useful and easy-to-read book on how to write foundation grant applications.

Rather than focusing on the nuts and bolts of proposals, he focuses on the essential lessons a good grant application writer must know or learn to be successful. Using the advice in this book will help the reader think and act like an experienced proposal writer.

The chapters are short, concise, and well-written -- a good mantra for crafting successful foundation proposals. Chapter titles include "Maps Help," "Needing Money Isn't Enough," and "Getting Unstuck." If you've written a lot of proposals and helped a lot of clients, you'll find yourself saying "Yes, people need to know that!" as you read the book.

I recommend the book highly. I wish that the author had addressed Federal and other governmental proposal writing as well, for two main reasons. First, while it's a great idea to solicit advice and counsel from a foundation's staff, it's between difficult and impossible to work with a government program officer while drafting a proposal. Working without this counsel requires the proposal writer to hone all the more closely to the written application guidelines -- a point not made as directly in the book as it might have been.

Second, the very brevity and conciseness valued by foundation program officers may actually work against a Federal or other governmental proposal being funded. The written guidance often mandates a certain amount of repetition between proposal sections, both in material to be covered and, occasionally, in the structure of the proposal itself.

These two small issues aside, I really like this book. One particularly effective use of it would be as a supplemental text when delivering grantsmanship training. The book includes much of the good advice a trainer would give orally while handing out written materials on the minutiae of the grant application. Reading "Knockout Proposals" is like having a grantsmanship coach at your side during the writing process.

I like my information FAST and accurate. And How to Write Knockout Proposals gives me just that. Short chapters that cover essential points in lively language. The whole book takes about an hour to read.

Barbato doesn't dither. What other writers say in 300 pages, he manages to say in under 130.

I was scared of writing proposals before. I'm not anymore.

You already know how to read and apply guidelines. Here is an excellent little guide to giving your foundation proposals a compelling, readable edge.

I read Joseph Barbato's earlier book, Writing for a Good Cause,which I liked, and picked up this new one on How to Write Knockout Proposals. The blurbs on the book from fundraising experts like Jerold Panas and others were great. Panas was right: "Makes every other book on the subject obsolete." I especially like the fact this is authoritative information in the form of a fast read. Most of us don't have time to read longwinded books about fundraising. Barbato offers dozens of practical tips that reflect his long career as a top writer for NYU and the Nature Conservancy in major capital campaigns. I can't imagine anyone involved in proposal writing who would not benefit from this new book.

The book could have gone deeper into the topic of proposal drafting and provided the different types of proposal more into detail. A good book for general approach, but need a more comprehensive book for graduate level work. Thus, the book does a fair effort in providing the requisite info to do a good proposal, but it lacks meat in many areas.

The theme of this book boils down to one line on page 117: "Make it as easy as possible for them to give you money."

Barbato emphasizes the importance of clear writing and attention to detail. He suggests a less-is-more approach: "Instead of offering four prosaic examples of how your project matters, tell one powerful story that drives home the potential of your work." A template is included in chapter 24, guiding the reader on how to structure a grant proposal.

The book is well organized in 53 two-page chapters. I like this format, but I think more could have been written about cover letters.

I must have been knocked out when I read this book, because I didn't learn anything amazing or new beyond basic Grantwriting 101. I was hoping for some actual examples that illustrated a knockout paragraph or intro or letter. the information was very "standard" to what one needs to know, but nothing that was over the top.

Because I have yet to find this book. However, a "top-drawer" grant systems administrator brought it to my attention, and checking out the reviews so far, I see that the author's mother (aka "a reader") really liked it.
I'm sure we'll really like it to, once we can lay hands on it. I know; I know: you can buy the darn thing, but you can drop a buck in a one-arm (one-button?) bandit and hope you get cherries, not lemons. "When Life hands you lemons..." goes the old saw...throw 'em back; break Life's picture window.
Ok now, some booksellers start stocking this book 'cause I don't buy if I can't try. Your humble savant,