Articles by CharityChannel Members
CharityChannel members who have years of experience in their field may apply to join a Contributor's Panel. Once accepted to a panel by the panel's editor, the member will work with the editor to determine article topics and to prepare an article that is ready for publication. With tens of thousands of colleagues in the CharityChannel professional community, this is a key opportunity to give back to your profession by sharing your hard-won expertise and wisdom.
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Memo to the Executive Suite: Spelling Should Count Contributed by:
Stacey AbateWednesday, January 30, 2013 (103 days ago)
...Unfortunately, the entire opening paragraph was now one sentence with four typos, including a
misspelling of the foundation’s name! Perhaps I could have overlooked such things as “ies” versus the appropriate possessive “s” or the overuse of one word in a paragraph (e.g. “please consider extending your
partnership by
partnering with us…”). But misspelling the funder’s name?
Really?______
The Goldilocks Grant Contributed by:
Stacey AbateWednesday, July 25, 2012 (292 days ago)
Once upon a time (last month), I offered a medium-sized department in a large community-based hospital the opportunity to apply for a grant worth $10-20,000 for one year. They turned it down saying it was too small. Shortly after that, I found another grant worth $400,000/year for 4 years. That one was too big. Where, I wondered, was I supposed to find a grant that was just right for this department. They wanted a grant that was large enough to be worth the effort of applying but not so large that if they got it, they wouldn’t be able to manage it.
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The Best Job Ever Contributed by:
Stacey AbateWednesday, March 21, 2012 (1 years 53 days ago)
Whether we are consultants who work at home or employees in large fundraising departments, many of us feel like we work alone. But how alone are we really when the online communities seem to be ever-expanding? Are those connections real and if so, why do we all still feel so alone?
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What, me frustrated? Contributed by:
Stacey AbateWednesday, July 20, 2011 (1 years 298 days ago)
Who among us hasn’t worked with or for people who flat out refuse to get back to us?
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The 12 Percent Contributed by:
Stacey AbateWednesday, February 23, 2011 (2 years 80 days ago)
As someone who writes federal grants for a living I have been watching closely the street brawl that passes for federal budget negotiations. While President Obama recently released his budget for FY12, Congress has been publicly arguing about the FY11 budget.
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What Now? Potential Career Paths for the Grants Professional Contributed by:
Stacey AbateWednesday, April 07, 2010 (3 years 37 days ago)
I have been the Director of Grants at a small college for almost 5 years. Prior to that, I was a grants consultant for 5 years and a grants coordinator for the 3 years before that. That’s 13 years spent exclusively writing grants. Unlike many grant writers, I do not write grants while also serving as an executive director, teacher, principal, project director, clinical researcher, or VP of something important. I have done nothing but research, identify potential grant sources, meet with project staff, write, submit, and report since 1997. While for the most part I still love it, lately I’ve been wondering, what comes next? What exactly is the logical career path for a full-time grant professional?
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Strategic Grant Seeking Contributed by:
Stacey AbateWednesday, February 28, 2007 (6 years 76 days ago)
There is a difference between responsive grant seeking and strategic grant seeking. The former is something most of us are familiar with – “oh look, this is due in two weeks but it’s worth $100,000, what do we have that fits?” This is usually followed by lots of scrambling and futile searches for information. Strategic grant seeking can only occur when your organization has an actual strategy. Not just a mission statement that hangs on the wall, but a living breathing strategic plan that everyone in your organization is both aware of and working toward. By definition, s trategy is the organization’s means to achieve its mission, vision and objective. According to Wikipedia, “a strategy is typically an idea that distinguishes a course of action by its hypothesis that a certain future position offers an advantage for acquiring some designated gain. In other words a strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal.”
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Grants Mismanagement 101 Contributed by:
Stacey AbateWednesday, July 26, 2006 (6 years 293 days ago)
This is a true story and a case study in how not to manage a grant.
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Mission Drift Contributed by:
Stacey AbateWednesday, July 05, 2006 (6 years 314 days ago)
A colleague recently mentioned to me the notion of "mission-drift." I had not heard the phrase before but inherently understood its implications. I recognized immediately that mission-drift was exactly what our organization was suffering from. Some preliminary research into mission-drift brought me to the understanding that such drift occurs when the essential members of an organization no longer feel relevant to the organization or its consumers. It's what happens when an organization applies for, or worse yet receives, a grant that becomes their budget and overwhelms their original purpose. It's what happens when you chase dollars for the sake of getting more money, rather than for improving services or implementing new programs.
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Consulting vs. Full-time Employment, Pros and Cons Contributed by:
Stacey AbateWednesday, March 29, 2006 (7 years 47 days ago)
After successfully consulting for five years I was suddenly confronted with an unexpected downturn.... I panicked.
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Consulting vs. Full-time Employment, Pros and Cons Contributed by:
Stacey AbateWednesday, March 29, 2006 (7 years 47 days ago)
After successfully consulting for five years I was suddenly confronted with an unexpected downturn.... I panicked.
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Mentors: What They Can and Can't Do Contributed by:
Stacey AbateWednesday, November 23, 2005 (7 years 173 days ago)
A good mentor will teach you all the things you need to just know but could never learn from a book, such as how to instinctively know when an idea has merit even when all the project people say is, "we need money." In short, a mentor is your shortcut to writing proposals that actually get funded.
CharityChannel's WE REVIEW
CharityChannel members who have been admitted to the WE REVIEW Contributors Panel are eligible to receive recently-published books from a variety of publishers (and some self-publishers) to review. Reviews are not limited to books published by CharityChannel Press, the publishing project of the CharityChannel professional community. If you are interested in reviewing books, you are welcome to apply. Note that, even though WE REVIEW has been publishing reviews for over a decade, it has recently been reorganized and re-launched. We took the opportunity to remove prior reviews, since our focus is on newly published books.
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CarityChannel Press is the publishing arm of CharityChannel. Many of the sector’s most experienced, knowledgeable practitioners are part of the CharityChannel professional community. Because of its unique role in the nonprofit sector, CharityChannel Press enjoys a rich pool of prospective authors from which to draw. In addition, the CharityChannel professional community, consisting of tens of thousands of practitioners, forms a natural initial market for the books as does the greater third sector itself. Interested in writing a book or manual?
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