Grant Writing Confidential

I received a phone call last week from a woman (let’s call her “Mrs. Smith”) who just started a tiny new nonprofit in South Central LA during this never-ending recession. She wants to help the growing number of homeless youth and unemployed young adults hanging out on the streets. Mrs. Smith’s call reminded me of [...]

[Read more →]

* What makes our healthcare so expensive? Hint: the answer is not simple or obvious. If you hear people say, “It’s x, and chiefly x,” where x might be greedy insurance companies, clueless consumers, the market, regulation, government, greedy doctors, or any noun preceded by the word “greedy,” * The dangers of Groupon and of [...]

[Read more →]

Ed Nelson asks, “Do conservative non-profits get grants or are federal grants such an anathema to them, [and] they choose not to apply?” I want to answer, but the question itself feels wrong because politics shouldn’t be an issue in human service delivery. Politics and political views matter in Congress, which decides what kinds of [...]

[Read more →]

Last Sunday I posed the question, “Searching for Talent Search: Where Oh Where Has the Talent Search RFP Gone And Why is It A Secret?.” I still don’t know why the RFP release date was a secret, but on Wednesday, the Department of Education finally published the Talent Search application instructions. Hallelujah, or as my [...]

[Read more →]

UPDATE: Talent Search has finally appeared, and the RFP vindicates much of what Isaac wrote below. Having been in business for over 17 years, Seliger + Associates has lots of spies. Well, not spies exactly, but clients, former and current, program officers and assorted grant cognoscenti who send us interesting nuggets. Recently, one made it [...]

[Read more →]