For those of you struggling with writing government grants, the Office of Justice Programs has a tutorial that can make the process easier. You'll find everything you need at their Grants 101 site. Best of all, much of the information is applicable to grantwriting in general, particularly in the proposal writing section. And there's a Toolkit with sample documents and other resources, as well. So even if you're embarking on a local community or private foundation grant, it's worth perusing all the same.

Many of you are probably working on some aspect of grant writing and/or fundraising right now. I know I am. So I was really interested in this short article published over at Network for Good on 6 words every nonprofit should avoid. I'm not going to say a lot about it, since it's a pretty self-explanatory piece, except this: all 6 words show up (often) in my most recent grant application.

Damn.

Having read this, I seriously doubt I am going to eliminate using these words, but I will be more cognizant of how I use them and the frequency with which I use them.

I'm also interested in any other words folks thing are horribly overused or misused in our work. Please add them in the Comments if you think of any!

This month in Free-Range Thinking, Andy Goodman discusses the use of stories and data in garnering support for projects. I mention it because we frequently talk about effectively making the case to hospitals and community foundations, particularly in this economic climate. It's a short article, so I encourage you to check it out (PDF). And if you like what you read, you might want to consider subscribing to the monthly newsletter.

Its only 9:15 am and I have already fielded two questions this morning on SANE/SART funding, so I am going to take that as a sign from the blogging gods and get a post up on finding funders.

It must seem like, at times, I'm a paid spokesperson for a couple different sites (oh, how I wish!), but the reality is I simply have a few, well-vetted tools in my arsenal to which I return over and over again for quality information. The Foundation Center is one of those. Happily, they have an on-line course (offered monthly) on finding funders, that might be useful to those of you trying to identify applicable funding sources, but unsure where to go after your initial Google search returns thousands of sites of indeterminate relevance. The next dates for the course are:

• October 14th, 1-2pm ET
• November 5th, 2-3pm ET
• December 1st, 2-3pm ET

If none of those dates work for you, or you simply need the info sooner rather than later, you can also view a recording online.

Did you know that the Foundation Center now has a librarian available to chat with you in real time as you tackle grant writing and fundraising issues? It's a great resource for those of us with immediate gratification issues (e.g. when emailing that question just doesn't get a quick enough response).

Keep in mind that there probably won't be anyone available for live chat at 11:30 the night before your grant is due, so plan accordingly:)

While in Seattle, I was talking to a colleague about a grant her program had received, and I realized there are a lot of basic questions people have about grants that are rarely discussed. We are quick to talk about how to obtain grants, how to write grant proposals, how to find grants. But that's about it.

fundraisingIP.com posted a brief piece on this topic a couple weeks ago. If you have questions about what your obligations are now that you've received a grant (i.e. regular reporting requirements), or you're wondering if you can use the dollars differently than  you outlined in the grant, this may provide you with some basic guidance.

And for a more in-depth look at an important aspect of grant maintenance, check out An Introduction to Grant Reports: Tips and Tools for Preparing Reports for Your Funders (techsoup). It's great for creating structure in cases where your funder hasn't provided a whole lot of guidance.

Before I get on a plane for Seattle this morning, I wanted to talk briefly about cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA). It's the technique of selecting among competing wants when resources are limited, a position most SANE programs know well. Do we get a shiny new piece of equipment or do we send 5 nurses to SANE training? Do we add 8 more hours a week to our coordinator position or do we start paying call time? We have a lot of competing wants in our world, and often a paucity of resources. Not surprisingly, if you've heard me speak, I often talk about the need to make the tough choices, to prioiritize based on what will ultimately benefit patient care.

One of the ways you can examine how to use your precious resources is through cost-effectiveness analysis. Healthcare often turns to this technique, so it's no surprise that the healthcare literature is where you'll find a lot of helpful guidance on the topic. Of the articles I read on CEA, I found this piece, published in 2000, to be pretty accessible and concise. A Primer on Cost-Effectiveness Analysis was published in Effective Clinical Practice, and it's exactly the kind of introduction I was looking for. It's a fairly bare-bones examination of CEA, great for those of you not overly interested in reading more extensive pieces on the topic.

However, if you are one of those people wonky about business (like me), the National Business Group on Health published a more in-depth look at CEA in 2004: Cost-Effectiveness Analysis: An Employer Decision Support Tool (PDF). This guide provides multiple case studies, abstracts and other resources for implementing CEA.

If you're in a position where you're being asked to make budget decisions or are trying to choose where to focus grant writing or fundraising efforts, CEA could be a very useful tool. Not only does it help you prioritize your expenditures; it can also help you justify them, as well.

Good morning from sunny Anaheim! This morning, I just wanted to put up a quick post on some financial management resources developed by the Nonprofits Assistance Fund. Their site has a couple great tools that might be helpful for some of you looking at your current budgets and shaking your heads--or looking at next year's budget predictions and worrying. Among the items you'll find are:

• A new resource collection, Sustenance in Lean Times
• Assessment of Recession Risk and Preparedness for Nonprofit Organizations (PDF)
  
• Scenario Planning Workshop (for contingency planning)
• An enorormous number of issue-specific topics from Finance 101 to Financial Policies and Procedures

I'm looking forward to working my way through the whole site this week. Let me know if any of them are particularly helpful...

Logic models are one of those things that are great to have available when writing grants or engaging potential donors, but they can be a challenge to create. I think the process of putting together a logic model can be daunting. The details can feel overwhelming and complicated at first glance. In all actuality, logic models can actually simplify things, creating an illustration for the good results we see and why those good results occur. As the Fieldstone Alliance points out, the practical benefits of having logic models are:

1. They help you understand why something works
2. They tell the story of your program quickly and visually
3. You can apply the models theories to new and related problems

Fortunately, there are a lot of good resources available to provide some guidance.  When I created my 1st logic model, I used the Kellog Foundation logic model guide, and it served me well. It's still my go-to resource on the topic. However, I was pleased to see that the Fieldstone Alliance has a simple page about creating logic models, which serves as a great introduction.

You can also find information about logic models on a few other sites:

• University of Wisconsin--Extension Program Development & Evaluation
• The Free Management Library
• Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (DOJ)
• Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Evaluation Working Group

One of the most confounding issues for SANE program managers is funding. Many nurses, particularly, have very little experience writing grants and raising capital, so knowing where to start can feel overwhelming. Fortunately, there's the Foundation Center. Your starting off point for all things money. Because if you don't know how to do it, where to find it, or how to ask for it, the Foundation Center has you covered.

Although some things on the site have associated fees, there's a lot there that's free. Of particular value are their online courses and tutorials:

Tutorials of note:

    * Guide to Funding Research
    * Guide to Fiscal Sponsorship
    * Proposal Writing Short Course (in 7 different languages)
    * Proposal Budgeting Basics (also available in Spanish)
    * Establishing a Nonprofit Organization (also available in Spanish)

Online courses of note (require registration):

    * Introduction to Fundraising Planning
    * Getting Ready for Foundation Fundraising
    * Introduction to Corporate Giving

There's also a listing of free webinars, if you prefer, on an even wider variety of topics, including nonprofit management and tools and resources. It's worth your time to check out the site and see what's available. I've had the opportunity to take some courses from them at their Cleveland library (they have 5 brick and mortar locations), which I found incredibly helpful, and continue to use the online site as a resource.