Are you in need of fresh inspiration on how to organize your grantseeking process? Has fundraising caught you in a treadmill without the time to develop an overall perspective on how the process could work more efficiently?

Demystifying Grant Seeking is an excellent, basic manual on how to organize the grantseeking process. Indeed, the main goal of authors Larissa Brown and Martin Brown is to help you develop a "system that will carry you through months and years of productive grantseeking." Both authors are well qualified to meet this ambitious goal. They are partners (husband and wife, as well) in Brown and Brown Consultants in Oregon and have assisted many nonprofit organizations in streamlining their grantseeking procedures. In the book's forward, Judith E. Nichols, Ph.D, CFRE and well-known author in her own right, establishes her faith in the credibility of the authors and their approach. She states Larissa "gives the reader inspiration to embrace the larger purpose of grants, as well as step-by-step instructions for approaching the task."

Drawing on their combined experience, the authors have compiled a systematic five-step approach. In a nutshell the steps they outline in the book are:

Step One: Learn About Your Organization, Community and Funders
In this section we learn what information is necessary to compile before we begin the process, including how to become familiar with your organization's mission and background.

Step Two: Match Your Request to a Funder
Having the basics in hand gives you the foundation for prospect research. This step also gives you the tools for analyzing how potential funders.

Step Three: Invite a Funder to Invest in Your Organization
This step moves beyond the match to the request. It covers approaches, and the basics of a proposal.

Step Four: Invite a Funder to Invest in Your Organization
Follow up covers keeping both internal staff involved with the grants process and maintaining communications with funders.

Step Five: Evaluate Your Results, Methods, and Opportunities
Suggestions on how to evaluate the process, and recommendations about strategizing for the future.

Synthesizing the process and tying the steps together is definitely the strongest element of the book. Helpful also are key chapters on such topics as how to create an organizational and program resumé. These resumés would include all the basic facts regularly requested in grant proposals and should easily fit on one page. The primary purpose of these documents is to facilitate the work of a foundation's program officer. The book also includes hands-on forms for grantseekers and a complete sample proposal. The authors have attached these as blank forms and encourage grantseekers to copy them for their own use.

Demystifying Grant Seeking is definitely for the novice grantseeker or new nonprofit development staff person. The authors' positive attitude is encouraging and the book is very readable — not technical, dry, or formulaic. For development staff well-entrenched in the field it might provide some new organizational methods to spark the process.

Some may find the approach over-simplistic and without much insight into deeper strategies or experiences. This is where the book could use a better bibliography and resource list. The bibliography adheres very much to direct references used throughout the book. A more useful one might compile resources valuable to each section or a list of books or Web links for more information. All-in-all, however, the book does successfully accomplish its primary objective and is a welcome addition to the field.

For additional materials on this topic, refer to the Literature of the Nonprofit Sector using subject terms "Fundraising — handbooks, manuals, etc."