Know your job.

Sounds obvious, right?

But apparently it’s not so clear to some people.

A friend of mine told me about a new writer her firm had hired.

The writer had boundless energy when criticizing the current structure of my friend’s office.

More significantly, the new person asked for a couple of days extension of her first assignment. And when she did turn her piece in, it wasn’t exactly what the firm needed.

Knowing your job means a couple of things: know the assignment you’re being asked to carry out. And it also means being competent enough to be able to perform it. That’s at the very minimum.

If you’re doing the hiring, make sure the new person you’re considering understands exactly what tasks he or she will be expected to perform. Ask for samples that would give some indication that the new member of the team can do what he says he can.

If you’re being considered for a job, be sure you are able to carry out all tasks required. If  you can’t, it will become obvious soon enough.

Basic ideas.

Basic, for a very good reason.

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If you’ve been around a library, bookstore, coffeehouse, or airline seat in the last few decades, you know who Sue Grafton is — “A” is for Alibi . . . “U” is for Undertow.

I saw an interview with Ms. Grafton and she said she took classes to learn about police procedural stuff. That’s to write fiction. Oh, and she’s supposed to be a pretty good shot as well.

I think with that type of preparation and attention to detail, (but where’s that Santa Theresa place?), and the ability to captivate readers’ imaginations, she’d have a pretty good chance of making it as a grant writer if she ever gets tired of being one of the best selling authors ever, published in 28 countries and in 26 languages.

Unfortunately, too many grant writers look like they’re going for some sort of mystery fiction award.

When you’re doing grant work, it’s okay to highlight important facts and figures in a way that makes them stand out. It’s your job, in fact.

If you’re going for a grant to a neighborhood watch program or some such, don’t just say there were 62 murders in Santa Theresa in 2009. I mean, is that more or less than the year before? And how does it compare with a neighbor like Ventura? Also, don’t be using the numbers from 2000 because you’re too lazy to call the sheriff’s office to get the most recent figures.

Would Sue Grafton be too lazy to call?

Be accurate. Be complete. And go the extra mile.

You owe it to your client. You owe it to yourself.

Make sure you own it.

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Community foundations are tax-exempt public charities.

As the name implies, their goal is to benefit specific regions, and the way they work is that individuals, families, and organizations establish permanent funds. These funds form the economic structure of the foundation. Money is distributed by the foundations through various means, one of which is competitive grantmaking.

While the specific philanthropic goals of the participants may vary, each of them, ultimately, seeks to help a particular community. That’s why the name of a foundation often includes the name of the community it serves.

For example, the Ventura County Community Foundation, located in the city of Camarillo, California, exists for the benefit of Ventura County. The California Community Foundation, started in 1915, is primarily concerned with the welfare of Los Angeles. The fact that it began in 1915 when Los Angeles was already a thriving area helps explain that.

One of the questions often asked is, “Why give to a community foundation? Why not just set up your own?” And the answer is that many do choose to give in that manner.

Often, however, the fact that community foundations have unsurpassed knowledge of the specific needs of the areas they serve makes them a logical choice for helping a certain area.

Community foundations are overseen by volunteer boards of community leaders, and are guided by professionals who have knowledge of, and experience dealing with, the various issues facing the places they serve.

The most established foundations provide ongoing educational programs. These empower local nonprofits in various ways such as providing research assistance, hosting grantwriting workshops, and building strategic alliances among area organizations. They help nonprofit boards. The Ventura County Community Foundation’s Center for Nonprofit Leadership, for example, provides programs that serve over 2,500 participants annually.

Communities need help, more than ever before, helping those who need help.

That is why community foundations are playing a significant role, more than ever before, in helping their communities.

The specific roles of various foundations in communities across America will be further explored in future postings.

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by David Tandet

One of the concepts Jonathan O’Brien stresses in his groundbreaking book Right Before You Write is the desirability — make that necessity — of collaboration among potential grantees.

It’s an idea whose time has come with the intensity of a gazillion dollar project.

The idea of nonprofits working together to effectively address the funding agency’s vision is not new, just vastly underused.

Why?

Mostly laziness and shortsightedness on the part of applicants. Nonprofits think getting all the money themselves will move them that much closer to their goal that much faster — without the hassle of dealing with other nonprofits.

One of the things they’re overlooking is that first they have to get the funds.

The funder that decides who receives what has many reasons to look favorably upon a coalition that is eager to creatively and efficiently make the funder’s vision a reality in a particular area.

There’s also something else on the funder’s side that makes the foundation react as if its eyes are being opened by a cool splash of water when it sees the opportunity to try something totally new and responsible.

Effective collaboration can mean a creative leap not simply among potential grantees in the direction the funder wants to travel. It means a creative leap for the funding agency. After all, a grant by its very nature means that a collaborative is also forming between the funder and the nonprofits receiving funds.

This means that the funding agency that supports new and effective ideas will be viewed as travelling down a variety of visionary and structurally sound paths to achieve useful objectives. Such imaginative solutions are not ideas to simply be admired. The challenges of the twenty-first century make them standard operating requirements.

Always — but especially in a period of leaner funds — these are the resourceful funders who receive attention from their fellow funders who want to make good things happen. Take, for example, the first line from a February 17, 2010 article in Philanthropy News Digest:

The Partnership for a Healthier America, an organization formed by several leading health-related nonprofits and foundations, including the California Endowment, Kaiser Permanente, Nemours, the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, and the Robert Wood Johnson and W.W. Kellogg foundations, has announced that it will work to reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States.

Synergy — read that “effective collaboration” — rules.

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The real scoop on getting your grant proposal seriously considered?

Use spell check.

That’s not my opinion. It’s straight from the lips of Holly Cole, Verizon’s Director, Government & External Affairs, Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties.

Ms. Cole gave that advice during a recent presentation at the Ventura County Community Foundation. It was part of her response to moderator Susan Seale’s query on grant writing basics for the benefit of beginners in the audience.

Holly is involved in deciding which grant proposals in her area get funded.

Spell checking proposals is not the only criterion for writing a winning grant, of course. An inquiry riddled with misspelled words, however, does get the applicant off to a bad start.

I can’t speak for Holly Cole, but here are 10 reasons I think “use spell check” is terrific advice:

1. A great tennis player said, “Real champions don’t miss the easy ones.” If you do not use a tool as simple as spell check, you are not a champion grant writer.

2.  Spell check should be as much a part of your clean copy regimen as brushing your teeth is a part of your daily health regimen.

3. If you are careless when you ask for financial support, how careful will you be when you spend it?

4. “Use spell check” means check the spelling. Everyone knows the correct spelling of an unintended word often gets by. The less you let that happen, the more it says about your attention to detail.

5. Spell check is the push past the finish line. Funders want to support nonprofits that reach the goals they set for themselves.

6. Potential grantees that use spell check show they make the most of resources already within their grasp. Those potential grantees are the best bets for doing the most good with the money their projects could receive.

7. There are a lot of reasons to use spell check. There is no reason not to. Using spell check is one more indication to a possible grantor that you have the common sense to take advantage of a win/win situation.

8. Spell check can teach you something new, such as how to spell a word. Each piece of knowledge has the potential to combine with other things you learn to improve your problem solving ability. Grantors know that good problem solvers have the greatest ability to make the most positive impact.

9. Some grantmakers, such as Holly Cole, personally visit each potential grantee once the initial query is submitted. You are being seriously considered every step of the way. Why wouldn’t you take yourself seriously enough to use spell check from the moment of your initial presentation?

10. Holly Cole’s comment indicates there is a large group of nonprofits asking for funds that is not using spell check. Use spell check and help draft yourself onto the winning team.

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Did you see US News and World Report’s list of Best Hospitals? How about the Wall Street Journal’s list of the Best Health Books of 2009? Lists are always an efficient marketing tool to position your company in front of the rest. When it comes to healthcare, pharmacology and bioscience, the following reasons demand your attention:

1. Lists are authoritative.

Strength and leadership positioning — it’s all in a list.

2.  Lists allow visitors to target special areas of interest or concern.

Fast focus means fast feedback. You’ll know what healthcare items businesses and consumers need to know more about right away.

3. People keep returning to lists.

You’re giving a target audience useful healthcare information. If it’s in list format, your audience will save it and return.

4. Social networking venues love gems. Your healthcare lists are gems.

Lists are a perfect fit for venues like Facebook and Twitter.

5. Editors love lists — especially for science and technology. They’re great for press releases.

Flexible, space-adaptable — lists make bioscience appealing.

6. Lists force you to present clearly.

In healthcare sales, clear and direct is everything.

7. Healthcare business people and consumers interested in the subject matter will be more inclined to take lists with them.

Print, iPod, pocket — a list lends itself.

8. You can keep adding to it.

Sometimes you want to add something to the discussion. Lists (”Five more ways the X500 saves your hospital money”) let you do it quickly and clearly.

9. Numbers give bio topic readers hooks to hang their hats on.

People process organized material faster. Lists help your visitor out with more complex or controversial healthcare information.

10. You’ll approach scientific issues in a disciplined way.

Forming a list keeps you from inadvertently omitting potentially important points.

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Here’s how it is: human billboards are a hot trend.

Consider:

• Darren Little’s TatAD agency in Vancouver, BC hires folks to wear temporary or permanent tattoos with clients’ names and logos.

• Entreprenuer.com defines human billboards as people that “hold signs or banners emblazoned with promotional and advertising messages in high-traffic areas of the community.” It calls HBoarding a terrific home based startup for entrepreneurs with good marketing skills.

• Microsoft kicked off its Windows Vista launch activities a couple of years back with a human billboard in downtown New York. “It’s a billboard. It’s marketing, except that it’s made by people,” Mike Sievert, corporate VP for Windows told CNET News.com. It was an elaborate performance. Elaborate and completely human.

So what’s going on? In an age when Google makes satellite photographic technology available to everyone at the touch of a finger, companies big and small are spending ad budgets on a form of marketing that exploded in 19th century London. That’s when wall posters started getting taxed and there was competition for use of allowable space.

Well as one dry cleaner who pays a sandwich boarded employee to parade back and forth in front of his business put it: “This gets noticed.”

And apparently it brings in customers.

Kind of ironic when you consider all the high-tech possibilities out there. Ironic, but perfectly sensible. When a prospect’s eyes glaze over from electronic jumbles of assorted images, the simple, ungilded (but often no less clever) notice carried by a living, breathing human can be the message that stands out above all else.

A human billboard will not be the only, or even major part of, most companies’ marketing budgets. But it is not a form of advertising to overlook, either. Not by a long shot.

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Manatt, Phelps is a law firm that provides personalized care for integrated legal services. After an old friend told me about a presentation she’d made to some attorneys there, I went to their website to find out more.

The narrative I immediately became engaged in was about what it takes to succeed in business. More significantly, it was about what it would take me, the reader, to succeed.

Whether I needed guidance through regulatory bramble or dealmaking assistance, Manatt became the legal piece of the puzzle that fit perfectly into my vision for the future.

Manatt has an impressive roster of clients for whom it does excellent work. This is all the more reason to demonstrate, through its media relations, two cornerstones of premium legal services:

• A continuing commitment to customized care for longtime clients.

• An assurance that every detail of a potential client’s legal needs will be met.

Manatt validates both.

An organization that conveys the high value it places on each principle knows what great business communication is about.

Could any client imagine a more rewarding story to be part of?

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Philanthropy and public relations have a long history together. When 19th century tycoons were attacked as robber barons, several set up foundations to contribute to good causes — in part to fend off the verbal assaults.

Sometimes the infusion of capital into new works was so great that foundations had to set up their own mechanisms to make sure proper vehicles existed to utilize the funding.

As sophisticated as those foundations have become, however, the current financial crisis is forcing all entities involved in giving to develop a new breed of partnership between private and public funding.

Last August, billionaire George Soros and the Open Society Institute announced a collaboration with New York State to provide help with the purchase of school supplies to children of low income families.

There was an immediate wave of criticism questioning the motives and strategy of longtime political activist Soros.

The new philanthropy and fundraising has created a need for a type of public relations that is more proactive than any that has previously existed. Add to that the fact that Twitter and other digital networks carry words and pictures around the world as soon as events happen. PR is now a 24/7 concern.

If funders want to make sure they can most effectively fill in “the pieces of the puzzle” (how grant writer Jon O’Brien characterizes each foundation’s unique vision of the world) they need the most effective public relations to accompany any major collaborations with public/governmental entities. Otherwise, their giving will get as bogged down in political rhetoric as vitriolic as the negative ads that have become a fixture on the campaign trail.

Ironically, the old PR maxim “Do Good and Tell the World” has become the most practical rule of thumb for those who work in media relations for funders.

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As director of development for the Alzheimer’s Association — California Central Coast Chapter — part of Sue Murphy’s job involves grant writing that will help advance her organization’s mission. What is that mission? To ultimately eliminate Alzheimer’s disease through research, provide and enhance care and support for all affected, and to reduce the risk of dementia through the promotion of brain health.

Here is one of the most important factors that makes Sue such an able fundraiser: she believes in her cause.

Of course it goes without saying that Murphy has the basics of her job down cold. Ever since graduating from USC’s Department of Journalism, she’s brought in a record amount of grant dollars for causes that matter.

It’s that extra personal commitment to something she cares about that makes all the difference.

“If I didn’t believe in the need, I wouldn’t succeed,” she says about the organizations she’s helped develop. With our society’s aging population, Sue will tell you, there are few causes that demand our immediate attention more than Alzheimer’s disease. That is why her grant proposals are so successful: she can assure potential donors that there is a need for funding, and that funding, once received, will be used in the most judicious manner possible — be it for research, care, or prevention.

So now that you know the secret, what’s holding you up? Funders might cut back in a tough economy, but remember: they are still in the business of making grants. Take a tip from Sue Murphy. Be a true believer.

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