English 185 Grants, Proposals, & Reports This guide is in three sections:

First Steps & General Overviews

I would strongly recommend you go through one or both of these short, but extremely enlightening, online guides for novice grantseekers. There is a ton of time-saving indispensable advice in both of them!

Developing and Writing Grant Proposals is a very succinct guide to the process brought to you from the government's Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance.

Foundation Center's Online Orientation to the Grantseeking Process is a real gem!

Identifying a Potential Funding Source

The Foundation Center is a giant clearinghouse of information on foundations. The site itself offers some free online tutorials, general information on the Center, information about their print and CD-ROM publications, and some free articles from the Philanthropy News Digest (a good way to keep up with what's new in foundation giving and programs). Use their print publication, Foundation Directory, (REFERENCE AS911.A2 F65) to see if there is something for you!

Annual Register of Grant Support (REFERENCE AS911.A2 A67) is the single best source of information on funding programs sponsored by a very wide array of government, public and private organizations and groups. There is a lot in here, and the best way, unfortunately, is to simply browse entries in the broad categories listed in the Table of Contents. If you try the Subject Index, you need to be very creative, and broad, with your keywords. Attention-to-Detail is definitely the name of the game here!

Foundation Grants to Individuals (REFERENCE AS911.A2 F594 2001) is the single best source of information on grants to individuals, just like the title says! It includes scholarships and loans, too.

Finding Funding : The Comprehensive Guide to Grant Writing (REFERENCE HG 177.5 .U6 B37 2002) is widely used in workshops on grant writing. It comes with a CD-ROM that contains a nice list of funding sources as well as sample letters, budgets, and more.

Identifying local sources can be particularly rewarding. While some of these will certainly show up in the other guides listed here, both electronic and paper, you can more quickly identify potential local groups, foundations, non-profit organizations, and corporations simply by browsing through these sources.

California Foundations: a Snapshot (Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy, University of Southern California, February, 2001.)

Silicon Valley Funders is a searchable database of local likely corporate and fuondation sources. The Power Search allows you to select a general funding category, like Education or Arts, and then browse by either corporate or foundation source. There is a freetext keyword search, but this is a small enough database, and the keyword search is not all that accurate, that you can simply browse at that level.

GrantSmart "...is an informational and interactive resource center for and about the nonprofit community." (to quote their homepage). It is designed to be used both by the folks seeking grants as well as the philanthropic community of grant suppliers. The have a short tutorial to assist the first-time user of the site.

The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance is a giant compendium of all the sources of monetary assistance available to Americans from the federal government. Due to its massiveness, be sure to start with their First Time User's Guide.

Proposalwriter is a "Search Engine for Proposal Writing, Government Contracting, Grants, Small and Disadvantaged Business, International Bids and Tenders, and International Development"(from their homepage) While it is oriented towards the business community, there are lots of useful tips and links here for anyone seeking money!

The Internet Prospector is a nonprofit organization that "mines" the web for funding sources for nonprofits. The "miners" are all volunteers. It is a real mixed bag of information.

OER Grants: Funding Program Guidelines is a list of the potential sources of research money within the various agencies of the National Institutes of Health. Start your search by clicking on the category that sounds most relevant.

Global Classroom's Technology Grants page is a nice listing of potential resources for educators interested in obtaining funding for anything technology-related.

If it is a research grant you are after, then GrantsWeb probably has what you need. It is produced by the Society of Research Administrators International, a non-profit association whose mission is to advance research administration (and, therefore research). Their webpage is divided into 5 sections: Government (local, state, national, international) Grant Funding Resources; Administrator Information Resources, e.g. forms, e-journals, bulletin boards; Private Funding Information; Policy Information & Regulations.

Writing the Proposal

Find useful books by searching Oscar and Link+. In Oscar, do a KEYWORD search. In Link+ do a WORD search. Use this phrase: proposal writing for grants

Finding Funding : The Comprehensive Guide to Grant Writing (REFERENCE HG 177.5 .U6 B37 2002) is widely used in workshops on grant writing. It comes with a CD-ROM that contains a nice list of funding sources as well as sample letters, budgets, and more.

Guide for Writing a Funding Proposal was created to assist graduate students who needed to find funding for research projects. It divides the proposal into its component parts and provides Writing Hints and an Example for each part. You can also download the whole guide as pdf file and print it out.

EPA Grant-Writing Tutorial, while designed specifically for people applying for EPA grants, has a lot to offer novice grant proposal writers, too. The section How to Enhance a Grant Proposal gives tips for each part of the proposal, e.g. summary, objectives, that would help anyone. In addition there are examples of forms and how to complete them and entire example real-life proposals to examine. Their glossary of Grant Application Process-Related Terms will provide you with the necessary jargon to give your proposal that right feel!

Grant Writing Tips is a set of links on the SchoolGrants site. While SchoolGrants is oriented towards schools seeking grants, this is a good place to find links to very practical, understandable aids for novice grantwriters.

The 10-Point Grant Writing Guide from Seacoast Web Design is a very concise, point-by-point guide for non-profit grantseekers. It includes numerous samples/examples.

Make sure you are using the right words. Take advantage of these handy online glossaries:

Foundation Center's Glossary

Campaign Service Consultant's Glossary of Fund-Raising Terms

The Common Grant Application Format was created by the Grantmakers of Western Pennsylvania "... to simplify the process requesting and making foundation grants."(in their own words) While it was designed to be used by a specific group of participating foundations, it is still of great value to novice grantseekers, with a wealth of information about format and content that have tremendous general application.

GrantProposal.com: Aesthetics & Technicalities for Grantwriters is a very elegant how-to-do-it-well guide to grantwriting. There is a lot of great advice here!

This page created and maintained by Gail Gradowski, Orradre Library, Santa Clara University.
Last updated January 21, 2003.