The Grant Seeker's Handbook: A Guide to Finding Funds
Appendix B

THE NONPROFIT RESOURCE DEVELOPER’S LEXICON:
An annotated bibliography

In the spirit of strengthening your move to action, we’d like to also offer this bibliography. Based on many years of experience with both sides of the nonprofit equation — funders and those who approach them — it is diverse, idiosyncratic, impressionistic, opinionated and by no means complete. Books, periodicals and articles are included. The variety of entries will provide both facts and opinions from which you can devise strategies for going after money. Going into the fundraising and resource development field with a combination of information and impression should serve you well. We hope you enjoy the entries as we did. All of them are available for reading at the Nonprofit Resource Library.

How to Prepare a Research Proposal: If you can locate this first book other than at the Nonprofit Resource Library, we’ll be surprised. If you can, though — through Syracuse University Press, we’ve learned — and your emphasis is on research, consider getting hold of How to Prepare a Research Proposal, by David Krathwohl. Well organized and pithy, it categorizes various kinds of research and walks you through designing a study, among other things. The most recent edition was put together in 1988, and it’s not likely to be republished for a while.

Taking Your Meetings Out of the Doldrums: Much of what takes place in nonprofit organizations involves working in groups. Working in groups necessitates meetings. If meetings are not effective (how many times have you heard someone groan about an upcoming staff meeting?), this would seem to suggest something about the nature of nonprofit undertakings. Taking Your Meetings Out of the Doldrums, published by University Associates, provides a lot of help in understanding group dynamics and how to use them so your meetings are productive.

Finance & Accounting: The gist of seeking resources for your activities is to ask others for their money. Therefore, it makes sense to value handling such money well and legally. An excellent starting point for the non-financial manager is the Finance Manual by Jude Kaye and Jan Masaoka, published by the National Minority AIDS Council, http://www.nmac.org/, although no longer available for sale. Also worth a look is Self-Help Accounting: A Guide for the Volunteer Treasurer by John Paul Dalsimer, CPA, and published by Energize (1989). For a list of other books that may be of interest, search our Online Library Catalog. Go to http://www.cnmsocal.org/library/ and select the Search our Online Catalog button. Using the Subject search box, enter either Nonprofit organizations – Accounting or Nonprofit organizations – Finance.

Associations Unlimited: Here’s the scenario: a student filmmaker comes to the Nonprofit Resource Library one day. After the orientation, he approaches a staff member for help with possible funders for a film project. In describing his project, he mentions having fled Poland some years back to escape what he characterizes as a repressive government. He is looking for funds to produce a documentary film of sorts about this experience. Nothing the librarian can conjure up seems appropriate as an obvious resource for our intrepid filmmaker, whereupon, our equally intrepid staffer blurts out, Associations Unlimited, albeit somewhat desperately. The staff member’s idea was to look into the possibility of Polish-American organizations existing in this country, since this might lead to some type of a civic organization that could be interested in the human interest and patriotic angles in the student’s film project. (There were a surprising number of such organizations. Whether any funded him is not known.) So, check out this amazing catchall collection of voluntary and professional organizations throughout the country. The entries, catalogued by broad subject areas, are by no means formalized funding sources. But who knows what possibilities lie within your outreach? Associations Unlimited, published by Thomson Gale, is available free online through the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) at www.lapl.org. You will need an LAPL library card to access this database remotely, but if you do not have one, many libraries have this resource.

Annual Register of Grant Support: Perhaps a second cousin to the encyclopedia, the Annual Register of Grant Support, 28th Edition, is something you should see. It’s the classic “neither fish nor fowl” publication, because it does not focus on a single area of interest or funding. Rather, it provides information on several thousand programs sponsored by a slumgullion of organizations such as government sources, foundations, associations and corporations. It is published yearly by the National Register Publishing Company.

Discover Total Resources: The best succinct, most unlikely single publication treatment of the subject of resource development by nonprofits was made possible by a bank. Yep, a bank. In 1985, the Mellon Bank Corporation put together a wonderful guide called Discover Total Resources online at http://www.mellon.com/communityaffairs/guide.html. Major chapter headings include Money, People, Goods and Services. Read this. Right away.

Securing Your Organization’s Future: As good a single volume treatment of the subject of diversified funding for your nonprofit as we have seen is Securing Your Organization’s Future, written by Michael Seltzer, well known by grantmakers and grantseekers alike for his work in the field of nonprofit management support. Published by The Foundation Center in 2001.

Grantmaker’s Directory: Is yours an organization that falls outside the rather traditional pursuits of many grantseeking nonprofits? Are you involved in what might be termed a progressive social movement of sorts? If so, you may find seeking out likely sources of funding frustrating. Many funders won’t be inclined to come your way with grants. But then there are those that will be interested in you for the very fact that your pursuits and approaches are alternative. To find out more about such contrarian funders, you’ll want to consult the Grantmaker’s Directory, referred to as a Funding Sourcebook by its makers, the National Network of Grantmakers, http://www.nng.org/, in Washington, D.C. The current edition, published by Moyer Bell Limited, includes information on funders who are not scared off by your organization’s non-traditional notions. The Introduction and Appendices are required reading as well.

The Grass Roots Fundraising Book: No bibliography on raising money would pass muster without reference to Joan Flanagan’s goodie, The Grass Roots Fundraising Book. The second edition was published in 1995 by Contemporary Books. This is down-to-earth common sense and the absolute basics for going after money from individuals, which, as the book says, “is dependable, renewable, internally controlled money because it comes from people who need and want your organization.” It contains good information on special events fundraising among all the good information on different ways to approach individuals in your community.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy: The Chronicle of Philanthropy is a bi-weekly that describes itself as the “Newspaper of the Nonprofit World.” It contains lots of information about what’s going on in the grantmaking-and-seeking arena, including emphasis on grantmaking by larger foundations, corporate giving and employment possibilities in the sector. This, too, is a deal at the introductory rate of $69.50/year. The online site at http://philanthropy.com/ provides some free articles, and the Nonprofit Resource Library has access to their online archives and subscription database, Guide to Grants.

Continue to Appendix C