Goodwin Deacon, a master grantwriter, and Ken Ristine, a senior program officer with decades of experience, have teamed up to take us into the mind of the grantmaker and provide a step-by-step guide to crafting a proposal that is simply irresistible. Grantsmanship for the GENIUS gives us an insider's perspective that will quickly put us miles ahead of the game.
Deacon and Ristine make it clear that it's not enough to write a grant proposal. They emphasize that we must understand how the funder will perceive it. They have woven into this book's fabric a 360-degree view of grantsmanship we won't find anywhere else.
Besides being veterans in the grantsmanship field, the authors are experienced teachers of the subject. Tapping into their years of classroom experience, mentoring to their professional peers, and consulting for innumerable nonprofit organizations, they have mastered the fun, conversational style common to all For the GENIUS(R) books. In other words, they know how to explain even murky concepts so they are easily grasped. They provide plenty of examples and tips throughout and even have a bit of fun with their "Pure Genius!" and other sidebars.
Becoming a skilled and accomplished grant professional takes years of experience. But let's face it--in the real world, we don't have years to gain competency. We have to get started quickly, and we have to get started on the right foot. Even so, as we grow in experience we also need an authoritative guide to help us broaden and deepen our skills and to fill in the inevitable gaps. Therein lies another remarkable contribution of Grantsmanship for the GENIUS: The authors have organized this book to give us both a quick start and a full treatment of the subject.
The authors dive right in with a "Quick-Start Letter" in Part 1 to help us create a rough draft of a letter of inquiry.
In Part 2 the authors lay the groundwork by thoroughly covering the fundamentals. They want to make sure we have a solid understanding of where grants fit in the overall scheme of things, what kinds of funders are out there, why these funders make grants, what types of grants they make, and more.
In Part 3 they discuss organizational readiness to write grants, how to research grants, how to increase our chances of success, and how to approach funders.
In Part 4 they get us ready to write to get our organization's message across. In Chapters 14 and 15 they provide a thorough discussion of letters of inquiry-the perfect complement to the Quick-Start Letter they provide in Part 1.
In Part 5 they lead us through the process of writing a full proposal. They lay out each aspect clearly and in the kind of detail we need to succeed.
In Part 6 they talk about what happens after the proposal is submitted, focusing on site visits, acknowledgment, and stewardship.
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