Fund-of-funds Books

This large book, now in its eighth edition is a compiled list of grant awarding institutions that have a proven interest in making grants for libraries and information services. It includes some 1,600 granting organizations selected because libraries and information services are specifically stated as a type of organization they support, or because they have given out actual grants of $10,000 or more.

The granting organizations are broken down by state, and within states by name. Information supplied about each organization includes how much money they have, how much they give out, their stated purpose, fields of interest, types of support and any limitations (some organizations limit their giving to local areas, such as Boston).

There are quite a number of books written on how to apply for a grant, what should be included in your application, and so on. But after you get the application written, what do you do with it. To whom do you send it. This book is put together by The Foundation Center, a non-profit organization that was set up to assist other non-profits in their grant writing process. Their overall database includes over 78,000 grantmaking foundations.

This book has only those organizations making grants to libraries and information services extracted from that database. This obviously saves your time, and of course your money. At the $125 price, smaller organizations may be unwilling or even unable to spend that much for such a book. The price however, seems fair. This book is not going to sell in the quantities you would expect of a Harry Potter novel, and The Foundation Center has to recoup their costs.

What you are buying for the $125 is time (it would take you a very long time to find these organizations) and completeness (you would never find all of these organizations). The cost should be recovered in the first grant received from a source you never contacted before.

This book has information that you basically cannot do without if you are seeking grants.

Everybody knows that the US economy is generating a lot of low-wage, dead-end service jobs. Now there's a book that knows what to do about it. This book is chock full of cheap, practical, useful ways of turning dead-end jobs into careers, linking jobs to training, facilitating employee organization. Should be part of the platform for Republicans and Democrats.

This is a major advance over Worth's 1993 book, which already was called the classic--this book is really the "New Testament." This book brings us up to date to the early 2000's and provides even more wisdom than the original.It is absolutley a must-read for anybody working in fund-raising, whether staff or volunteers.

New York World City is a timely, critical, and analytical study of major economic, political, and social institutions and issues. Contents include: Recovering From The Fall, Striking A Balance, The City's Strengths, Toward The World City, Serving New Yorkers, Promoting The Private Sector, Maintaining The City, Reviving Neighborhoods, Natiional Obligation, Meeting The Challenge, New York's Changing Economy, Changing Demographics, City Fiscal Policy, Policy Options, Infrastructure Priorities and Needs, and more. Of interest to students and professionals in urban planning, New York City history and issues of city living.

Tess Hebb is right on the money. The financial crash of 2008 and onset of a global recession has destroyed trillions in pension funds and other retirement savings. The colossal financial failures and bankruptcies that helped to create those losses-- and corporate scandals now coming to light--have harmed millions of workers and families. For awhile, the entire globe was on the brink of a second depression, and we're not out of the woods yet. Like the recent Madoff $50 billion rip-off disaster, the entire financial melt-down begins to look like a gigantic ponzi scheme, one characterized by billionaire charlatans; complex, non-transparent investment vehicles (such as the hedge fund Madoff ostensibly managed); and secretive corporate shell-games.

Missing in the drive-by post-mortems and mega-bailouts and resulting controversies, and hopefully included in the policy transition plans of the new U.S. Administration, is a central analysis as to how to correct this unprecedented crime wave of corporate power abuse and mismanagement. First might be to re-regulate the financial services. Second, the owners and shareholders of banks, financial firms and other corporations need to demand a serious level of corporate engagement with the firms in which they've invested.

Tessa Hebb's book, No Small Change, provides the core arguments as to why pension funds and other stakeholders in the economy must engage public corporations. She provides easy-to-read chapters on the background of corporate engagement and on the economic inefficiency of secrecy.

Ms. Hebb, who was the primary editor in an earlier pension fund book in which I was involved (Working Capital, also published by Cornell University Press), is able to wrap her arms around many of the inter-related trends that are important to our economy and communities:
* The rise in corporate governance activism by U.S. public pension funds, such as CalPERS (the state retirement system), and how they have, through investor coalitions, demanded higher standards of corporate accountability, while advancing a broader embrace of investment policies that recognize other "stakeholders" in the business, such as employees and their communities and environment;
* The rise of responsible investment, led by the United Nations, which demands that companies raise their environmental, social and governance standards (ESG);
* The incorporation of the these policies and standards into the normal course of investing, including the importance of these issues as a tenet of fiduciary responsibility;
* The convergence of corporate engagement and ESG investing, especially in the context of emerging markets.

Tessa brings a solid background and familiarity with the worlds of academia, urban investment, labor and social policy to the pension investment and corporate governance fields in this remarkably compact book. Tess has a keen understanding of the opportunities and pitfalls on this stage, and provides a wealth of references and resources. I encourage other activists in the investment and policy communities, along with concerned citizens in general, to read it and heed its advice.

Are you an executive director at a nonprofit? Are you a development director at a university or hospital? If so, then you should be aware of major gift fundraising and what is involved in doing it. If you don't know what it is about, then read this book and you will be up on it. The author has years of experience in a large university setting where major gift fundraising is the norm. She knows what she is talking about. And she does a very nice job presenting her knowledge in the form of this book.

The book is delivered in an easy-to-read format, and includes case studies to show the challenges typically faced by fundraisers when seeking major gifts. What do I mean by "major gifts?" Gifts sought in the $10,000 and above range. Most of the time they are $20,000 or $50,000 or $100,000. And the successful major gift fundraisers like to brag about snaring large 6 figure gifts.

What the book tells us about is how to build a major gift program. How to find the major gift donors and how to engage them so they will cough up the dough. It also describes how to cultivate those prospective donors and how to ask them for that big gift.

Chapter 3 does a nice job covering the importance of a "strong" nonprofit board. What do I mean by "strong?" One whose members have big bucks, are willing to give some of those big bucks to the nonprofit, AND who have wealthy friends and acquaintances who also are willing to give some of their big bucks to the nonprofit.

The author takes the reader from forming a major gift program to growing it as follows:

1. ID and rate prospective donors
2. Prepare the Case for Support (a document explaining to donors why to give)
3. How to train volunteer fundraisers (including the board members)
4. How to cultivate donors (from cheapies to generous major gift givers)
5. How to solicit (how to make the ask)
6. Recognition (always say thank you!)
7. How to provide stewardship for the major gift

The book is wonderful. I highly recommend it for those wanting to take their nonprofit to a new level. 5 stars!

In law school, we learned law by studying cases - one case at a time. It was slow, excruciating, and at times confusing. But when we wanted to put it all together, if truth be known, we'd pick up a hornbook. (U.S. Lawyers in the audience will be nodding with me, as they recall Corbin on Contracts or Prosser on Torts.)

The Nonprofit Guide to the Internet - How to Survive and Thrive is a kind of "hornbook" for nonprofits wishing to embrace the Internet.

This second-edition book is not for cybergeeks. Like its first edition released in 1996, it thankfully assumes little or no prior Internet expertise. Indeed, in Chapter 1 it walks the reader through a description of the Internet and its basic structure. Those with a good grounding in things Internet can skip Chapter 1 and move into the meatier portions of the book - and there are plenty of them.

"Why a Nonprofit Should Go On-Line," Chapter 2, covers such benefits as improving internal and external communications, providing better access to information, professional development, and "cyber-fund-raising" and "cybercampaigning." In other words, it provides a conceptual framework for an organization to identify the reasons why it should go on-line. (I have to wonder, frankly, why any organization could even question the wisdom of doing so - but then, that's just me.)

It is not enough to decide to go on-line. There is the question of how best to do that. With a bewildering array of options these days, Chapter 3's discussion of "Getting Connected" will help. I liked how the author presents a step-by-step linear process that starts with an assessment of current equipment and office communication needs and moves forward to such topics as selecting an Internet service provider.

Sound dry? The author moistens the discussion considerably by weaving into the discussions with short case studies. It's as though we're looking over the shoulder of someone just like us as various decisions are being made. It's almost a little voyeuristic - the author lets us peek at "journal entries" of the person making these decisions. It's highly instructive and helps us understand how we might go through the same process for our own organization. I like that.

Where the book hits stride - and where the book's main value resides - begins with Chapter 4's treatment of "Turning Knowledge to Action: Finding the Full Potential of the Internet to Improve Your Communication, Outreach, and Public Awareness." For many in this audience who have a strong grasp of the Internet - and maybe even an expertise - this is where you'll likely begin reading.

Author Michael Johnston correctly counsels the reader: "Simply getting a computer, an Internet account, and a phone connection is not enough. A nonprofit decision maker needs to know how to use this new medium in ways that save money, serve more clients, and ensure the long-term stability of the organization." To illustrate, Johnston provides a case study showing the effectiveness of the Internet for improving communication with Internal audiences - volunteers, in this case. Organizations who rely on volunteers will find the case study of interest.

Without diminishing the importance of reaching and supporting an organization's "internal audience," I found the book's treatment of the "external audience" outstanding. In a section entitled, "The External Audience: Collaborating and Cooperating on the Internet," Johnston walks us through a case study that illustrates the amazing variety of communications tools offered by the Internet. I found the discussion on membership recruitment especially valuable.

The book's appeal is not just in the use of brief case studies, but also in its ample use of screen shots. Somehow just reading about various sites is not enough; we need to be shown them. And that's just what Johnston does, and amply, throughout. For a book on the Internet, this is as user-friendly as you can get. If the Internet is a hot topic with nonprofit organizations, then on-line fund raising is the hottest of the hot. Though it is probably impossible to write a definitive chapter on this topic, given the break-net pace with which "cyber-fund-raising" is galloping along, Johnston's treatment is among the better discussions I've seen in print. Even if it cannot hope to keep up with the changes taking place in this arena, it provides a way of approaching on-line fund raising that will continue to be valid for some time, in my view. Besides, the book is published this year, so it's current as of now and probably will remain so for a couple of years - until the next, inevitable, edition.

Surprisingly, though, the book omits a discussion on the legal issues of on-line fundraising. Of course, such a topic is sufficiently deep to warrant an entire chapter or even a book. Still, even a brief mention of the issues would have been expected. We'll look for such a discussion in the next edition.

I recommend this book for any board member, officer, staff member, or volunteer who is seriously considering whether and how to take a nonprofit organization online, or make its online presence more effective.

Here are the book's chapters:

Chapter 1 - Learning about the Internet

Chapter 2 - Why a Nonprofit Should Go On-Line

Chapter 3 - Getting Connected

Chapter 4 - From the Knowledge to Action: Finding the Full Potential of the Internet to Improve Your Communication, Outreach, and Public Awareness

Chapter 5 - Research on the Internet: Tools and Tricks

Chapter 6 - Cyber-Fund-Raising

Chapter 7 - Making it Happen: Establishing a Presence on the World Wide Web

Chapter 8 - Reaching Future Supporters Now

Chapter 9 - Harnessing the Idiosyncratic

This book provides comprehensive information for nonprofit organizations, its directors, trustees, and development officers to make sound investment decisions. Content covered include topics such as the importance of establishing investment policies, creating an investment committee, and developing financial goals. The book is written in a language suitable for both the financial and non-financial individuals. There is also a glossary section of financial terms used throughout the book. Besides providing a solid background and overview of issues nonprofit organizations need to think about, the author gives many examples, including typical conversation that may occur in a board meeting and the methods to prevent such conflicts from happening. Finally, the appendixes sections contain many helpful templates, including investment policies form, monthly/quarterly reports, and some sample legal document agreements. One of the very few books of its kind, (investment for nonprofit organizations) this book is definitely worth the time for nonprofit organizational officers or the general interested reader.

The Navarre Bible is the Spanish "New American Bible". It is very conservative and includes the New Latin Vulgate!!! as well as the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (Great references). This volume includes the story of David and Jonathan (1 & 2 Samuel). They try to cover-up David and Jonathan's intimate relationship, but they can't hide the love between the two men as exposed in the text (see 1 Sam 18:1-5, at the very least). I give this book ***** for it's conservative structure. It teaches us what the fundamentalist Catholics believe and allows us to raise direct, logical objections to parts of the Catechism.

First published in the 1700's, Observations Upon Liberal Education is a classic treatise by George Turnbull (1698-1748), a contemporary of Francis Hutcheson and one of the driving intellecutal forces behind the Scottish Enlightenment. This new edition has been carefully edited by Terrence O. More, Jr. (who also provided an informed and informative Introduction) for a contemporary readership. In Observations Upon Liberal Education, Turnbull sought to place a groundwork for creating a society of free, enlightened, upstanding and educated citizens. Drawing upon educational debates and sources to put forth his inspired ideals, his work is a classic and optimistic commentary.