Grantwriting: Letters of Support

Letters of Support

Who Contributes Letters of Support?

Letters of support are used to strengthen a grant application. These typically come from three kinds of supporters; collaborators, constituents, or outside endorsers. Collaborators add credibility to a grant application, and most, if not all funders prefer to see evidence of collaboration, and saving of duplication and overlap.

Collaborators

Collaborators are those who are participating in the project with you. Their letters of support should include sufficient information so that the funder will be aware of the collaborator's participation and allow the funder to evaluate the collaborator's contribution to the project. Letters from collaborators should include the following:

Description of the nature of the collaboration

Non-financial contributions to project if applicable. Such contributions could include:

� Expertise

� Deliverables, i.e. products, reports, evaluation services, etc.

� Personnel

� Resources

Financial Contributions if applicable. These may include

� Cash

� In-kind contributions (non- monetary services, to which a cost may be attached.)

� Matching funds

Financial Arrangements

If the collaborator is receiving a piece of the grant funding, then this should also be spelled out in the letter.

Include expected outcomes, results, and value resulting from the collaboration.

State what the benefits will be from the collaboration. Use numbers and examples.

Outside Endorsers

Outside Endorsers are people who no direct participation in execution of the project, but who do have a stake the project's outcome . Outside Endorsers add credibility and weight your application.

Typical Outside Endorsers

� Colleagues in the field

� Others who have funded your work

� Politicians, Government Agencies familiar with your work

Letters need to make clear:

� Relationship between your agency and endorser

� Value and results obtained or demonstrated

Examples:

� A youth services agency endorses a project run by a trade association designed to create apprenticeships in a particular technical field. The youth agency might not be directly involved in the project, but it might make the point that the youth agency?s clients would benefit from an apprenticeship program, The youth agency?s letter might also contribute background statistics on demographics and need for opportunities for out-of-school youth not planning to go to college.

� A local development corporation endorses the same project, citing statistics about the loss of jobs in the local county, and the need for positioning the local work force to take advantage of newly emerging business opportunities in renewable energy.

Constituents

Letters from constituents and beneficiaries benefit from concrete facts and figures for the current grant

application. Individual stories are very powerful. Any letter with specific outcomes will be more powerful

than one citing generalities.

For example, a student in an adult learning program might include statements such as:

Before coming to The Learning Center, I was reading at a third-grade level. I worked with teachers and volunteers at TLC for two years, and was able to raise my reading level to sixth grade". After working as a laborer for seven years, I have entered a two year apprenticeship program for electricians, and expect to graduate as a licensed journeyman electrician in May of this year.

Since such testimonials may be used across several applications, be sure that they up-to-date A fresh

copy of a letter with a current date and signature will be evidence of current support and relevance.

Constituent Letter Components:

Constituent letters should include:

� Background of the constituent

� Relationship with your agency

� How the constituent benefited.

Example Benefits

Constituent letters provide third-party evidence of your efficacy as an agency, any statistics cited will

provide additional credibility. Numbers rule! For example:

� Home-healthcare: Number of home-health care patients served, compared with last year. How many

home healthcare nurses and aids participated? What is the ratio of nurses to patients? Are total costs

and cost per patient going up or down? How many patients were served at home as opposed to nursing

homes?

� Number of jobs created. Number of new companies created. Number companies declaring bankruptcy

or moving out of the area. Net gain or loss of jobs? Type and quality of jobs; Average salary

and benefits. Number of jobs upgraded or saved.

� Land Conservation: Acres of land conserved. Numbers of conservation easements,

General Guidelines for Letters of Support

Introduce yourself. Include a description and qualifications of the letter writer.

Addressee should be either the funder or your agency

Include a sentence about the experience or history with your agency, if available

Specifically cite the solicitation number and solicitation title if these exist. Many funders are fielding applications

for multiple programs.

One or two paragraphs of text in the body of the letter

Use specifics; numbers, timelines, outcomes.

Specify expected outcomes (with numbers) of your relationship with the funder.

Format

� No more than one page in length

� Letter should be on the contributor?s own letterhead

� Include a written signature and title of an official of the contributor?s agency or company

� Submit as a .PDF file and and/or hard copy

Regarding the last point; most grant applications these days are submitted electronically. At least some of the narrative components will include longer discussions created within a word-processor (Microsoft Word for example) and then exported to an Adobe .PDF file. The .PDF files are then either uploaded individually to the grantmaker?s web site, or the files may be combined into a single long .PDF which is uploaded or sent as an eMail attachment. Because of the logistics involved, it makes sense to try to get letters of support early on, and if you can?t get .PDF files from letter providers, you need to be able to either convert the files they send you to .PDF yourself, or use a scanner to create a .PDF from a hard copy. Don?t beat up your letter providers if they can?t give you a .PDF. Make sure you have the tools in place to do the conversions if needed.

Timing

Outside Endorsers

Outside endorsers can be solicited early in the grant application process; as soon as you have a solid program abstract available to enclose in your request for the letter. You'll need the abstract so that they know what they are endorsing. The abstract also may prompt them to contribute additional ideas for developing a strong application. "You really should go and talk to .... "

Collaborators

Collaborators should include a general description of the financial arrangements and commitments in their letters of support. Solicit letters from collaborators after the budget and program plan have been defined and you have a working agreement in place.

Constituents

Constituent letters are usually less time sensitive, because the background material in these deals with things that have already happened. However it is wise not to wait until the last minute, especially if you think you might have .PDF formatting and conversion issues.

Grantwriting 101

Two resources for grantwriting:

The Grantwriting Manual published by Coconino Community College is an excellent introduction for grantwriting. There are some excellent tips about running a grant after you've received the award.

Successful Grant Writing - Strategies for Health and Human Service Professionals is now in a third edition.

Grantsmanship Training: Buffalo, NY

The Grantsmanship Center's signature Grantsmanship Training Program
is coming to Buffalo, New York, September 21-25, 2009.

The program will be hosted by
The Salvation Army.

About the training
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The Grantsmanship Training Program is a comprehensive, hands-on workshop that covers the complete grant development process, from researching funding sources to writing and reviewing grant proposals. More than 110,000 nonprofit and government personnel have attended this fast-paced, five-day workshop, which is followed with a full year of membership support services.

What will you learn
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During the workshop, participants learn The Grantsmanship Center's proposal-writing format, the most widely used in the world. In addition to practicing advanced techniques for pursuing government, foundation, and corporate grants, participants work in small teams to develop and then review real grant proposals.

Participants exit the class equipped with new skills, new professional connections, and follow-up services for one year, including professional proposal review, access to The Grantsmanship Center's exclusive online funding databases, and an array of other benefits. Many also leave with proposals that are ready to polish and submit.

How to attend
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Tuition for the Grantsmanship Training Program is $895 ($845 for each additional registrant from the same organization).

To ensure personalized attention, class size is limited to 30 participants. For more information, click here. To register online, or to learn about scholarship opportunities for qualifying organizations, click here. Or call The Grantsmanship Center's Registrar at (800) 421-9512 (outside California). Within California, call (213) 482-9860.

DonorPerfect Training: NYC in May

Didn't know that they had this. DonorPerfect will be holding two days of training sessions in May in New York City. $350 per day. Full details here.

NIH SBIR Grant Application Map

NIH has deadlines three times each year, and we finished an application for the December 5th deadline. Below is a mind-map that shows many of the components required for the application. The section on the left, "Online Proposal Preparation" is a one-time set up sequence, however, you should figure that you need 60 days before the deadline to complete those steps. There is nothing to preclude working on other parts of the application while you are waiting to get set up in the Central Contracting Registry. Click on the image it view it full scale.�

Most of the sections on the right require creating Adobe .PDF files. We created these in Word 2007 (saving the files as .doc files), which was our working environment, not least because we used the EndNote add-in to for footnotes and literature citations. �

In Defense of Raising Money - A Manifesto for Non-Profit CEOs

Sasha Dichter's latest manifesto.

I've met too many nonprofit CEOs who say "I hate fundraising. I don't fundraise." If you're being hired as a nonprofit CEO and the Board tells you that you won't be fundraising, the're either misguided or lying.

Tell them they're wrong. Tell them that you job as a CEO is to be an evangelist for your idea and to convince others about the change you want to see in the world. Tell them that if this idea is worth supporting then they should jump in with both feet and support it with their time and money and by telling their friends it is worth supporting.

Spending your time talking to powerful, influential people about the change you hope to see in the world is a pretty far cry from having fundraising as a "necessary evil."

Do you really believe that the "real work" is JUST the "programs' you operate, the school you run, the meals you serve, the vaccines you develop, the patients you treat? Do you really believe that it ends there?

Do you really believe that in today's world, where change can come from anyone and anywhere, that convincing people and building momentum and excitement and a movement really doesn't matter?

His latest discussion is about a unique foundation that finally has gotten around to supporting operations in non-profits, not just "projects". Thank heavens.

As the LA Business Journal reports, the Weingart Foundation has announced that it will �offer unusual �core support� to underwrite administrative costs for social service agencies that provide necessities such as food, shelter and health care to the region�s poor, unemployed and sick.�

This is contrary to normal practice, wherein �Most philanthropic foundations traditionally give large grants that pay the costs of specific programs but do not underwrite non-profits� operating costs, such as staff salaries and rent. Many non-profits get their operating cash typically from their own fund raisers or from direct donations.�

My point is: the fact that this is newsworthy is a reflection of how far (too far) things have swung in terms of foundation grantmaking to nonprofits. There�s a serious power imbalance here, one that has to change if we are going to increase the impact and efficiency of the nonprofit sector.

Grants.gov and the SF424

Four weeks to go, and I'm assembling an SBIR "Competing Continuation" grant, an odd-ball National Institutes of Health grant opportunity which requires an SBIR Phase II as a prerequisite, and basically allows you to continue research and development for "complex" medical devices, drugs, etc, that still have a way to go before commercialization.

NIH converted to an online submission procedure about two years ago. By most accounts it was fairly buggy, and they are continuing to refine it; it looks as if they are going to base the next version on Adobe Forms. As described a few days ago, if you have either a Mac with Leopard, OS-X, or a machine with Windows Vista, the only option that runs the forms is to use a Citrix terminal application which looks like Windows 95, crashes regularly, and logs you off after 20 minutes in any case. After struggling with this for a session last Friday, I'm punting and I've regressed to a Windows XP machine.

Even using the "native" PureEdge viewer, things are fairly kludgy. PureEdge installs as viwer, sort of like Adobe Acrobat, within Internet Explorer. You then navigate to the web page that contains the xfd for the web form. After inputting data, you can save the data. Unfortunatly the saved data from my Citrix session won't seem to run...I have to reenter everything that I put on Friday.
After downloading the form again the form opens.




A couple of extracts from the SF424 instructions.

1. There are odd rules related to the ability to have more than a single Primary Investigator, with NIH, you can.
   
   
2. A budget must be created for each budget period.
   
   A budget peried is considered to be one year or portion of a year if the grant period is less than a year. If you have a multi-year budget, then you must fill out one for each year. The figures will be consolidated on a read-only summary sheet.
   
   
3. If you are working within a consortium, and will be awarding some of the funding to the consortium, they (or you, or somebody) have to prepare a subaward budget that mirrors the award budget. This uses the same form (just with a checkbox for "subaward"). In my case, since this is a three-year grant, there will be six (6) separate "budgets"...one for each year for both myself, and the consortium partner. Woof.



4. For the first budget I created a "simulation" in Numbers (the Mac spreadsheet) on the Mac which has the same format as the budget form. I'm going to try going native on the subsequent budgets, but if the data entry gets too hairy, I expect to create a simulation for the other five budgets too. (Later....didn't end up doing this...now that I've sort of memorized what the form does and how works, I was confident enough to go commando as it were.)
   
   
5. There is a budget justification (budget narrative) section which applies to the main budget, and a separate justification which applies to the subaward.



6. Critical:When editing an attached form, you have to reimport or reattach it! In other words, specifying a file name doesn't specify a pointer to the physical file; the file actually gets imported into to the form file.

If you are working within a consortium, it is helpful to have the consortium budgets entered first. These are done with the form shown in the lower left-hand corner, the R&R subaward budget form, which works similarly to the main budget form. You can even create the file for this and email it to your consortium partner to fill out and and return.

Totals from the consortium budget needs to be entered into the main budget. This is also the time where you can be sure to enforce rules such as the requirement that the maximum amount a subaward can be is 50% of the total amount for an SBIR grant. I sent the subaward budget back twice for revisions for this and similar restrictions.

All this goes considerably better when accompanied by music of your choice. Shawn Colvin was helpful.

Grants.gov = Windows Only ?

Grants.gov is the federal government's portal for online submission of federal grant applications. The National Institutes of Health have required applicants to submit their material online for the past two years or so. It has been a fairly rocky transition process, and I had hoped this time around things would go really smoothly.

I'm beginning to feel like Andy Rooney, "Have you ever really thought about the eraser on your pencil?" But the arrangements for completing grant applications for anyone running something other than Windows XP or below (Windows 98 is supported!) are nothing less than bizarre. When downloading the PureEdge viewer for Mac, I got this message.

The IBM Workplace Forms Viewer 2.5.1 Macintosh OS Special Edition cannot be installed on your computer.

There may be good news, however; according to this FAQ, Grants.Gov is transitioning away from the PureEdge viewer (aka IBM Workplace Forms Viewer) and moving toward Adobe forms which are cross-platform. Unfortunately, is looks like the NIH form that I'm using, the SF424, is PureEdge only. This means that that the only option is to use a Citrix client/server arrangement which turns my Mac into a Citrix terminal.

This is not going well. Among the warnings that they give is that you should really only use the Citrix terminal "off peak"... from 10PM to 10 AM, you should save every 20 minutes, and you should log off if you expect to be away for 20 minutes so you can give other users a chance. But, I've frozen up three times already, requiring a forced shutdown, and I just lost almost an hour of work, that for some reason did not get saved even though I deliberately attempted to save in a timely manner. What I think may be happening is that the connection is freezing considerably before the twenty minute limit....and there is no indication that has happened.

Since Windows Vista isn't supported with the PureEdge form software, probably something to do with user rights, and since the SF424 form required by NIH isn't available as an Adobe PDF form, I may resurrect a Windows XP machine, just so I can work on these forms without the added anxiety of technical problems. Its not as if 277 pages of instructions and a dozen separate multipart forms aren't already nerve-racking enough.

Statistics - Newbie Resources

Having left the statistics to my science partners, I now find myself wanting to at least conceptually understand what they are talking about when discussing t-tests, chi squares and power. A quick google search reveals a ton of information.

John C. Pezzullo's Statpages.org provides an index to 600+ (!) of statistics tools and online textbooks. His home page has dozens of links to other scientific information. Wonderful stuff.

Linked from Dr. Pezzullo's page, Russ Length's Java Applets for Power and Sample Size allow you to compute power and needed sample sizes before performing a study. Lots of useful information here to help design a study so that you'll receive reliable data for analysis.

I've also picked up a couple books.

Head First Statistics by Dawn Griffiths. This is part of the Head First series from O'Reilly which attempts to take relatively advanced concepts (Object Oriented Design, for example) and reduce it into entertaining chunks.

Statistics for Dummies by Deborah Rumsey. There is also a companion workbook, and an Intermediate Statistics for Dummies. This book is more descriptive and less interactive than the Head First book above, but may be better for my purposes; to simply learn the lingo.

Statistics Hacks by Bruce Fey is part of the O'Reilly Hacks series. Subtitled "Measuring the World and Beating the Odds", this book is the only one of the three I had on hand which discussed power analysis, the statistics tool of my immediate interest when we are designing a study.

Still on my bookshelf:
Microsoft Access Data Analysis This book, now updated for Access 2007 doesn't have hard-core statistics, but it does have lots of ideas of how to take samples and turn these into useful information with charts and reports.

Data Analysis for Politics and Policy by Edward Tufte This is an older book quite technical, but with lots of interesting examples. I believe he wrote this book before he got started with the graphics series...but of course that his is forte now.

Visualizing Data by Ben Fry. Subtitled Exploring and Explaining Data with the Processing Environment. Processing is an open-source programming environment developed by Fry.

All of these books don't solve my immediate problem, which is trying to learn about power calculations. Instead they deal with data after it has already been gathered.

Don't forget that you may already have considerable statistical firepower at your fingertips if you have a copy of Microsoft Excel. On the Mac, Numbers has a few functions as well, but in comparison to Excel, Numbers is pretty light.

Tech Friday: Bento database - First Look

Well, although I've managed to not worry about a database for several months, it finally happened and I need to keep track of my "opportunity matrix", that is, a list of grants, their deadlines and status, the responsible contact person, partners, and whether I've created all the necessary collateral: prospectus, project summary, grant application, etc.

Typically this would be done in Access on a Windows machine, and I've got Access 2007 installed in my copy of Parallels so that I could run this up pretty quickly.

But, since I want to stay native on the Mac, I poked around at an old favorite, Filemaker Pro. One thing I've always thought about FMP is that is relatively expensive, even in an academic edition, especially if you want to share the data using a server. But FileMaker now offers a "home" version called Bento for about $50.00, and this looks promising for my app.

I've downloaded the 30 day trial, and installed without fuss. Installation consists of dragging the the file to the applications folder. I started playing with one of the templates, and after ten minutes or so, I've ended up with the following data entry screen:



Points of Interest:

• Bento integrates with iCal, Mail and the Address book. You can eMail from a field which is designated an email field.
  
• One to many relationships are supported. For example, you can have a task list for a project, with multiple tasks displayed for a single project. Some relations are already connected; for example the tasks list from iCal can be embedded into a Bento form
  
• What one would consider to be a "database" in Access, or, loosely, a "group of tables" in another database program is called a "library" in Bento.
  
• What might be called a "recordset" in Access, or a "cursor" in an SQL database is called a "collection" in Bento. Collections are much like playlists in iTunes, they are a subset of records from the entire library.
  

You can create your own drop down list, so I've attempted to capture the workflow in a "status" field which currently contains the following:

Seeking Partner: Since virtually all my projects are with others, this is the first step in any application project.

Developing Project

Application Submitted

Awaiting Feedback from Funder (may be redundant with the previous step)

Under Revision

Revised Submitted

Awarded

Rejected

I was curious about the name, but I think it refers to a Japanese bento box, which are the compartmented dishes for serving Japanese food.

Here's a review of Bento in MacWorld. They point out a couple of limitations. For one thing, there is no way to export data in anything other than a comma delimited ASCII format.�

Another limitation is that the Bento data libraries are strictly single-user data files for a single machine. Anything larger needs to go into something like Filemaker. So, is is inadvisable to think that we could run a multi-user grant flow application using Bento. That's OK. For $50.00 we can play with Bento for awhile and work out the data that we need to keep track of. We'll be that much farther ahead when we're looking to move up.

At the NIH SBIR Conference in Atlanta

Not quite live... here are notes from the first two sessions of the NIH Summer Conference in Atlanta.�


July 22

SBIR Atlanta Notes �Hot! �92 degrees.�

AirTran - filthy plane, one hour layover in Baltimore from Burlington to Atlanta, $69.00 upgrade to business class, comfortable seat.

MARTA - terrific underground transit system $13.00 for a four day pass. You wave the pass in front of a panel and it opens the door.

Omni Hotel @ CNN Center, great so far...if you enroll in their "select guest" program, you can get coffee and a paper delivered to the room in the morning at no extra charge...or add $2.95 for a croissant.

CDC is in the backyard....they are present today.
FDA is also here

One on Ones == 19 of 24 sessions leave a business card if nobody is there.
RAID - for drug discovery

Evening reception at 4:30 provided by Putnam Williams, outside the main ballroom in the registration area.

NIH staff available during lunch.

First session:
�This isn�t your grandmother�s SBIR/STTR Program Anymore.� JoAnne Goodnight
The program is in its 25th year. About 50% of the conference participants are new. Over 500 people are attending the conference; it does seem busy and big.�

SBIR/STTR Program Overview
NIH SBIR/STTR Program Specifics
Solicitations and Funding Opportunities
Gap funding

STTR is only .03% of extramural funding�

SBIR is 2.5% of extramural funding a

STTR is was set up ten years after SBIR. Designed for more academic co-operative R&D.

The programs are the largest seed capital source.... 2.3 billion dollars
NIH is one of the biggest of the the 14 or so agencies that participate.

Phase III can not use SBIR/STTR funding for final commercialization.

Failure is OK. Sometimes you won�t reach the marketplace.

These programs are unique in the government. High-risk, high-reward research.
SBA is the administrative umbrella.
Company organized as a for-profit
PI primary employment must be with the small business concern at time of award and for the duration of the project period
US owned 51%

STTR must include an intellectual property agreement worked out with the research institution

Difference between SBIR and STTR
STTR allows the PI to employed by the business or the research institution.
SBIR requires PI to be employed by the business.

Nuances of the NIH.

Not just drug development
Not just medical devices

SBIR/STTR are fully integrated with the NIH agenda
23 NIH centers support SBIR/STTR

Cancer
Heart Lung and Blood
Diabetes

Average award for Phase 1 are $170,000 and 12 months

Phase II competing renewal ---
Question does NIA participate in the Phase II competing renewal? Answer...yes it does.�

Timlines - 6-9 months (although my experience was close to 12).

Scientific Review
Council Review
Award Date

There are initiatives to reduce the review timeline (number of months between submission and an award) .

Number of applications are decreasing (!)
Why?
Trying to figure out why --

This is good news, current funding rates are:

24% Phase 1 funded (of grants submitted)
42% Phase II funded
19% Fast-Track funded

There are more and more university startups.
1/2 attendees �today are �affiliated with a research institution

The differences between university and business

Advice:�

* Communicate with the program director
* Understand the institute mission and needs
* Read solicitation and follow instructions
* Don�t go it alone -- find partners�
* Don�t depend solely on SBIR STTR funding
* Have an outcome
* Be persistent


Second Talk Dr. Suzanne Fisher Director of Receipt and Referral CSR/NIH
About how the Center for Scientific Review Works

One issue was a question as to whether they will keep the three due dates.
or have some kind of rolling, ongoing application process

IC = Institute or Center
SRO = Scientific Review Officer

Changes in the past 1.5 year or so

* Two day error correction windows (shortened from five days)
* Multiple Principal Investigator option. (contact PI must meet the SBIR requirements)
* No paper letters like the summary statement are sent anymore. �Everything appears on the NIH commons web site.�

Anyone not registered with the Commons must get registered.

Late applications:
We don�t give permission in advance

Format: requirements must be met. Use headers and bold, etc.

Contact the scientific review officer, to make changes.

One attachment should be a cover letter. There is a suggested format

Don�t submit derivative applications (multiple diseases)
You can resubmit twice. You have to receive the summary statement before resubmitting.

Only 1 Phase II from a single Phase I is allowed.

Electronic Submission is done between Grants.Gov and the NIH Commons

Do the research plan as one document and the cut it up so that you can stay within the page limits

If you do not see your NIH image on the Commons...NIH doesn�t see it either. (so follow up after submitting and make sure it is there).

There are referral guidelines for institutes and centers. You are not owned by a single institute....try to diversfy.

The secret two-letter decoder ring for NIH agencies as part of your grant #.


Peer Review Group
Scientific Review Group
Advisory Council

SRG does the score....
Councll is institute

Funding decision made by Institution/Center

Small business representatives are on review committees

Trying out videoconferencing, and wikis

Most peer reviewers have a Doctoral degree

First thing they do is �unscoring�... find the 40% that are to be rejected, however any reviewer can say they want to perform a review.

Significance
Approach
Innovation
Investigator
Environment

Priority Score - 100-350
100 is the best possible score, 350 is the worst.

All institutes have put a lot of work into their web sites and FAQs.

Grantsmanship Seminar in Manchester NH

The Grantsmanship Center's signature Grantsmanship Training Program is coming to Manchester, New Hampshire, July 28-August 1, 2008.

The program will be hosted by Saint Anselm College.

The Grantsmanship Training Program is a comprehensive, hands-on workshop that covers the complete grant development process, from researching funding sources to writing and reviewing grant proposals. More than 110,000 nonprofit and government personnel have attended this fast-paced, five-day workshop, which is followed with a full year of membership support services.

What will you learn:

During the workshop, participants learn The Grantsmanship Center's proposal-writing format, the most widely used in the world. In addition to practicing advanced techniques for pursuing government, foundation, and corporate grants, participants work in small teams to develop and then review real grant proposals.

Participants exit the class equipped with new skills, new professional connections, and follow-up services for one year, including professional proposal review, access to The Grantsmanship Center's exclusive online funding databases, and an array of other benefits. Many also leave with proposals that are ready to polish and submit.

Tuition for the Grantsmanship Training Program is $895 ($845 for each additional registrant from the same organization).

To ensure personalized attention, class size is limited to 30 participants. For more information or to learn about scholarship opportunities for qualifying organizations, click here.

To register online, click here. Or call The Grantsmanship Center's Registrar at (800) 421-9512

Nationwide Training Schedule

Register Now!

More About Us

Our Podcasts

Don't forget to check out our nationwide training schedule for other workshops we'll be conducting throughout the U.S. in coming months.

Best wishes,


All of us at The Grantsmanship Center

Journal for Grass Roots Fundraising

Who says that direct mail doesn't work anymore? Today I received a flyer from Grassroots Fundraising Journal. $35.00 for six issues. Topics taken from the flyer:

• Step-by-Step Guide to Organizing a Fundraising Dinner
  
• How to Raise $50,000 in six Weeks
  
• 53 Ways for Board Members to Raise $1000 (I'm hoping that is each, not the full board)
  
• Creating a Budget for Fundriasing
  
• Contracts with Board Members: a Working Model
  

But there is nothing in the list about social networking, or internet fundraising. Their web site has a considerable amount of basic information. A search for 'internet' on the site reveals a number of articles available behind their pay wall.

Indirect Expenses: Calculations for Federal Grants

After reading the article from The Grantsmanship Center about calculating indirect rates, I started to drill down a bit further. This is a dense subject. I'm already on my third cup of coffee, and that is probably due to the fact that I don't have access to anything stronger to ease the pain. However, one way to learn something is to look for patterns and repetition. If you read something three times, and see it referenced by other documents, it starts to fit into some kind of ordered symmetry. So, here are some resources:

The Office of Management and Budget Circular A-122 appears to be the ur-text for all things indirect. The title of this missive is Cost Principals for Non-Profit Organizations and the summary is:

1. Purpose. This Circular establishes principles for determining costs of grants, contracts and other agreements with non-profit organizations. It does not apply to colleges and universities which are covered by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-21, "Cost Principles for Educational Institutions"; State, local, and federally-recognized Indian tribal governments which are covered by OMB Circular A-87, "Cost Principles for State, Local, and Indian Tribal Governments"; or hospitals. The principles are designed to provide that the Federal Government bear its fair share of costs except where restricted or prohibited by law. The principles do not attempt to prescribe the extent of cost sharing or matching on grants, contracts, or other agreements. However, such cost sharing or matching shall not be accomplished through arbitrary limitations on individual cost elements by Federal agencies. Provision for profit or other increment above cost is outside the scope of this Circular.

So, assuming you aren't a government, college or university, or hospital, it appears A-122 is for you if you are a 501c(3) non-profit. Here is a link to a PDF version of the document (accuracy and provenance unknown). For for-profit companies, such as SBIR companies the relevant discussion is in the Federal Aquisition Regulations, FAR Part 31 Contract Cost Principles and Procedures. Indirect is discussed in subpart .203 but only very generally.

Here is a Powerpoint presentation as a PDF that was from a training provided by HUD (Housing and Urban Development).

Here's a one-page explanation on calculating indirect rates with an example. This is from the Compassion Capital Fund, which appears to be an offshoot of a government initiative to support faith-based and community organizations. Lots of resources and links here.

Jim and Gail Greenwood have a brief discussion of indirect as related to SBIR proposals. This is one of a whole host of useful articles relating to their business in supporting and counseling aspiring SBIR grantees. As an aside, I recommend SBIR grantees attend any of Jim or Gail's frequent workshops. Be sure to read their material. They are a rare combination of highly knowledgeable consultants who can turn government mush such as FAR 32 Part 3.201 into reasonably understandable English. They will also review your grant proposals. I had them review my Phase II. They are also funny and eminently approachable speakers.

National Institutes of Health - Ruth Bishop's PowerPoint presentation

Health and Human Services - Example cost proposal by a non-profit. This appears to be quite useful. (or maybe I'm starting to get it?)

Five-Day Grantsmanship Center in New Hampshire

The Grantsmanship Center is bringing their five-day training program to New Hampshire July 28th through August 1, 2008.

The center's web site has a series of thirty free papers with hints and discussion of the grant-writing process. I just found a terrific eight-page explanation which describes how to calculate indirect costs.

Chron this week and NPQ

The Non-Profit Quarterly has been out for several weeks. Although most on-line articles are for subscribers only, they publish a summary sheet of the issue's articles.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy's May 1 issue has been published. Haven't gotten very far, but there was an interesting review of Oprah Winfrey's Big Give program, which sounds like a version of Survivor:Philanthropist. Hey, whatever works, right?

Ten Ways - Redux, the final 3

Following up on Ten Ways to Improve the Federal Grantwriting Experience post, here are three more suggestions to provide an even ten ideas:

• Mind The Indirect
  Grant budgets include direct expenses; money that is spent on items and services directly related to fulfilling the grant objectives, and indirect expenses; money that is spent as the cost of doing business, such as office expenses, heat, utilities, etc. Grantor agencies may or may not allow you to charge indirect expenses to the grant...but you do have to be able to account for those expenses. Enlightened grant-givers will allow you to charge a portion of your indirect to the grant and they will acknowledge these expenses. They will be suspicious if you don't account for the indirect expenses.
  
  Indirect can be called different things. For example, the National Institutes of Health call it 'F&A' or "Facilities and Administration". Depending on the nature of the institution, the percentage rate can be quite high. For example, the current rate for our university is around 56%. This means, of course that if I want to receive a hundred dollars worth of services from the uni, it will cost me $156.00. Ouch.
  
  My own history with indirect has been less than stellar. Attempting to follow the example calculations, I came up with a 33% rate, which I thought was fairly reasonable. Turns out NIH has a default rate of 25% if you don't start negotiating a different rate. If you say you're going to negotiate a higher rate, then they'll only give you a provisional rate of 10%. After spending some days on this, including hiring and firing a CPA/consultant who was supposed to figure it all out, (and almost losing my own CPA and bookkeeper in the process), I gave up temporarily and have been living with the 10% rate.


• Plan For Financial Management
  Related to the indirect issue, I was amazed and surprised at the amount of time required to just manage a federal grant. Let me count the ways:
  
  1. Obtain a DUNS number
     
  2. Register for the Central Contracting Registry
     
  3. Obtain a Federal Wide Assurance (FWA) number for my company.
     
  4. Register with the Institutional Review Board at the university
     
  5. Create a plan for the Institutional Review Board (which manages human subjects data and protection...in our case because we're doing research with human subjects).
     
  6. Repeat the above three items on a yearly basis
     
  7. Manage three separate online government web applications for reporting and submitting, as well as an application for transferring money to my company bank account
     
  8. Maintain separate bank accounts for each grant
     
  9. Manage the grant as a separate class or company within QuickBooks.
     
  10. Develop the consortium agreement with the university (including budget, and scope of work)
      
  11. Pay consortium, and about eight separate contractors or organizations on a bi-weekly basis
  
  I could go on. But the point is, in addition to direct work, there is a 20-25% level of effort that can reasonably be charged for administration.
  
  
• Realize that the first grant will change your life and organization.
  This is the "be careful what you wish for" idea. For all the effort required to write the application and get all the pieces in place, the real work starts in month 1 of your first budget year.

There are moments of exhilaration. After weeks of trials and tests, we've gotten our research project into production beginning this week.

Earned Income Strategies from the Grantsmanship Center

EMail from The Grantsmanship Center, below reproduced in its entirety. The seminar is in Schenectady NY.

Would you like to generate unrestricted funds,while strengthening your nonprofit organization�s core mission and developing more credibility with funders?

Come find out how! Sign up now for The Grantsmanship Center�s Earned Income Strategies workshop, offered in Schenectady, NY, May 5-7, 2008, and hosted by The Hamilton Hill Arts Center.

New streams of unrestricted funding mean greater stability. Earned income programs can be a key to long-term survival.

Besides increasing revenues, well-planned earned income programs can benefit your nonprofit organization by:

• Building on your existing capabilities, resources, and relationships to increase your organizational capacity
  
• Demonstrating your organization�s sustainability � which is often a key element in winning grants and major gifts!
  
• Enhancing your organization�s mission impact � through income-generating programs that further your core purpose and key values
  

Limited to only 30 participants, The Grantsmanship Center�s Earned Income Strategies workshop combines structured analysis, focused discussions, and small-group work. You will leave this workshop knowing:

• What it would take for your organization to develop a viable earned income program one that can actually strengthen your core mission
  
• What financing options are available to nonprofits like yours
  
• How to capitalize on your organization�s existing capabilities�and much more!

Tuition for this comprehensive 3-day training is $575.
To make sure that every participant receives individual attention, enrollment is limited to 30 participants, so register early to reserve your spot.
To register for this workshop: http://www.tgci.com/eisregister.asp
For more information, visit http://tgci.com/eis.shtml
or call The Grantsmanship Center�s Registrar at (800) 421-9512.

Ten Ways to Improve a Federal Grant Writing Experience

Following up on a post a couple weeks ago about applying for U.S. government grants, I had the pleasure of putting together an NSF ITEST grant application with about a dozen colleagues. Briefly, ITEST is:

The Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST)* program was established by the National Science Foundation in direct response to the concern about shortages of information technology workers in the United States. The ITEST program funds projects that provide opportunities for both school-age children and teachers to build the skills and knowledge needed to advance their study and to function and contribute in a technologically rich society. The ITEST program also funds a National Learning Resource Center to support, synthesize and disseminate the learning from the program to a wider audience.

This is a fairly ambitious project, about US$1.5 million over three years. We assembled a collaborative group consisting of a senior professor at a local college, a couple of non-profit executive directors, a local economic development guru from our mayor's office and a local school board president. All of these folks will get a piece of this grant. We used BaseCamp as our project manager.

Our applicant organization of record was the Vermont Software Developer's Alliance. This is the organization which, if we receive an award, will administer the grant. This is no small responsibility, and we included a full-time program manager/curriculum developer as a staff person for vtSDA within the grant application.

Grant writing is "on spec" or speculative. You don't get paid upfront for writing grants. This makes the whole proposition quite a gamble, and the investment in time and aggravation can be significant. I recall being somewhat taken aback when a fellow applicant told me that, for his SBIR Phase II grant application, he had two staff people working on it for three months. This was significantly more time than we put into the ITEST application, and my guess is that it will show. The process wasn't entirely smooth, and here are ten things I wish we had done better.

1. Start Early. I wish we had started earlier for a project of this magnitude. Six months is not unreasonble, 12 months would have been even better. The reason for this is that to successfully compete for grants of this magnitude, you need a program. If the program doesn't exist, (and why should it, that is why you are looking for grant money), you have to essentially imagine the program in sufficient detail to be able to coherently describe it. Grantwriting is essentially a sales job, and you have to have a value proposition and/or a product to be able to sell.
   
   
2. Exploit the strengths of your the software. BaseCamp has strengths and weaknesses. A notable weakness is the word processor; it is fine for light work but not helpful for the kind of formatting with tables, illustrations, references and footnotes that a proposal requires. On the other hand, BaseCamp has a useful task list, which allows you to list parts or chunks of the proposal as tasks, and attach a "person responsible" and deadline for the task. This is quite motivating.
   
   
3. Have a designated boss. One of our issues was the application couldn't have come at a much worse time; all of us were deeply into other projects, and of course it is tax season. So no one stepped up to be the boss, we worked more or less as a weaker collective. The boss really needs to have some time to invest, (100 hours or more?) if he or she is going to truly have the whole project scope on their radar. This makes it tough for volunteers. For those who prefer a less hierarchical title, maybe "shepherd" would be a better designation than "boss".
   
   
4. For BaseCamp users, exploit the BaseCamp "revision system". This allows you to upload revisions of previously existing files on top of the older files, and which preserves the older version file. You can add notes to each revision, so you can see at a glance what changes were made by each update. We didn't entirely master this concept, and ended up with several dozen separate files scattered over a three page listing of files, when things could have been more compact. Sharepoint might work better for this, as it allows you to "lock" or check out a file, just like a real revision system.
   
   
5. Integrate the moving parts. Going back to the idea of the shepherd, somebody needs to take the individual components of the proposal and integrate them together so that they all fit. This includes the budget and budget narrative; if you describe a position in the program narrative, you need to make sure that the same title is used in the budget line item. In our case, we actually had no less than five sub-projects or sub-programs, all which integrate beautifully and complement each other. I hope were able to effectively illustrate how well they fit together and how each sub-program contributes to the overall project.
   
   
6. Stay on top of the grant guidelines and the website quirks. Turns out that the NSF FastLane site becomes the "choked commuter artery" several hours before the application deadline, even if the deadline is 5PM local time. If you are still trying to upload PDF files at 3 on the east coast, those lucky folks on the west coast are at it too, and it bogs down the server until nothing works. You don't get much sympathy from the NSF at this point either, their advice is simply to start early and make sure you've everything uploaded before 2PM local time on the east coast.(Irrelevant aside: Is this a problem because java server pages don't scale?)
   
   
7. Use Instant Messaging. I'm in Vermont in my home office. John is 30 miles away in his office. Peter is in Florida taking a day off from his vacation. Everyone has two or more phone numbers which may or may not work. We're all working on this for two days before the deadline. Instant messaging to the rescue! We can say who "has" a particular file, or briefly find out what the status is of something or ask a quick question.

I'll add the other three suggestions next time.

Myths & Realities of Philanthrocapitalism

I've never been much of a fan of eMail newsletters put out using tools like ConstantContact. I prefer to pull information using RSS. But of the couple of newsletters I do receive each month, the one from NonProfit Quarterly is always more than welcome. Recently they have published a report Just Another Emperor: The Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism which discusses new trends in philanthropy, the role of social networks and the notion of injecting for-profit business ethics and methods into non-profit mangement.

There is no doubt that this is an important phenomenon. Very large sums of money have been generated for philanthropy, particularly in the finance and IT industries. But despite its great potential, this movement is flawed in both its proposed means and its promised ends. It sees business methods as the answer to social problems, but offers little rigorous evidence or analysis to support this claim, and ignores strong evidence pointing in the opposite direction. Business will continue to be an inescapable part of the solution to global problems, and some methods drawn from business certainly have much to offer. But business will also be a cause of social problems, and as Jim Collins, author of �Good to Great,� concluded in a recent pamphlet, �we must reject the idea�well intentioned, but dead wrong�that the primary path to greatness in the social sectors is to become more like a business.�
Links to the report a 110 page PDF, are located here.

Grantsmanship Seminars in Albany and Boston

Albany

The Grantsmanship Center is holding a three day seminar on how to generate unrestricted funds using earned income. Excerpts from their announcement:

Would you like to generate unrestricted funds,
while strengthening your nonprofit organization�s core mission
and developing more credibility with funders?

Come find out how! Sign up now for The Grantsmanship Center�s Earned Income Strategies workshop, offered in Schenectady, NY, May 5-7, 2008, and hosted by The Hamilton Hill Arts Center.

Tuition for this comprehensive 3-day training is $575.
To make sure that every participant receives individual attention, enrollment is limited to 30 participants, so register early to reserve your spot.
To register for this workshop: http://www.tgci.com/eisregister.asp
For more information, visit http://tgci.com/eis.shtml
or call The Grantsmanship Center�s Registrar at (213) 482-9860.

Boston

The Grantsmanship Center�s signature Grantsmanship Training Program is coming to Boston, Massachusetts, March 17-21, 2008. The program will be hosted by Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD).

The Grantsmanship Training Program is a comprehensive, hands-on workshop that covers the complete grant development process, from researching funding sources to writing and reviewing grant proposals. More than 110,000 nonprofit and government personnel have attended this fast-paced, five-day workshop, which is followed with a full year of membership support services.

And while we're at it...the National Institutes of Health will hold their yearly SBIR-STTR conference July 22nd and 23rd in Atlanta Ga. They are charging $150.00 tuition this year.

Alan Weiss on Fundraising

I love it when the development directors complain at board meetings that it�s so hard to raise funds in this economy, that government is cutting back, that corporate giving is down, that the board members have to make up the difference. It seems that when times are bad, it�s the fates, not them; when times are good, they are geniuses, it�s not the rising tide. Isn�t it marvelous when it�s never your fault, and always your credit?

If you�re charged with raising money and you�re too self-absorbed to bother to learn what passions and goals other people have, to engage them in your cause, to demonstrate how their self-interest is met by contributing, then you ought to be in another line of work, and stop taking up money and space at an organization which needs better social skills and business acumen.

Full posting located here.

Grantsmanship Training Program Boston: 3/17-21

More Grantsmanship! The full notice posted below:

The Grantsmanship Center�s signature Grantsmanship Training Program is coming to Boston, Massachusetts, March 17-21, 2008. The program will be hosted by Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD).

The Grantsmanship Training Program is a comprehensive, hands-on workshop that covers the complete grant development process, from researching funding sources to writing and reviewing grant proposals. More than 100,000 nonprofit and government personnel have attended this fast-paced, five-day workshop, which is followed with a full year of membership support services.

During this workshop, participants learn The Grantsmanship Center�s proposal-writing format, the most widely used in the world. In addition to practicing advanced techniques for pursuing government, foundation, and corporate grants, participants work in small teams to develop and then review real grant proposals.

Participants exit the class equipped with new skills, new professional connections, and follow-up support services for one year, including professional proposal review, access to The Grantsmanship Center�s exclusive online funding databases, and an array of other benefits. Many also leave with proposals that are ready to polish and submit.

Tuition for the Grantsmanship Training Program is $875 ($825 for each additional registrant from the same organization).

To ensure personalized attention, class size is limited to 30 participants. To register online, to learn about scholarship opportunities for qualifying organizations, or for more information, visit http://www.tgci.com/gtptraining.shtml. Or call The Grantsmanship Center�s Registrar at (800) 421-9512.

If you�re wondering why the Grantsmanship Training Program is five days (when other grantwriting classes are shorter)�

� The Grantsmanship Training Program is not a quick overview of �grantwriting.�

� The Grantsmanship Training Program is an intensive, small-group, total-immersion workshop that covers funding research, program planning and proposal writing.

� By integrating program planning into our curriculum when we first created grantsmanship training, The Grantsmanship Center anticipated the increased demand by grantmakers for more accountability, smarter programming, and a stronger, more demonstrable return on granted funds.

� Grantsmanship Training Program participants prepare and critique real grant proposals under expert guidance during the class.

� You can�t get this quality of in-depth training, personal attention and hands-on experience in a two-, three- or even a four-day workshop!

Five Trends in 2008 affecting Non-Profits

Price of Energy Rising

The price of energy is starting to be felt. Meals-On-Wheels will be more costly to deliver, and any agency that runs a shuttle or transports goods or people will be dealing with a permanent increase fuel costs.

Web Commerce Comes of Age for Non-Profits

After receiving a newsletter from my local cross-country skiing association, I was pleased to be able to go online and quickly renew my yearly membership, and order an updated map (which now I'm not sure I needed), and order a couple of skiing hats. I also paid for a family membership instead of my usual individual membership. So, with virtually no live-intervention I "up-selled" myself from a single membership of $35.00 to a total expenditure of almost $100. More importantly, I felt great doing it. I didn't feel as if I was responding to pressure from a phone salesperson. The take-away here is that organizations that allow frictionless interaction with their members will profit in 2008. Those organizations that make it difficult to give them money will miss out on revenue opportunities.

Scandals Affect Large Non-Profits

Red Cross, Smithsonian, United Way, and other large non-profits have substantial work to do to re-earn the trust of their donors and constituents. The Non-Profit Quarterly, the New York Times, and other outlets documented the wretched excesses of their boards and executives. The era of autopilot donations to such organizations is over. We need board members and staff who are committed to the agency mission, and that see service as something other than just another notch on the resume.

Recession Spillover: Donors

With discretionary funds drying up, individual donors will pick and choose where they donate (see above). In our household we practice "zero-based" giving and we re-evaluate our donations every year. First come organizations from which we receive a product (public radio, public television, trail and bicycling groups). Next come health-care and welfare agencies in our local community; breast-care, rape crisis, homeless shelter. We have long stopped giving to national groups.

Recession Spillover: Clients

It is going to be tougher for the middle class to stay in the middle. Rising energy costs, rising health-care costs, the mortgage lending meltdown; there is substantial financial pressure on the 99% of the American population who didn't have their taxes cut. So what is this environment like for people already on the margins? We saw in our local area that some homeless shelters were managing double their previous year's case-load. Food shelves had fewer donations and double-digit increases in people looking for help.
So, how can you position your organization to be more effective in 2008?

• Update your web site to allow on-line payments with credit-cards and PayPal.
  
• Create membership packages and products that allow you to effectively upsell your donors when they log on to donate. It takes as much effort to sell a $35.00 membership as it does to sell $125 or more membership+merchandise.
  
• Provide a web-based project management system for board and staff to publish minutes, status reports and information for internal use. Board members and staff need to have a "frictionless" way of interacting, just as your donors and clients do.
  
• Can all of your staff tele-commute when necessary? Could you obtain the services of top-notch talent via telecommuting or videoconferencing?
  

Salesforce for nonprofits - Database Alternative

Salesforce is one of the most popular web-enabled databases, and it's gaining adherants among nonprofits. Accessible from any browser, customizable in myriad ways -- and available to nonprofits for no fee through the Salesforce.com Foundation (up to 10 seats) -- it's a powerful tool. But how can a database with a name like Salesforce be used by the nonprofit sector? This webinar will explore the functionality and community of Salesforce. We'll look at how several nonprofits, from a group of more than 1500, use Salesforce to cultivate and recruit donors, manage their electronic communications, and more. If you are looking for a new CRM solution, or just want to know more about Salesforce, this webinar will be a great starting point.
Presented by Rob Jordan, Idealist Consulting

Register now at http://nten.org/webinars.

Health Care Innovations and Disruption

Two items related to health care:

1. There is an interesting discussion which is a follow-up of a Paul Krugman column on health care. This may be behind either a registration log in, or the Times "Times Select" subscription. I was jolted this morning when buying a copy of the physical paper that the price had gone up a quarter from $1.10 to $1.35. Ouch. Still, considering it is maybe an hour of informed reading, plus an hour of the crossword puzzle for the Spousal Unit, it is pretty cheap entertainment.

2. Over at Changemakers there is a series of competitions for funding of disruptive changes in health care. There are some very interesting projects, from all over the world.

Grantsmanship Training: Troy NY 9/17-21

The Grantsmanship Center�s signature Grantsmanship Training Program is coming to Troy, New York, September 17-21, 2007. The program will be hosted by the Commission on Economic Opportunity for the Greater Capital Region (CEO).

The Grantsmanship Training Program covers all aspects of researching grants, writing grant proposals and negotiating with funding sources. More than 100,000 nonprofit and government personnel have attended this comprehensive 5-day workshop, which now includes a full year of valuable membership services.

During the workshop, participants learn The Grantsmanship Center�s proposal writing format, the most widely used in the world. In addition to practicing the most advanced techniques for pursuing government, foundation, and corporate grants, they develop real grant proposals for their own agencies.

Upon completion of the training, participants receive free follow-up, including professional proposal review, access to The Grantsmanship Center�s exclusive online funding databases, and an array of other benefits.

Tuition for the Grantsmanship Training Program is $875 ($825 for each additional registrant from the same organization).

To ensure personalized attention, class size is limited to 30 participants. To register online, to learn about scholarship opportunities for qualifying organizations, or for more information, visit http://www.tgci.com/gtptraining.shtml. Or call The Grantsmanship Center�s Registrar at (800) 421-9512

Technology Transfer: From University to the Marketplace

The State Science and Technology Institute is a source of white papers and resources for background material about technology transfer. I'm about mid-way through their Resource Guide for Technology-based Economic Development. They also have a searchable database for whitepapers and guides. You can search by keyword and country or state.

The Small Business Innovation and Research program (SBIR) has been effective for Microdesign as well as our state's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program. Together these two programs provide funding in "phases":

Phase 0 - EPSCoR - $10,000
Phase I - SBIR - $100,000
Phase II - SBIR - $750,000

Each phase depends on help from the previous phase, and the assumption is that each combination of phases 0-3 consists of a single technology product or service, probably funded by a single federal agency.

Much of the SSTI discussion is about synergies between research universities, a skilled workforce, availability of venture capital, and an attractive working environment. Think Silicon Valley, Boston's Route 128 and the Research Triangle of Raleigh-Durham. Can this be replicated on a smaller scale in other places? Think Burlington Vermont, Portland, Maine, and Albany New York.

Trackrecords: Client Outcomes Software Database

A few days ago I wrote about potential holes in non-profit record-keeping systems, specifically the problem of tracking program outcomes or client outcomes. Today I started looking around and with a quick Google search I quickly found a discussion of just this problem at TechSoup. Several people commented on the article, and gave examples of the systems they use. A quick click and I found myself at Track Records Software. This package, Track Records CM (client manager?) was designed for a service provider who provides counseling and training and assistive technology for clients recovering from brain injuries.

This is an unreview, I didn't actually run the software. Instead I walked through the online screencasts which give a pretty good idea of what the package can do. Some impressions:

• This is a web-based system. The screens and reports are pretty much plain-vanilla html-type forms. Reports are basic html tables.
  
• The system is client-centered.
  
• Staff members have a password and can be restricted to seeing "their" clients.
  
• You can "attach" another staff member's name to the client record. This allows the staff person to access that particular client record.
  
• You can make unrestricted log entries with a date and staff person who worked with that client.
  
• Monthly reports are available which is pulled for all transations per months.
  
• You can track goals and instructional data, and keep case notes.
  
• You can schedule a client, and record whether they kept the appointment or not
  
• You can schedule recurring appointments ("every week, Thursday at 10:00AM").
  
• There is a "document repository" which allows you to upload documents created or scanned from outside the system. These are held in a secure database which is subject to the same restrictions as the client records.
  
• They mentioned donations and pledge tracking, however, this wasn't demonstrated in the online screencast.
  
• There is a "lending library" function which allows you track materials on loan to clients.
  
• In keeping with the "outcomes" theme, there are fields and reports which track the placing of clients in job programs.
  
• On-screen reports have embedded links to allow drilling down for more detail.
  
• There is a very nice client record report which shows a summary of all activity related to the client on a single screen.
  

Things I'd like to know...

1. What is the back-end database, and what are the hardware requirements?
   
2. What is the cost of the system?
   
3. Is the source code available, or is it possible to make modifications, add fields, etc? There is a simple and more complicated query/report writer available within the system already which may be sufficient for end-users.
4. Is the system currently being enhanced?
   

The same vendor also has a payroll/staffing package.