Further Reading — Chapter 1: What Is a Grant?

The sources below are real and verifiable (Tier 1) unless noted. Funder details and statistics change every year; treat figures as approximate and confirm current numbers at the source.

Orienting Books

  • Karsh, Ellen, and Arlen Sue Fox. The Only Grant-Writing Book You'll Ever Need (latest edition). The most popular practical introduction, strongest on the nonprofit and foundation world. An excellent companion to this book's nonprofit-facing chapters; lighter on academic and federal research grants, which we cover in Part III.
  • O'Neal-McElrath, Tori, et al. Winning Grants Step by Step (Jossey-Bass, latest edition). A clear, structured walk through the nonprofit foundation proposal. Useful early for seeing the whole arc of a program proposal before we slow down on each component.
  • Russell, Stephen W., and David C. Morrison. The Grant Application Writer's Workbook (NIH and NSF editions). The definitive deep dives for federal research proposals. Narrow by design (one agency per book) and excellent; pair with our Chapters 16–17.

Understanding the Ecosystem

  • Candid (candid.org). The merger of the Foundation Center and GuideStar; the central hub for U.S. foundation data, 990s, and funder research. Browse it now to feel the sheer number and variety of foundations. We use its tools heavily in Chapter 3.
  • Giving USA Foundation. Giving USA (annual report). The most-cited annual estimate of U.S. charitable giving, including the foundation-grant share. Tier 1 for the broad numbers cited in this chapter; the executive summary is freely available.
  • National Institutes of Health, "NIH Data Book" and RePORTER (reporter.nih.gov). Official NIH funding data, success rates by institute and mechanism, and a searchable database of funded grants. The single best way to ground your sense of the federal research landscape in real numbers and real funded examples.
  • National Science Foundation, "Funding Rate" reports and the NSF Award Search (nsf.gov). Official NSF funding-rate data by directorate and program, plus a searchable archive of awards.

On the Federal Grants System

  • Grants.gov "Grants Learning Center." The U.S. government's own primer on what federal grants are, the grant lifecycle, and key terminology. Free, authoritative, and a good reality check on vocabulary before Chapters 15 and 19.
  • USAspending.gov. Tracks where federal money actually goes. Useful for seeing the scale and distribution of federal grant outlays referenced in Section 1.1.

For Perspective

  • The Chronicle of Philanthropy and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Ongoing reporting on the nonprofit and academic funding worlds, respectively. Reading them regularly builds the ecosystem intuition this chapter argues for. (Some content is subscription-based; many libraries provide access.)