This is my last blog. It is also my 200th blog. I have found no readers. Since February 2018, there have been no comments on any of my blog posts. Google explained I sometimes had clicks on my website, but very few. Maybe they were accidents. Or extraterrestrials. Or ghosts. I’d like to think Big[…]
Category: Uncategorized
When a Nonprofit Lacks Volunteers
A nonprofit I’ve been working with had their board members resign for personal reasons. They were past their terms and had not found any volunteers to take over. There are still nonprofit members, just no board members. This is a problem with nonprofits that are volunteer based—it is hard to find people to be on[…]
Playing with In-Kind Costs
This is a continuation of a previous blog post “In-Kind Costs” about (you guessed) in-kind costs. In that blog, I suggested grant writers should avoid putting in-kind costs into a grant application. As a definition, in-kind goods and services do not involve the exchange of money. An example of in-kind services are volunteers providing labor[…]
The Time To Write
Many authors talk about what the best time it is for them to write and create. Much of this depends on families and jobs, whether the person is a morning or evening person, health, and other issues such as whether they need quiet or noise. When I commuted to the Pentagon, I did a lot[…]
Funds from the State
Some foundations get funding from their state government to distribute, via grants, through their area. The state guidelines provide the categories for the foundation to fund. Foundations in high populated areas can usually fund most of the categories and meet the state’s guidelines. Smaller foundations or those in a limited population area may fund only[…]
Linking Short Stories Together in a Novel
I self-published one book of short stories and will soon self-publish another. My biggest issue I had was what order to put my stories in. Over the years, I wrote almost fifty short stories. Since I am writing novels now (at least for the time being), I wanted to do something with my stories. I[…]
Let’s Have a Grant Writing Party
When I’m writing a grant, I prefer to have as many people in the nonprofit helping as I can. Diversity is a good thing all the time. Yet, too many times the nonprofit staff and managers provide little input. While I encourage them to be involved in putting the application together, I just receive smiles.[…]
Grant Updates
This is an update on two grant projects I recently blogged about. The first, “Getting Emergency Grant Money” involved a nonprofit that was renovating an historic building and experienced a sudden problem. Work stopped for two weeks while experts evaluated the situation and permissions were renewed. During this time, the nonprofit contacted a local foundation[…]
A Checklist for Formatting the Inside of a Book
Since my book has been published (only on KDP so far), I will start to share the steps I took to arrive at publication. If anyone wants to know more details, please email me. This list is something I could not find elsewhere and I hope I captured everything. The first thing I looked at[…]
Defining Success
If a nonprofit achieves success, foundations and donors are more likely to continue investing and the mission can continue. But, what is success? Among the many definitions of success is the accomplishment of set goals. The key to meeting established goals are the measurement of specific objectives aligned with the goals. An example of a[…]
Grant Writers Should Write Grants Only
After writing a grant, the writer should never be involved in receipt of the grant money or reporting on how the money was spent. This is the nonprofit’s responsibility. I haven’t researched this ethical issue, this is my personal view. A grant writer should establish boundaries of what they will do for a nonprofit. Anything[…]
Anti-Clean Language
This blog post is about writers using profanity (obscenity, swearing, cussing, etc.). Are these words necessary in a story? I think some profane words are all right in a novel if the words are part of the character’s personality. When a writer uses profanity everywhere, the novel is about the writer expressing a particular side[…]