Stanley Levenson, in How to Get Grants and Gifts for the Public Schools, shares his expertise as a veteran fundraiser and consultant. During his career, he raised more than $40 million for educational institutions, and consulted with at least 50 school districts in the United States and abroad. He currently teaches fundraising and grantwriting classes at the University of California at San Diego. In addition to his fundraising skills, Dr. Levenson brings more than 30 years of experience as an educator, both in teaching and in administration. In this book, he helps educators navigate the process of obtaining government and private funding, including guidance on conducting prospect research, developing grant proposals and creating a comprehensive fundraising plan. This book is a valuable tool for both novice and experienced fundraisers.

In the first chapter, Dr. Levenson reviews resources for identifying potential government funders and offers tips on preparing government grant applications. The second chapter provides an overview of the different types of existing private funders, outlines the process for obtaining private funding, and identifies grantmakers interested in funding pre-K-12 programs. The third chapter focuses on individual solicitation, including practical suggestions for researching and approaching individual donors. Chapters 4 and 5 cover proposal development for government and private funders. Successful examples of foundation and corporate proposals, mini-grant proposals and government applications are identified in chapters 6 and 7. Chapter 8 gives tips on implementing a comprehensive fundraising plan for the school district including hiring full-time development staff or consultants. The book has an appendix containing a sample Federal Grant Application, a scoring rubric for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program, and a sample cover letter geared to private funders. Lastly, there is a glossary of terms related to government and private funding to assist inexperienced grantseekers.

Despite the broad scope he has chosen to cover, Dr. Levenson manages to compile an extremely useful resource for grantseeking educators. The author clearly discusses the rationale for each type of fundraising strategy and provides specific examples and exercises to reinforce the concepts. Bibliographies are included for those who wish to delve even deeper into a topic. To help orient the reader, each chapter starts with a bulleted list of key concepts that the author will introduce. Moreover, he reviews fundraising techniques typically ignored by public schools that could attract sizeable donations, including annual campaigns, capital campaigns, and planned giving. In writing this book, Dr. Levenson does an excellent job of sharing his expertise garnered from extensive fundraising experience and of presenting this information in an organized format. He also writes in a succinct and straightforward style that is easily absorbed. There are few shortcomings in this highly readable guide. Adding a resource list on hiring consultants and developing a fundraising plan would be a helpful addition to the information in Chapter 8. Due to the capriciousness of the Internet, some of the Web-based information may already be somewhat dated. However, these are minor setbacks considering the wealth of information and great advice that Dr. Levenson offers.

For citations to additional materials on this topic, refer to Literature of the Nonprofit Sector Online, using the subject headings "Fundraising-education" or "Fundraising-handbooks, manuals, etc."