59 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Concise yet detailed, recommended, March 18, 2000
This book packs the punch in 128 pages. After browsing the Web for many, many, many hours finding this book was a pleasant surprise. The key strength of this book is that it does not drag on a lengthy discussion on finding sources of funding for a long time---many of us in Academia already know who we expect to get funded through! If what you're looking for is detailed guidance on actually shaping the research grant proposal (something I'd never done before), look no further. This book is very well written, to the point, and exemplifies good, concise writing. highly recommended!
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45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pragmatic worksheets, April 8, 2004
If you come in to our nonprofit management support organization and ask for a book on grant proposal writing, there are two we'll pull out right away: Grassroots Grants and Winning Grants Step by Step. We're often asked which to choose. Of all the books we see, these are the two we most often recommend, but they do have different approaches.
Winning Grants Step by Step takes a pragmatic tone. It accepts the rules of the game and offers to show you how to win within them. "Most funders prefer to give grants for new and expanding programs or in support of special projects and new ideas rather than for the general operating expenses of an organization or the ongoing costs of established programs," it explains. "Because funders have these preferences, this workbook uses the idea of creating a new program as the basis for developing a proposal." (The book does also give examples of core operating support proposals, and does start with a planning guide to help you see which programs fit your priorities).
In the introduction to Grassroots Grants, on the other hand, the publisher shares her qualms about publishing a book about grants at all, preferring that the reader focus first on developing more renewable and less restricted gifts from individual donors. "This book is about two things: money and power," says Grassroots Grants, and calmly analyzes the dynamics of both in the grant proposal process. This big-picture view is in the end more pragmatic - it encourages you to take control of the grantseeking process by searching out those funders and pitching those programs that really best fit with what you are trying to do.
Both books have excellent project planning guidelines. As Winning Grants Step by Step observes, "Generally, organizations will spend approximately 80 percent of their time planning a project and only 20 percent of their time writing and packaging a proposal," so this section is obviously very important. Both books ask questions such as "What is unique about your organization's project?" "Is anyone else working on a similar project?" "What members of your community support each project?"
Both also contain useful information about finding appropriate funders, which is key to the process - much more important than your writing skills is finding the right funder who cares about projects like yours. Although Winning Grants Step by Step puts this information at the end in an appendix, you should really read it first, particularly the excellent section on corporate giving programs. Grassroots Grants contains very helpful guidelines about what to consider when deciding whether a funder is really a good fit for your organization, and detailed information about ways to develop good relationships with potential funders.
The books have different approaches to how they help you with your own writing. Winning Grants Step by Step has a workbook format, with questionnaires you fill out as you go, so that by the time you have completed them you will have addressed most of the subjects covered in a typical proposal, and it will be easy to cut and paste the appropriate bits into the funder's preferred format. It comes with all the worksheets on a CD-ROM so you can fill them out electronically and reuse them. If you like project planning, but get nervous about the writing process, this format may help walk you through. Grassroots Grants has questionnaires throughout the text, and it has more examples of proposals, query letters, and other documents with notes on how they were developed. If you like to write by reading examples to inspire you to your own purposes, this book will suit you.
Ultimately, these books complement one another. Even if you prefer the workbook format of Winning Grants Step by Step, the "big picture" you get from reading Grassroots Grants will help you answer all those questions. Likewise, if you prefer the style of Grassroots Grants, you can still benefit from the excellent sections on overhead costs and planning for sustainability in Winning Grants Step by Step.
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45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Winning Grants is a real winner, January 7, 2000
I have used Carlson's book as a required textbook in a program funding and grant writing course I have taught for the last two years. Both my students and I find Carlson's book to the point, comprehensive yet concise, and well organized (gee...rather like a grant proposal). I particularly like the sample proposal in Section C. My only real concern is that Carlson does not spend much time on writing Letters of Intent. In my experience, more and more foundations are requiring this prior to accepting a long proposal. Overall, though, an excellent book.
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