Book Review: Funded! Successful Grantwriting for Your Nonprofit
Funded!, by Richard Hoefer, Ph.D., MA, MSSW, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, ISBN: 978-0-19-068187-6, 2017, 208 pages, $34.95
Richard Hoefer knows whereof he speaks when he speaks about grantwriting. This book covers how to get started and moves on through where to look for sources, how to include evidence-based programs and approaches in one’s proposals, through logic models. It concludes with program evaluation, implementation, budgeting, and a very useful discussion of agency capacity and capabilities.
For many years, I was a funder of many programs as a United Way executive in communities large and small. My opinion of this book’s usefulness to social workers, social work students, social work educators, or social work clients is that it is a map for anyone who’d like to branch out into this practice. Hoefer begins with an assessment of how the reader and grantwriting might be a good fit for each other. Chapter 1 concludes with one of the best “what next” sections I’ve seen in this arena.
Chapter 2 includes a look at myths about grantwriting that any grantwriter has encountered in a career doing this work. At the end of this chapter, the author suggests what I believe to be some of the most important advice in the entire book: “If you skip these skill-building exercises [after each chapter], you will be short-cutting the learning process...” (p. 34).
Chapters 3 and 4 help the reader identify sources of money to pay for programs. They are well referenced, and those materials are ones that anyone interested in grantwriting could bookmark for future use.
The next chapter deals with uncovering need, something with which most social workers will probably be very conversant. Social work students may find it a roadmap, as well. Certainly, this chapter would help any student faced with the task of completing a needs assessment in a macro class.
As a faculty member who often teaches Evidence-Based Practice (EBP), I found the next chapter very useful. Occasionally, it’s difficult to persuade students that learning EBP is more than an exercise, and Hoefer brings it to life.
Chapter 7, on logic models, clearly lays out for any reader how to incorporate a logic model into grantwriting. The “Practice What You’ve Learned” at the end of this chapter brings together logic models, EBP, and one’s lived experience to make this a useful chapter.
Although many readers might not see the initial value of having a chapter on program evaluation, Hoefer makes it clear why funders often include a section on program evaluation.
The chapter on planning for program implementation will be of interest to many social workers. It is why one would write a proposal—to implement a program.
The sections on budgeting and agency capacity are brief but useful. One only has to get a proposal for which one does not have enough resources available funded once, and suddenly these chapters are worth their weight in gold.
Reviewed by Elizabeth Walker, LCSW, EdD, Core Faculty and Lead Faculty, Walden University.
