BEST PRACTICES IN GRANT WRITING AT SMALL COLLEGES

A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
BY
BRENT S. CHAPMAN
DISSERTATION ADVISOR: DR. JOSEPH L. ARMSTRONG

BALL STATE UNIVERSITY

MUNCIE, INDIANA

JULY 2007

BEST PRACTICES IN GRANT WRITING AT SMALL COLLEGES

A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
BY
BRENT S. CHAPMAN

APPROVED BY:

BALL STATE UNIVERSITY

MUNCIE, INDIANA

JULY 2007

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES viii

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

Statement of the Problem

Purpose of the Study and the Research Questions

Importance

Definitions of Terms

Cautions and Limitation

Summary of Chapter One and Previews

CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Internet Searches about Small Colleges and Grant Writing

Empirical Studies of Small-College Grant Writing Practices

Educational Grant Writing

Colleges and Research Grants

General Grant Writing Guides

The Viewpoint of Foundations about Grants

Currents Articles about Small-College Advancement

Empirical Studies about Small-College Advancement

How Well do Small Colleges Conduct Grant Writing?

Summary of Chapter Two

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES

Purpose of the Study

Research Questions

Quantitative Research - Survey of Small-College Grant Writers

Summary of Chapter Three

CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE DATA AND NARRATIVE EVIDENCE

Responses to Open-Ended Questions

Survey Results

Summary of Chapter Four

CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION OF DATA AND EVIDENCE

Answering the Research Questions

Summary of Chapter Five

CHAPTER SIX: SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Summary of the Study

Conclusions

Recommendations for Grant Writers at Small Colleges

Recommendations for Future Research

Final Thoughts

REFERENCES

APPENDIX A - SURVEY QUESTIONS

APPENDIX B - LETTER TO SMALL-COLLEGE GRANT WRITERS

APPENDIX C - EMAIL REMINDER LETTER TO SMALL-COLLEGE GRANT WRITERS

APPENDIX D - TELEPHONE SCRIPT FOR CALLING SMALL-COLLEGE GRANT WRITERS

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: The Positive Reasons Table for Question #1A

Table 2: The Negative Reasons Table for Question #1A

Table 3: The Table for Question #2A

Table 4: The Table for Question #2D

Table 5: The Table for Question #3A

Table 6: The Table for Question #3B

Table 7: The Table for Question #5A

Table 8: The Table for Question #5B

Table 9: The Table for Question #5D

Table 10: The Table for Question #6A

Table 11: The Table for Question #6B

Table 12: The Table for Question #6D

Table 13: The Table for Core Question #7

Table 14: The Table for Question #7B

Table 15: The Table for Question #7C

Table 16: The Table for Question #7E

Table 17: The Table for Question #8A

Table 18: The Table for Question #8B

Table 19: The Table for Question #8D

Table 20: The Table for Core Question #9

Table 21: The Table for Question #9B

Table 22: The Table for Core Question #10

Table 23: The Table for Core Question #11

Table 24: The Table for Question #12A

Table 25: The Table for Core Question #13

Table 26: The Table for Core Question #14

Table 27: The Table for Question #15A

Table 28: The Table for Question #16A

Table 29: The Table for Question #17A

Table 30: The Table for Core Question #18

Table 31: The Table for Core Question #19

Table 32: The Table for Core Question #20

Table 33: The Table for Question #20A

Table 34: Denominational Colleges vs. Interdenominational or Nondenominational Colleges

Table 35: The 36 Religiously Connected Colleges by Specific Designation

Table 36: The Table for Question #21D

Table 37: The Table for Core Question #22

Table 38: The Table for Core Question #25

Table 39: The Table for Core Question #26

Table 40: Top Five Recipients in Number of Grants Awarded in 2005

Table 41: Top Five Recipients in Number of Grants Awarded in 2004

Table 42: Top Five Recipients in Number of Grants Awarded in 2003

Table 43: Top Five Recipients in Number of Grants Awarded in 2002

Table 44: Top Five Recipients in Number of Grants Awarded in 2001

Table 45: The Top Three of the 12 Top Five Members as Measured Over at Least Three Years

Table 46: Top Five Percentage Success Rates for Administration-Directed Proposals

Table 47: Top Five Percentage Success Rates for Faculty-Written Proposals

Chapter One: Introduction

Colleges needing funds to survive is as old as American higher education. For example, Harvard sent a trio of pastors to England in 1641 to raise money. In 1838 the University of Michigan borrowed $100,000 to start its educational mission. In 1873 Miami University closed for 12 years because of a shortage of money. It is not surprising, therefore, that so many American colleges are named after benefactors: Harvard, Rutgers, Brown, and Indiana's own DePauw (Willmer, 1980). Grant writing plays an important role in today's collegiate fund raising and can be especially important for small-college fund raising of a small college.

This research surveyed and examined the grant writing practices of small colleges in Indiana and surrounding states. From July 1998 through September 2005, the researcher was the director of grants & prospect research at Taylor University, so the topic is one of practical and personal impact. As the researcher's former title (the most recent of four) expressed, his work encompassed both grant writing and a separate field of prospect research, an area that mainly examines individual donors to help Taylor University fund raising representatives make sensible requests that do not offend the potential donor by being either too large or too small. As one respondent noted, strong prospect research skills can also be a crucial attribute for grant writing.

Having had two principal work functions, and sometimes more, as well as a sizable amount of success in grant writing with total foundation grants of $17,030,000 and total individual or family grants of $2,966,977, the researcher was intrigued by the ways of grant writing among other small colleges. Was Taylor University's method of having a dual-function, hence part-time, grant writer typical for colleges its size, or was it abnormal? Other management practices were a matter of curiosity as well. Accountability, partnerships with colleagues and professors, internal approval of proposals, writing style management, and editing approval were just a few of the management practices to be examined.

In the spring of 1995, the researcher began a master's program in Adult, Community, and Higher Education at Ball State University. The first and only class he took that semester was a grantsmanship course. He was encouraged to take this as his first course by his mother, a retired professor of education and English at Taylor University who also had written some proposals for Taylor on the side. Her track record of success and her knowledge of the researcher's talents inspired her to encourage him in this direction. After a few classes, the researcher's mother asked him what he thought about the class. He responded that he liked it, but he did not think he would ever use it. With this nonchalant attitude, he earned a "B" instead of an "A" in this class that he considered to be enjoyable but irrelevant. Little did the researcher know then that in the twists of time, he would soon become a grant proposal writer.

Like most grant writers, he did not set out to pursue this as a career, but his entry into higher education was facilitated by Taylor University's need for a grant writer/researcher. Unlike the prospect research side of his work, where there was an Indiana branch of a prospect research association and readily available and close workshops, etc., his baptism into grant writing did not involve the support of an association with a quarterly magazine and experienced colleagues around the state. Only in 2005, would he discover the existence of a small grant writing association, the American Association of Grant Professionals (AAGP), and even then the prospect of forming a Fort Wayne branch would prove fruitful only in having an informal support group of grant writers with no formal ties to the national association until June 2006 when this group formally joined the AAGP.

The researcher did take the aforementioned and foundational graduate-level class on grantsmanship from Dr. Peter Murk and experienced a few months worth of informal mentoring from Dr. Wendell McBurney, retired dean of research and sponsored programs and associate professor of education at Indiana Purdue University Indianapolis, whom Taylor University hired as a consultant for a special Lilly Endowment project. The researcher also benefited from the grant writing articles of Susan Golden in Contributions and the various fundraising articles in Currents passed around the office. But with those exceptions, the researcher guessed that his somewhat rough-hewn initiation into grant writing was probably typical of small colleges in which advancement division staff find themselves fulfilling more than one function.

Statement of the Problem

The problem with grant writing at a small college goes further than having makeshift training procedures. For some small colleges, the idea of grant writing success seems to be a tantalizing but ultimately demoralizing illusion. In his recent book, Grant Writing in Higher Education: A Step-by-Step Guide (2004), Kenneth T. Henson challenges grant writers and prospective grant writers to look at their willingness to internalize fulfilling attitudes about grant writing and cast away negative ones. To do this one must examine one's locus of control. Is it external, always reacting to and blaming others and circumstances, or is it internal and proactive? Part of having an internal, proactive locus of control as a grant writer is to abandon the negative attitude-producing myths that prevent success. Henson believes one of the chief myths is that available grant money goes solely to large and/or prestigious colleges and not to small ones. There is available money for small colleges; Henson himself is a dean at a moderately small college and has a great track record as a part-time grant writer. Credibility of producing successful grant-funded projects and programs is what enables colleges, whether large or small to achieve grant-writing success (Henson, 2004). But the mere fact that Henson felt compelled to address this as the second of his myths to destroy seems to indicate there is a definite lack of confidence among small colleges about grant writing.

If lack of proactive confidence was one problem among small colleges, then another was the lack of standard training procedures for new grant writers and a specifically college-oriented grant writers association as the researcher's experience would indicate. How should a small college train its incoming grant writer?

There was very little evidence specifically dealing with small colleges and their grant writing activities. Plenty of writing can be found on good general grant writing principles, some writing can be found on small college fundraising overall, but studies specifically examining small college grant writing seemed to be nonexistent.

Purpose of the Study and the Research Questions

The purpose of this study was to examine the grant writing activities of small independent colleges (colleges with 3,000 or fewer students on the main campus), discover their typical processes and personnel management, and see whether or not such colleges are encouraging effective grantsmanship as determined by general standards of grant writing found in reputable works on the subject.

The following research questions guided this study:

1. How many of the small colleges surveyed have a staff position solely dedicated to grant writing?
2. How many small colleges have formal training programs for incoming grant writers?
3. How supportive of grant writing are the advancement vice president, other high ranking advancement personnel, and the college president?
4. What quality control methods are used to ensure that proposals are well-written and believable?
5. How many of these colleges believe they have a successful grant writing program, and on what factors do they base their belief?
6. What are the crucial attributes for any successful grant writing program at a small college?
7. How do other small-college attributes such as religious affiliation, enrollment size, percentage of students who are members of minority groups, etc. affect grant seeking effectiveness?

Importance

This study is significant to the enhancement of small colleges. While small colleges are not the be all and end all of American education, nevertheless, they are an important component, and American education overall would hurt if this sector of it were to fail. Additionally, with the often rural nature of these colleges, such schools are often an important economic mainstay to their local regions, but being far from urban areas means much less access to a wide range of personal, business, and foundation wealth (Schuman, 2005).

For most of American history, these colleges were the central core of postsecondary opportunities (Schuman, 2005). Now only four to 10% of American college students attend such schools (Schuman, 2005). Some say small colleges are in danger of becoming peripheral to the American education scene. If so, this threatens not just small colleges themselves but the larger network of colleges and universities to which they belong. If this old thread is pulled from the fabric of our educational life, it is doubtful the entire cloth would unravel, but it would be much more dull and poor. Additionally, these colleges might be serving the role of canaries in a coal mine in our collegiate system. With their small size, they can respond more quickly to change since they have less weight and inertia than large universities. The challenges they face and the more joyful opportunities available to them could very well portend those that all colleges and universities will meet in the upcoming years (Schuman, 2005).

Yet with this important role, small colleges often have either struggling finances and/or very latent grant writing programs. From 1997 to July 2005, 27 small colleges closed their doors (Gross, 2005). Colleges of this size often have small endowments, small applicant pools, and need costly renovations for facilities and technology (Gross, 2005). While skillful grant writing at such colleges will not be a panacea, nevertheless, the new funding grant writing can bring will help these small colleges advance their ability to serve their students now and in the future.

If study variables prove to be significant descriptors of grant writing success or failure, small colleges could then utilize that data to operate grant writing programs that will improve their success at gaining grants. Since small colleges constantly need funds, it is crucial for them to realize how much good grant writing processes can help them achieve greater fund raising success.

Gaining grants can be a difficult process. The competition for grant funding is very fierce, and even the most successful colleges with experienced grant writers fail more than they succeed (Drozdowski, 2004b). Attracting either corporate or foundation dollars to rural, small colleges makes grant seeking even more difficult. Not having marquee sports programs that build a huge fan base, not having professional schools that attract executives' notice, and not releasing myriads of graduates into a region's economy each year create challenges for the small college that seeks grants (Drozdowski, 2004a).

Additionally, the advancement staff of many small colleges often perform multiple job functions. A grant writer might also be the prospect researcher, or for that matter, the alumni director. This individual who invests most of her time in alumni relations might occasionally be drafted to write a proposal in spite of her schedule and because she is the best writer among them. Even when a small college has one person devoted to only grant writing, such a writer usually has less support staff assistance and less access to grant writing resources and training due to a smaller overall budget than what a counterpart at a large research university will have.

Definitions of Terms

The terms below indicate their definitions as chosen for this study.

• Advancement - a general and common name for a college's fund raising department. Often this includes other programs which also help promote the institution such as university relations and the alumni office, but the central focus is usually fund raising (Willmer, 1980).
• Grant - a formal and major gift that usually comes from a foundation, corporation, or a governmental agency in response to a proposal.
• Grant writer - the person with most of the responsibility for preparing a grant proposal.
• Grant proposal - a document written to persuade a potential donor to give a grant.
• Liberal Arts I Colleges - "These institutions are primarily undergraduate schools with major emphasis on baccalaureate degree programs. They award 40 percent or more of the baccalaureate degrees in liberal arts fields and are restrictive in admissions" (Lee & Carroll, 2001).
• Liberal Arts II Colleges - "These institutions are primarily undergraduate schools with major emphasis on baccalaureate degree programs. They award less than 40 percent of their baccalaureate degrees in liberal arts fields or are less restrictive in admissions" (Lee & Carroll, 2001).
• Major gift - a gift of $5,000 or more (Taylor University Advancement Division).
• Small college - a college of 500 to 3,000 students at the main campus (Schuman, 2005).

Cautions and Limitation

A limitation of this study was that the survey only looked at the answers of small-college grant writers in Indiana and its surrounding states (Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois). Grant writing practices at small colleges in other parts of the country could conceivably be notably different. The results of this study may or may not be generalized to grant writers at all small colleges.

Summary of Chapter One and Previews

Chapter One introduced the reasons for studying grant writing practices at small colleges. The purpose of this study was to examine the grant writing activities of small colleges, discover their typical processes and personnel management, and see whether or not such colleges are encouraging effective grantsmanship as determined by general standards of grant writing found in reputable works on the subject.

The research questions that guided the survey of small college grant writers follow from the problem that little or no empirical evidence was available about the grant writing procedures and policies of small colleges. The results of this survey added to the research evidence about grant writing in small colleges and will inform grant writers about how their respective colleges' grant writing programs are similar to or different from peer institutions. It will also inform them about best practices available.

Some survey questions were exploratory and open-ended, adding a narrative element to the study.

Chapter Two created the context for this study by examining the available literature about small colleges, grant writing, and when possible, grant writing at small colleges. While much can be found on either grant writing in general or small colleges, the literature about grant writing at small colleges was very limited.

Chapter Three discussed the methodology, presenting the quantitative methods and procedures for the survey of small college grant writers.

Chapter Four presented the findings and analysis of the quantitative data and narrative evidence.

Chapter Five discussed the data and evidence and answered the seven research questions.

Chapter Six summarized the study, presented conclusions, recommended specific actions for and about grant writers at small colleges, and suggested related areas for future research.

Chapter Two: Review of the Literature

Internet Searches about Small Colleges and Grant Writing

Entering a search in Google for “small colleges”+grants produced about 55,400 hits. Conversely, the researcher found no hits for +grants+"small colleges." Based on the seeming success of the first search, one might think there is a lot of information about how to run an effective grant writing program at a small college. A few of the hits on the first pages were productive, and some were mildly tantalizing but only mentioned this or that occasional foundation that has a program aimed at small colleges. After the first few pages of hits, the researcher realized that most of these hits were very haphazard where grants or small colleges both happened to be mentioned but had no real connection to one another or very little connection.

The Google search of +"small colleges"+"grant writing" produced 2,090,000 hits, but it ended up being a similar experience to the first Google search. One might note that even focused Google searches can produce superficial results.

Since The Chronicle of Higher Education deals with all kinds of matters involving colleges large and small, searching its web site seemed to be the most logical next step. The Chronicle of Higher Education's web site is somewhat more productive than Google searches, but not much. A search for "grant writing" produced 13 hits, three of which were partially relevant (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2007).

A search for +"small colleges"+"grant writing" produced no hits. Switching the order of the terms did nothing. Searching for +grants+"small colleges" produced 21 hits, one of which was partially relevant. Switching the order produced 70 hits, three of which were relevant. A search for "small colleges" alone produced the same exact 70 hits, which did not say much for the accuracy of The Chronicle of Higher Education's internal search engine (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2007).

Looking around this publication's web site led the researcher to a regular column called "The Fund Raiser." This column by Mark J. Drozdowski proved to be productive in looking at grant writing, and even somewhat involving grant writing at small colleges. However, this is not by any means the sole focus of this column. So even with The Chronicle of Higher Education web site one can only find so much information about grant writing at small colleges (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2007).

The listserv CRFNet (http://cfrnet.wustl.edu/) is a valuable resource utilized by corporate and foundation relations officers, other grant writers, and even some program officers and other staff of foundations and corporate giving programs. There is good solid advice given from colleague to colleague in this listserv. Many topics of interest come along with the regular but controlled flow of listserv email. One can also utilize the CFRNet web site to search for topics. To be most specific, one must click the button by "all of these words." Unfortunately, one must do this every time before clicking search. Otherwise, the web site reverts the search automatically back to "any" of these words (CFRNet, 2007).

A search for "small colleges" gave 274 results. However, even many of these hits were incidental, such as a quick mention of a seminar at a CASE (The Council for Advancement and Support of Education) conference on corporate fund raising by small liberal arts colleges, meetings of affinity groups at such conferences, or quick self-descriptions of the questioners' colleges. Additionally, the search did not keep "small colleges" united as a phrase, but it looked for both "small" and "college" as separate words, hindering its effectiveness (CFRNet, 2007).

The more focused search of "small colleges"+foundations brought 119 hits, including a productive thread about relationships between development offices and sponsored projects. But even with these more productive hits, incidental hits were still numerous. Although it is a great resource for grant writers with some information about small college matters, CFRNet eventually is limited in the information it can provide about small colleges and grant writing (CFRNet, 2007).

Empirical Studies of Small-College Grant Writing Practices

Thus far there seem to be no empirical studies involving small colleges and grant writing directly as a unified subject. Additionally, as Dr. James L. Pyle, Assistant Vice President for Research at Ball State University, has noted, other than quick, incidental references there is very little literature about grant writing and higher education in general (J.L. Pyle, personal communication, September 18, 2006).

Some literature can be found about small colleges and general fund raising, but published research has also tended to focus on reducing expenses instead of increasing revenue for small independent colleges (Willmer, 1980).

Educational Grant Writing

Grant Writing in Higher Education (2004) by Kenneth Henson is an excellent study of how post-secondary educators can implement grant writing into their lives to benefit themselves and their institutions, but it really does not specifically focus on small colleges. Nor does it address the formal fundraising of the advancement division. Its main focus is faculty research grants. While these are important, they certainly do not have as much impact as the grants for larger, often capital projects or programs which can have an institution-wide influence. Nevertheless, this book is an invaluable resource for the collegiate grant writer, regardless of the size of the college. One of Henson’s most crucial insights is how to promote one’s own college after receiving a grant by publishing an article about the grant, thus increasing publicity and dissemination of the grant-funded program and increasing the likelihood the funder will want to give a grant again. The researcher of this study relied upon this book more indirectly than directly. It served as a general guide and as a starting point for further research.

Old Main: Small Colleges in Twenty-First Century America (2005) by Samuel Schuman looks at the 600 or so colleges in America that enroll between 500 and 3,000 students. Utilizing his own background as a professor and administrator, Schuman looks at the history and development of these colleges and then examines their present conditions and possibilities for the future (Eduexec, 2005). While looking at the broad spectrum of issues for small colleges, essential for those seeking to understand and assist such schools, this book does not specifically focus on grants for such institutions. The book does, however, examine fund raising, funding, and programming issues, all of which are affected by grants. Its bibliography is a fine resource for further research into works about the various issues facing small colleges, including fund raising.

The 1995 book, Strategic Marketing for Educational Institutions, (2^nd ed.), by Philip Kotler and Karen F.A. Fox, actually focuses more on public relations than fundraising in general or grant writing in particular, but what it says about these subjects is perceptive (Kotler & Fox, 1995).

Major gift fundraising is usually most effective when a college has created a list of exciting projects and endowment opportunities and lets the prospective donor view the list. Naming opportunities and a variety of gift sizes appeal to donors. A well thought-out but concise proposal can be handy in dealing with such grantors (Kotler & Fox, 1995).

After identifying many foundations that could be highly interested in its project, a college must try to determine a foundation's interest level before investing much time in preparing proposals. Most foundations will respond to a phone call, inquiry letter, or personal visit to determine their interest. If the foundation official is encouraging, the college then can invest the needed time for preparing a full proposal (Kotler & Fox, 1995).

Normally, each proposal should have the following:

1. A cover letter depicting the proposal’s history and who has been contacted in the foundation,
2. The proposal itself, describing the program and its importance and uniqueness,
3. The program budget, and
4. The program personnel with their resumes (Kotler & Fox, 1995).

Among the most frequent foundation criteria to judge proposals are these:

1. The program’s importance and quality,
2. The college’s need and worthiness,
3. The college’s ability to utilize the grant efficiently and effectively,
4. The importance of satisfying the proposers,
5. The amount of benefit the foundation will receive in supporting the college, and
6. The program contribution as it serves as a model for other colleges (Kotler & Fox, 1995).

Colleges should contact foundations more often than just when a specific proposal is being delivered. They should cultivate foundations in advance of proposals to establish shared interests between a college and a foundation. Key college people can meet their counterparts in the foundation, or college board members can cultivate foundation board members. Likewise a college should present a proposal to exactly the right person at a foundation because of her knowledge of it and relationship with it. This relationship building and special understanding that has been cultivated will give the wise college an edge in securing grants (Kotler & Fox, 1995).

Corporate donations differ from foundation giving in three ways. First, firms treat giving as a minor activity that varies depending on current and expected profits. Second, businesses are much more interested in the benefits, whether direct or indirect, that any grant could return to them such as increased goodwill, increased product exposure, or an increase in the type of subject graduates that they hire. Third, firms can make more types of donations through goods and services as well as money (Kotler & Fox, 1995).

The best prospects for corporate giving have the following characteristics:

1. Local firms who can utilize continuing education opportunities from the college or who have many alumni working for them,
2. Similar activities shared such as accounting firms donating to accounting education, etc.,
3. Declared support areas such as faculty research, scholarships, etc.,
4. Large donors who have more money to distribute,
5. Personal relationships between key corporate and college personnel, and
6. Specific abilities such as a scientific instrument company being solicited for a gift of laboratory equipment (Kotler & Fox, 1995).

Government grants often involve a university appointing a director of contracts and grants, which include those from both governmental and nongovernmental sources. This staff person cultivates opportunities for such funding and monitors announcements of opportunities both for the institution at large and to specific faculty and other researchers (Kotler & Fox, 1995).

Kotler and Fox's belief in cultivating governmental opportunities seems to fly in the face of some of this study's survey respondents who stressed the less personal nature and more objective nature of governmental funding processes. Dr. Henry D. Voss, Taylor University Physics Professor, Acting Director of the Science Research Training Program, and successful small-college research grant writer, concurred with the idea that governmental agencies need some cultivating. He believed in his case cultivating should even play more of a role, but his experience and previous success have been crucial. Dr. Voss calls the prospective funding agency once or twice to make sure he is on the right path with their guidelines (H.D. Voss, personal communication, April 30, 2007).

After a proposal is objectively approved by the review committee, cultivation can then make a difference. It helps to break the ice with the program officers, and delivering promised results to the program officers makes them look good. While one should not lobby too much and be an annoyance, nevertheless, cultivation helps. Dr. Voss also pointed out that collaboration with other colleges and businesses probably makes a big difference in the success of proposals (H.D. Voss, personal communication, April 30, 2007).

In addition to the importance of cultivating and satisfying reviewers' objective criteria, there are other important means of achieving grant writing success. By using CFRNet, the researcher found a succinct and valuable guide for measuring the effectiveness of educational grant writing. This document is called "Corporate & Foundation Relations in Educational Institutions: 10 Measures of Effectiveness." A summary of the ten measures follows:

1. OBJECTIVES. Did staff members accomplish their objectives? What was the impact of their activities, and how did they measure this effect? Did they measure unsuccessful objectives and refocus efforts on more productive actions?
2. INCOME. How do overall foundation and corporate gifts compare with previous years? Using a three-year rolling average to allow for lengthy review cycles and limitations on proposal frequency, is average revenue increasing or decreasing? How much of the change is due to staff?
3. SOLICITATION. How many submitted proposals were timed correctly, targeted to receptive prospects, and submitted to grantors with the highest ability and inclination to give? What was the success rate for planned or fulfilled solicitations?
4. EXTERNAL RELATIONSHIPS. How often did the staff cultivate and steward relationships using the communication mode preferred by the grantor? How did they ensure proposal quality and contribute to a consistent and positive image of the college?
5. FACULTY ENGAGEMENT. How many professors received pertinent Requests for Proposals (RFPs)? How many professors submitted proposals? How often did staff act to prove their responsiveness to faculty inquiries? How often did staff guide, strategize, edit, proofread, research, or translate technical text?
6. FOCUS. How many of the prospects were solicited for college priorities? How many solicitations proceeded within the projected timeframe?
7. INTERNAL RELATIONSHIPS. How often did staff promote collegiality, gain and share institutional knowledge, or protect the institution's financial and legal interests? Did staff create or advance relationships that helped gain grants and get recognized for such grants?
8. CAPACITY BUILDING. How often did staff identify new grantors, determine institutional fit with funding priorities, and stay informed about changes in funding interests? What did staff do to teach professors, administrators, and senior leaders to enhance grant seeking strategy, proposal writing, and knowledge of prospects? Did staff attend and apply knowledge learned from professional development opportunities?
9. TEAMWORK. What percentage of proposals required much effort from more than one staff member? How often did staff arrange meetings, calls, or letters for campus leaders? How well did they brief the participants?
10. OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS. In what ways and how often did new knowledge gained by staff assist the overall fundraising effort (Gregory, 2006)?

While measure number two, income, is the most important, effectiveness with the other measures helps to determine how much gift income is received.

Colleges and Research Grants

Project Kaleidoscope (http://pkal.org/) is a fine resource for learning about research grants and facilities for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics as well as building strong undergraduate programs in those fields. Its publications page includes articles that can be used as evidence for proposals. In addition to curricular and other information, their document index under the “Financial Resources” heading includes helpful articles about fundraising, grants, and proposal writing (Project Kaleidoscope, 2007).

Distinctively American: The Residential Liberal Arts College (2000), edited by Steven Koblik and Stephen R. Graubard, examines both the broader issues of small colleges and the increasing role of research there. Crucial chapters include “The Threats to Liberal Arts Colleges,” which among other issues looks at the growing tendency for small colleges to pursue research, an issue directly related to grants, and “The Future Economic Challenges for the Liberal Arts Colleges.” Both chapters deal with the liberal arts college (by which they almost always mean small ones), the pressures of the marketplace, and marketing the liberal arts. These issues definitely affect grant writing.

Another chapter, “How the Liberal Arts College Affects Students,” by noted higher education scholar Alexander Astin, also examines the trend toward more research. The increase in emphasis on research among small colleges directly affects grant writing, since the small-college professors who gain research grants can actually and periodically start to rival the advancement office in the amount of grant funds they receive. This is an aspect of small-college grant writing meriting further research.

In an article entitled "Prof Potential Pays," author Paul Solyn suggests that small college fundraisers consider their faculty to be a development resource. By that he means that small colleges should have a faculty and advancement partnership where professors help attract grant funds.

To develop such a partnership requires work, especially since teaching loads probably leave little time for seeking grants. Solyn suggests the following:

• Know your faculty's backgrounds and professional interests so you can know which professors to contact when grant opportunities become available,
• Let professors know you are interested in their work so they will become more interested when you mention proposal opportunities in their fields,
• Research the funding source and handle all the paperwork,
• Help them with preparing the proposals but let them do the writing. If need be, to speed the editing process have them send you the material in rough draft form,
• Keep yourself and professors informed about deadlines and their nearness,
• Be especially supportive of grant proposals that address overall college needs and plans,
• Be willing to pursue government grants in spite of the red tape, and
• Put faculty members in direct contact with program officers since they like to deal with the primary investigator (Solyn, 1981).

For general information about colleges and research grants, Dr. James L. Pyle, Assistant Vice President for Research at Ball State University, suggested the researcher look at the following web sites:

• The Society of Research Administrators International (SRA) (http://www.srainternational.org/),
• National Council of University and Research Administrators (NCURA) (http://www.ncura.edu/),
• The Council for Undergraduate Research (CUR) (http://www.cur.org/), and
• The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Undergraduate Research (DUR) (http://www.nsf.gov/div/index.jsp?div=DUE) (J.L. Pyle, personal communication, September 18, 2006).

The SRA publishes The Journal of Research Administrators. Additionally, it has resources for research grant writers, such as its Grants Web (http://www.srainternational.org/newweb/grantsweb/index.cfm), which provides links to information sources and governmental and private grantors. Another useful mine of information is their General Research Administrators Resources (http://www.srainternational.org/newweb/grantsweb/index.cfm?GrantsWebID=23&TitleID=23&SubTitleID=1&GroupID=1&SubGroupID=1) (J.L. Pyle, personal communication, September 18, 2006).

NCURA publishes the Research Management Review, another scholarly journal about the research environment and research administration (J.L. Pyle, personal communication, September 18, 2006).

The CUR has more of a connection to small colleges than these other groups since it does focus on undergraduates, just like most small independent colleges. Its publication is The CUR Quarterly (J.L. Pyle, personal communication, September 18, 2006).

The NSF Division of Undergraduate Research seeks to advance undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Like other divisions of the NSF, it provides grant proposal guides, guides about awards management, information about its various grant programs, and numerous publications (J.L. Pyle, personal communication, September 18, 2006).

While these various organizations are more geared to research administrators than grant writers, they can have good articles about grant writing within their respective publications.

For example, a 1998 article by William E. Campbell in The Journal of Research Administration, "Writing Proposals with Faculty: A Strategy for Funding at Small Undergraduate Teaching Institutions," explains how he started and succeeded with an office of grants and research at a relatively small state school in Wisconsin. To encourage faculty interest in sponsored research, he offered them a streamlined approval, copying, and mailing process. His motto said, "Bring me a proposal with approval form signed by the department chair and dean, and we will do the rest"(Campbell, 1998).

Campbell also offered faculty a monthly newsletter about grant news, funding opportunities, and a list of grant awards and proposals submitted. He assisted faculty with editing, developing budgets, contacting funding agency personnel, and other administrative work the faculty might dislike (Campbell, 1998).

He wrote proposals with faculty as well, and this service turned out to be the most important one they offered. Since most faculty at his teaching-based college had little or no experience with proposals, he found that writing proposals with them helped to draw them in. Besides building their confidence and providing them experience, collaboratively written proposals are more likely to succeed (Campbell, 1998).

Campbell believes that he can and should share his expertise and experience in presenting his views, but the principal investigator must have the final say about proposals. Additionally, credit for research grant awards should go to the principal investigator(s). The grant writer can be rewarded later when totaling the proposals submitted and grants awarded in the annual report for the grants office (Campbell, 1998).

A 2004 article in the Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly, “NSF’s RUI Grant: Advice on Writing Competitive Proposals,” by Sally Koutsoliotas is a focused look at NSF proposals for undergraduate programs. The acronym RUI stands for Research in Undergraduate Institutions. Koutsoliotas believes each proposal has two main tasks: developing a plan and making it clear. She believes developing the plan is the harder of the two tasks (Koutsoliotas, 2004).

A part of the plan is identifying the theme, the most important part of the proposal. The research plan must meld into the context of the larger and current questions in one’s field. The plan must connect with current knowledge. Otherwise, the best-written proposal will not receive funds if the research is not pertinent or is without merit. Additionally, projects in a proposal must fit the proposal theme and not be an irrelevant wish list of intended studies (Koutsoliotas, 2004).

After finishing the plan and then starting on the second phase of the proposal, making it clear, the author suggests that readers study the NSF Grant Proposal Guide and the RUI Program announcement. When grant writers come to the RUI Impact Statement, they need to utilize it to describe their colleges’ academic environments and place the proposed work in context. With many reviewers coming from large research universities, the absence of graduate students and post-doctoral associates in a primarily undergraduate small college can be a stark surprise to them (Koutsoliotas, 2004).

While small colleges can succeed in obtaining research grants, a perceptive but jaded article about government grants, “Why Grants.gov Should Be Abolished,” lets prospective research grant writers know the process will not necessarily be smooth (Kolmerten, 2007).

The goal of Grants.gov is to manage all federal grants through project submissions, information, etc. All federal agencies are supposed to implement Grants.gov as their award and proposal management systems over the next few years. The system is supposed to receive a proposal, notify the submitter, and send it to the pertinent agency among the several dozen with serious external funding programs, but it is now clear that the agencies lack the computer systems to carry this out (Pyle, 2007).

In her article, Kolmerten believes this difficult and cumbersome system was designed to only allow large universities with grants offices to submit proposals. One does not have to believe this paranoid scenario, however, to realize she raises some very legitimate objections to Grants.gov. One is the sheer amount of time it now takes to submit a federal proposal. In one example, Kolmerten took 25 hours to submit a proposal to the National Institutes of Health through Grants.gov, and she received 37 error messages in the process. After all of this, she still was not sure if the proposal had made it through (Kolmerten, 2007).

Small colleges often do not have a group of workers, or at least more than a few, who can be devoted to deciphering jargon or making their way to the end of the Grants.gov maze. She states her job had been pleasant until Grants.gov came along, and now it is very annoying. With all the time required, mandated software that her college’s information technology department does not support, and a Grants.gov help desk that does not know all of its own internal jargon, the application process now takes longer than preparing the proposal. With such problems, Kolmerten believes most small colleges will eventually stop trying to submit federal proposals (Kolmerten, 2007).

As Dr. Pyle’s article shows, Grants.gov has evidently been a burden for more than just small college grant writers. Also it does not present an absolute and insurmountable difficulty for small colleges. Dr. Henry D. Voss, Taylor University Physics Professor, Acting Director of the Science Research Training Program, and successful small-college research grant writer, has sent in his two most recent proposals via Grants.gov and thought they went through pretty well. Ironically, some larger universities who had been collaborating with Taylor University had trouble with the process due to complications with their finance departments (H.D. Voss, personal communication, April 30, 2007).

Either Grants.gov has been enhanced after the Pyle and Kolmerten articles, or perhaps Taylor University had two unusually good experiences with Grants.gov.

General Grant Writing Guides

While writing proposals for governmental agencies can be very complicated and cumbersome, other proposals tend to be simpler, and there are a number of good general grant writing guides available.

“Writing Grant Proposals and Securing Funding,” a chapter by Dr. Peter Murk from Enhancing Organizational Effectiveness in Adult and Community Education (2000), by Gary Dean, Peter Murk, and Tony Del Prete is the first of a number of good sources about grant writing in general. Dr. Murk’s chapter provides a broad overview of the grant world to beginners, focusing on funding sources, preliminary steps to grant writing, descriptions of letters of inquiry and the full proposal, a very detailed look at the parts of the proposal narrative, and the post-application process. Dr. Murk also provides a list of publications and websites for the grant seeker, thus expanding research possibilities as well. Although this chapter is aimed at beginners, it is quite useful for writers as a source of review and pragmatic guidance about how to organize and clarify the parts of a proposal and the letter of inquiry.

Dr. Murk’s main text for his grantsmanship class at Ball State University, The Foundation Center’s Guide to Proposal Writing (1993) by Jane C. Geever and Patricia McNeill, is similar in emphasis to Dr. Murk’s “Writing Grant Proposals and Securing Funding.” This entire book, however, is longer and has the luxury of space to provide actual examples of proposals. The first edition of this book does provide an example of an executive summary written by the Christian College Coalition, now the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, a consortium of mainly small Christian colleges. While there is food for thought for small colleges in looking at that example of good writing, the scope of this book is broadly focused on grants in general. The writing examples it provides build the overall knowledge base of the grant writing field.

Another good source of general grant writing information is The “How To” Grants Manual: Successful Grantseeking Techniques for Obtaining Public and Private Grants (2003) by David G. Bauer. This book focuses on an increasingly competitive field for grant seekers, one in which stock market gains and market share gains do not come about as easily for foundations and firms. In such a climate of increased competition, competitive proposals are a must. Bauer also emphasizes the growing desire of funders to give to consortia that offer either interdisciplinary opportunities or cost savings through the sharing of resources. With the current emphasis on accountability, partnering, and cost reduction in academia, Bauer’s emphasis on consortia and team building in grant writing helps build the field’s knowledge base.

The 1991 book, Strategic Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations, (4^th ed.), by Philip Kotler and Alan R. Andreasen, has sections about grant writing and approaches it and overall fund raising from a marketing perspective.

Searching for the major gift from individual donors is the most important part of fund raising for many organizations. A process model used for individuals can also apply to foundations. It involves five steps: identification, introduction, cultivation, solicitation, and appreciation (Kotler & Andreasen, 1991). Using such a long-term model of dealing with donors is an example of strategic marketing and can be an important tool when applied to grant seeking.

Strategic marketing is not just for the corporate world. It applies to nonprofits as well. A sign that a nonprofit has shifted from a sales orientation to a strategic marketing one is when it moves from seeing potential grantors as targets to seeing them as partners in a relationship. The idea of partnering is important if one’s college is to reach the “strategic marketing stage.” It is preceded by the “sales orientation stage” and the “product orientation stage.” In the “product orientation stage” the main attitude is that the college is a good cause and donors should support them. Money is raised by top officers through an informal network, and volunteers help raise additional money. A few stalwart donors supply most of the money (Kotler & Andreasen, 1991, p. 280-281).

The “sales orientation stage” shows the outlook that there is a large audience of potential donors and the college most go out there and find them. Here the college has a development director and staff, but they have little influence on the college since they only raise money, usually in an overly aggressive manner, and do not focus also on improving the organization. Most nonprofits are in this stage (Kotler & Andreasen, 1991, p. 280).

In the “strategic marketing stage,” the college analyzes its market position, focuses on donors whose interests best match the institution, and then designs development programs and solicitations to satisfy each donor group. To do this, the college must segment the donor marketplace, measure the potential of each donor market, assign responsibility for developing each market, and create a budget and plan for each niche market based on its potential. This stage is one a college moves into as it becomes knowledgeable about the differences between a sales method and a marketing method (Kotler & Andreasen, 1991, p. 280).

Along with the emphasis on relationships as being a key to strategic marketing, the grant proposal package's cover letter should describe the history of the proposal and mention people within the foundation or other grantor have already been contacted. Additionally, this stress on personal ties and people should also cause the proposal package to mention the personnel involved in the project along with their resumes. The proposal must be customer-centered like any other marketing material. While the grant writer must pay specific attention to the grantor's specific guidelines, common criteria are the following:

1. Project importance and quality,
2. The need and worthwhile nature of the nonprofit,
3. The nonprofit's ability to use the grant efficiently and effectively,
4. The importance of satisfying those who are doing the proposing, and
5. How much the grantor will benefit from funding the proposal (Kotler & Andreasen, 1991).

Although it deals a little with donor strategy, a book which focuses more specifically on the mechanics of grant proposals is Joseph Barbato's How to Write Knockout Proposals: What You Must Know (and Say) to Win Funding Every Time. Foreword writer, Joel J. Orosz, a former program director for the Kellogg Foundation, says the following about Barbato's work:

Funding sources are too often a black box. Proposals are inserted in one end, and after a long wait, grants (or more likely, rejection letters) come out the other end. Think of this book as an invaluable guide to the inside of that black box (Barbato, 2004).

In only 124 pages and 53 very brief chapters, Barbato mainly examines the mechanics of grant proposal writing and how to create an effective, grant-winning proposal. Among his tips are the following:

• Always individualize proposals to fit the grantor's goals,
• Use layman's language. If need be, remind program stakeholders who are overly fond of jargon that you are writing for non-experts,
• Hence, keep your writing simple and direct,
• Make certain the proposal can stand alone in case reviewers never see the proposal letter,
• Prove your nonprofit is the best one to carry out the project goal,
• Know your nonprofit's strengths,
• Save your grantor work. Organize the proposal and table of contents as logically and clearly as possible, and
• Prevent misguided reviewers with non-productive agendas from hindering the ultimate goal: creating a persuasive proposal that gets funded (Barbato, 2004).

His advice about what grantors specifically want to see in proposals includes the following:

• Express clearly your goal, your nonprofit's identity, and why it is worthy of support,
• Be to-the-point,
• Make certain the project fits their guidelines,
• Research,
• Gather evidence,
• Be completely understandable,
• Read your own proposal through many times,
• Let someone outside your field review your draft,
• Plan out your budget and ideas for future funding, and
• Express a passionate belief in the project (Barbato, 2004).

Although his main focus is the written proposal itself, Barbato briefly touches upon the importance of cultivating funders as a means of individualizing proposals. An effective proposal must meet the needs and philanthropic goals of a prospective donor. Researching foundations, firms, and individuals is the first step toward finding those grantors with guidelines that match your need. After finding a donor with a common interest, call the prospect and suggest meeting to talk about the shared concern. Most likely, a solid relationship will start. Most of the competition brings projects of only slight interest to the prospect. By reaching out with a project that meets the donor's granting goals and needs, a nonprofit will have a notable advantage (Barbato, 2004).

Of course, with individual donors, one often does not know the exact interest. A donor who has been cultivated might have mentioned areas of disinterest more than interest. To find the areas of interest, visiting and providing a short list with brief descriptions of program areas in need of funding can help whet the grantor's appetite. This is similar to what Kotler and Fox emphasize (1995). Even with just an inkling of the grantor's main interest areas, one can incorporate aspects of his thoughts. If the grantor expresses strong interest in one idea, writing a full proposal can start (Barbato, 2004).

In addition to discussing a common interest or presenting a selection of funding ideas, meeting with donors can even engage them in the process of developing the proposal. This helps to win their full understanding. Then donors not only understand the proposal, but they help create it and have ownership in it. Of course, this ideal in cultivating is not easily or often attained, but it is what to do when the program strongly matches a grantor's guidelines and promises important outcomes (Barbato, 2004).

Even if grantors will not go to this extreme of working on the proposal with the grant writer, simply meeting them in advance will provide opportunities to speak directly with them about program attributes and excellence. Another way to help funders understand is to have one or two notable persons write letters of support. This strategy not only provides outside endorsement, but it also can describe a college's virtues in ways that would seem like bragging in a proposal (Barbato, 2004).

While Barbato deals with cultivation as a way to enhance the proposal, Susan Golden places more emphasis on the cultivation itself. Her book, Secrets of Successful Grantsmanship: A Guerilla Guide to Raising Money, goes far beyond the mechanics of grant writing to the overall world of what she calls grant seeking (Golden, 1997).

To Golden, good research is a must, and so are good proposals, but in and of themselves they are not sufficient to generate grants. Relationships are the key to success in securing grants. She calls this the "relationship model of grantseeking." The secret is to concentrate on establishing and maintaining good relationships with grantmakers (Golden, 1997).

Grant winners and losers differ in two ways. First, winners usually perceive the grant seeking process as highly personal. Grant awards follow more from ongoing dialogue with grantors than from proposals, which only matter as they document agreements between grantmakers and grantseekers. Second, winners view the grantseeking process as continuous rather than as a series of mainly separate events (Golden, 1997). This emphasis on continual contact is similar to Kotler and Fox (1995), but Golden develops this idea much further (Golden, 1997).

One need not go to the extreme of thinking that proposals are only documents of agreement to see the virtues of Golden's approach.

Grant writers should view grantmakers as a customer group. Help the grantmakers advance their agenda and make them look good. This is similar to Barbato's (2004) emphasis on meeting the needs and philanthropic goals of a prospective donor. Golden, however, also stresses the importance of starting donor relationships and all of the preparation that entails (Golden, 1997).

To Golden (1997), there are three reasons to write proposals:

1. When one has evidence the proposal will result in an immediate or eventual grant,
2. When one is trying to discover a way to speed planning for a project, and
3. When one wants to start a dialogue and the grant award is secondary.

Golden (1997) is also a firm believer in what she calls advocacy, persuading the grantmaker that one's nonprofit and project are more deserving of grants than those of others. This goes beyond and is more systematic than Barbato's (2004) stress on support letters. For advocacy, a nonprofit needs advocates, people of influence who are not heavy handed. Her examples of possible advocates include the following:

• Legislators,
• Chamber of commerce members,
• School board members, and
• Other public figures who are interested in one's nonprofit (Golden, 1997).

Advocates could also include other program officers or executives, or program officers with another foundation or organization they partner with. To be effective, advocates must have credibility, connections (particularly ongoing relationships with grantmakers), and knowledge. Grantseekers should provide advocates with ultra-concise versions of the grant proposal (Golden, 1997).

Such a comprehensive grantseeking program is not a quick fix, but it will prove to be profitable (Golden, 1997).

The Viewpoint of Foundations about Grants

Two references from the point of view of foundations are How Foundations Work: What Grantseekers Need to Know About the Many Faces of Foundations (1998) by Dennis P. McIlnay and The Insider’s Guide to Grantmaking: How Foundations Find, Fund, and Manage Effective Programs (2000) by Joel J. Orosz.

Orosz’ book was sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation where he worked as a program director. Orosz currently is the Distinguished Professor of Philanthropic Studies in the Grantmaking School at Grand Valley State University. His book spends limited space on the history and work of foundations and the purpose of foundation program officers. Most of the content, though, investigates the interaction of foundations with grant applicants; hence, Orosz’ view of the grant writing world is not just a unique personal viewpoint, but rather a source of experience and wisdom in judging the value of proposals and the institutions behind those proposals (Orosz, 2000).

This interaction with applicants means that grant making is always a relational enterprise, with program officers bouncing back and forth between their two roles of sentry against bad ideas and steward who see the possibilities in good plans and proposals. Good cultivation can save much time and trouble by discovering a foundation’s view of the applicant’s idea before preparing the proposal (Orosz, 2000).

Additionally, good proposal writing is important because most of the good ideas imparted to foundations are not packaged in well-written proposals. Hence, if one has explored an idea with a foundation during personal cultivation and that foundation likes it, a skillful grant writer will gain an edge over other good ideas that are presented in a mediocre or poor way (Orosz, 2000).

McIlnay’s book focuses somewhat less than Orosz’ on the interaction between foundations and grant seekers. Instead, it looks at the various roles of foundations.Individual chapters cover these roles, looking at foundations as judges, editors, citizens, activists, entrepreneurs, and partners. McIlnay sees his audience as both fundraisers and nonprofit managers. He believes this book will please practitioners since it offers rare insights from foundation program officers themselves, thus helping grant seekers “rise above the pedestrian information in the how-to-get-grants literature.” He believes that raising money from foundations necessitates deeply understanding them (McIlnay, xiii, 1998).

Part of this understanding involves realizing how much emphasis foundations place on clarity in grant proposals. Many foundation officers list clear proposals as their first criteria to grade. Poorly written proposals are a frequent mistake. Additionally, to foundations, a proposal’s clarity indicates the applying organization’s ability to communicate clearly, think clearly, express the reasons for a project clearly, and fulfill and complete the proposed project (McIlnay, 1998).

Too often grant writers focus on just technique. McIlnay and Orosz’ books help grantwriters look at their craft from the viewpoints of the funders, the ultimate “customers,” thus building the research base in a most practical way. Additionally, their emphasis on good proposals, which Golden (1997) to her credit does admit are needed, are more than merely documents of agreement.

Currents Articles about Small-College Advancement

The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) publishes a quality journal about advancement in education called Currents. In 1981, Currents had an entire issue devoted to “The Small Shop.” While its articles mainly focused on small colleges, some of them were written by advancement professionals at preparatory schools. The articles range the gamut of advancement functions with only one focusing on grant writing (The small shop [the entire issue], 1981).

In 1983, a portion of an issue of Currents was entitled “Fantastic Feats of Fund Raising: Small College Success Stories.” This section had four informative articles, but none of them dealt specifically with grant writing at small colleges (Woodroof, Borr, Stone and Carroll, and Crouch, 1983).

Empirical Studies about Small-College Advancement

Foundation Fund-Raising by Private Liberal Arts Colleges (1983), a dissertation by Bruce Alan Mack, is the closest thing to a solid match between the subject areas of grant writing and small colleges. His study examined Liberal Arts II Colleges to determine grant income and purposes of foundation grants, pinpoint definite factors seen as helpful in capturing foundation grants, and create a model for improving a college’s ability at gaining foundation funds. This study, however, is more interested in the non-grant writing factors in dealing with foundations; i.e., relationship building, foundation location, college location, college quality, and long range planning. Grant writing quality is added as just one of these six factors in obtaining grants. While the other five factors are certainly noteworthy, and while Mack does touch upon grant writing quality, nevertheless, it is not his main focus (Mack, 1983).

Although his research points out that colleges should have a designated foundation person who is not also the head of advancement, he does not use the term “grant writer” to describe this person. His work approaches the process from the perspective of a vice president for advancement looking at overall departmental goals. This is a useful viewpoint, but it does not provide one with the nuts and bolts of daily small-college grant writing. This is not a criticism of his study’s quality. He merely looks at foundation matters from a different perspective than a grant writer such as this researcher. His work is thorough and invaluable research about small college fund raising, a field not necessarily abundant in sources (Mack, 1983).

Mack examined two groups of colleges: Group A and Group B. Group A was more successful, and Group B was less. At both Group A and Group B colleges, the head development person was responsible for preparing and submitting the proposal. Faculty at Group A colleges and presidents at Group B colleges were also involved in preparing proposals (Mack, 1983).

It is critical to have much personal contact with foundations. Even so, the personal factors in dealing with foundations are needed but are not as important as nonpersonal ones such as proposal quality, long-range planning, and time spent researching foundations. Even development road representatives did not view the personal aspect as the main feature in working with foundations. Development representatives suggested there is only one good way to expand contact with foundations: hiring a full-time foundation person (Mack, 1983).

Even with a full-time foundation individual, foundation fund raising is a group process. Each person on the team to visit foundations has a specific role. Business managers, deans of students, and professors also played an internal part by helping to write proposals, and academic deans and business managers monitored the academic and business aspects of the proposals (Mack, 1983).

Mack found that foundation trustees and then colleagues were the main source of information about potential recipients; peers at other foundations were the next source in importance (Mack, 1983).

The most active colleges in foundation relations maintain a lot of personal contact. Peer relationships between foundation trustees and college ones and such relationships between foundation trustees and college presidents were critical (Mack, 1983).

Quality of proposals was the most important factor in securing foundation grants.Long range planning and time invested in foundation research were next in importance. Foundation officials say that colleges do not invest enough time into researching foundations. It is also helpful to have a head of advancement with long tenure and relationships between foundation officers and development staff (Mack, 1983).

Around half of the foundation grants were in the $1,000 to $5,000 category. Even considering that the purchasing power of a dollar in 1983 was higher than now, it seems incredible that so many foundation gifts were in such a meager dollar range. At least 50% of foundation support came from the over $50,000 category of gifts (Mack, 1983).

Mack created a four-stage model about procedures and techniques used to obtain foundation support:

Stage One: Research Phase: Research information was collected especially by main advancement officers and also involved the president. Group A (the better group) used their presidents more than Group B. Group A also used referrals from foundations who had already given.

Stage Two: Planning Phase: Identifying appropriate personnel to be involved is crucial. Advancement people are primary. Presidents and trustees are the only highly involved non-advancement people, and they are used for personal contacts. Group B (the less successful group) utilized a broader base of people in this stage and relied chiefly on foundation research instead of referrals.

Stage Three: Implementation Phase: In this phase, the colleges provide information instead of asking for it. In other words, they submit the proposal. The chief advancement leader prepares, submits, and monitors. Non-advancement people help prepare or monitor.

Stage Four: Results Phase: The proposal is accepted, rejected, or retained for future consideration. Foundation officers point out two crucial factors: 1. The college’s skill in proving a bona fide need for the grant and 2. Proof it can implement the proposed project (Mack, 1983).

Other findings by Mack include the following:

• Previous success does not enhance a college’s chances,
• Colleges going after capital support and endowment (areas of few grants) can increase the odds of receiving large foundation grants ($50,000 or more),
• Foundation research and utilizing personal contacts with foundation officials for referrals are both crucial,
• A designated development person should be the foundation fund raiser. This designated person should not be the chief development leader, and
• The president should be utilized carefully, so should other crucial non-development people.

A 1985 dissertation by Mary Glennon, Fund Raising in Small Colleges: Strategies for Success, is another close match between the subjects of small colleges and grant writing. Glennon surveyed 175 independent colleges with full-time undergraduate enrollment of 1,000 or less. She submitted the responses to inferential and descriptive statistical procedures and used the percentage of education and general revenue raised by private fundraising as the dependent variable to define success (Glennon, 1985).

Analyzing and interpreting the data, she identified many successful programs and interviewed presidents and staff to determine specific strategies to implement fundraising programs (Glennon, 1985).

Cost reducing, increased efficiency in management, and aggressive marketing all eventually achieved diminishing returns. Small colleges must examine the revenue side of the budget, specifically fund raising from private sources, especially to raise small but stable endowments. This will support not just college growth, but also institutional existence (Glennon, 1985).

As late as 1979, the President of Council for the Advancement of Small Colleges said there were no descriptive studies of advancement programs at small institutions. Glennon believed that only just prior to her study had the literature in the field become empirically specific, and the best recent study was Wesley Willmer’s The Small College Advancement Program: Managing for Results. Published in 1981, this book was a monograph based on his 1980 dissertation, An Assessment of the Institutional Advancement Process at Selected Small, Independent Colleges in the United States, which is a source for this researcher’s study (Willmer, 1980; Glennon, 1985).

She notes Willmer says colleges with under 1,000 full time equivalent students have very different characteristics than those with 1,000 to 2,000. Hence one should distinguish the small (1,000 to 2,000) from the very small (under 1,000). These very small schools were Glennon's focus. Her schools concentrated on bachelor’s degrees that were based on a liberal arts curriculum (Glennon, 1985).

Glennon believed most of the literature about small colleges dealt with closings of such schools, and how colleges can avoid this fate by stopping the flow of red ink. But virtually nothing is said in this literature about improving revenue, especially through fund raising. Out of 24 or so references relating directly to fund raising, only three had a model for small colleges to use, and none specifically addressed it to schools with 1,000 or fewer students (Glennon, 1985).

The literature seemed to indicate that individual, foundation, and corporate donors are willing to support higher education, but colleges, especially small private ones, have not been as effective in capturing these gifts as they could (Glennon, 1985).

Glennon presented three case studies of little colleges which were talented at fund raising. Two of these schools, however, had their own Achilles heels. One of her few remarks on proposals dealt with the lack of strategy about proposals. At College A, a Catholic college which otherwise was good at fund raising, the advancement office was more likely to respond to faculty and staff requests for proposals that were made most loudly rather than to those most matching with the college long-range plan (Glennon, 1985).

Another little college that was talented at fundraising, College B, a Baptist college, relied too much on contributions from local and regional Baptist churches. They had not really cultivated foundations, corporations, industry, or made good local and regional civic relations (Glennon, 1985).

Her theoretical model recommended that staff assignments should be realistic, but she said nothing about grant writing or staff training in this regard (Glennon, 1985).

In her recommendations and conclusion, Glennon said the vast number of money

raising and management activities expected from staff suggests that colleges should multiply the effects of staff, budget, and computer resources to mitigate the chance of staff burnout or unnecessarily rapid staff turnover. In other words, small colleges need to invest more in fund raising actions and staff to reap a greater harvest of gift revenue (Glennon, 1985).

Another relevant dissertation was Foundations and Private Institutions of Higher Education: a Merging of Interests or a Parting of the Ways? by William B. Lawson (1975).

Lawson wanted to confirm the relationship between the norms foundation officers used to evaluate proposals and the criteria of private-college administrators in preparing grant proposals in the past (1963 to 1973) and predicting what this relationship would be in the future (1974 to 1984). So he sent out two different sets of questionnaires. He concluded there had been and would be a close match between the criteria of foundation officers and private-college administrators, both in evaluating and preparing grant proposals in the past and for the future (Lawson, 1975).

Lawson found there were few studies about the specific criteria utilized by foundation officers to determine who would receive grants. He studied private schools ranging from those under 1,000 in enrollment to those above 10,000. Of these, 18.2% were under 1,000, and 40.9% were between 1,000 and 5,000. Thus there was a fair amount of overlap between the populations of the colleges this study examined (3,000 and under) and Lawson's (1975).

Lawson's interesting but somewhat mechanistic study looked more at features of the school or of the type of request than the actual writing, style, and editing of the proposal and the steps in the proposal process. This is not to say the study was without merit, but much of it was fairly predictable. For example, two items rated by foundation officers as having little worth for the future were endowments and purchase of library books. Neither is horribly surprising. Finding endowment funding is difficult outside of planned gifts, and most donors, whether foundations or not, would think library books to be a normal budget item for the school itself (Lawson, 1975).

Similarly, the items rated as most important for the past and future by foundation officers and college administrators were foundations/institutions being in the same state, being in the same region, restricted grants, improving teaching of undergraduates, sound financial management, past experience with the foundation, the foundation’s confidence in the college’s president, their confidence in its administration, and the college’s reputation for academic excellence. These items and other items such as types of projects and programs are all interesting, but they really do not delve whatsoever into a grant writer’s day-to-day job responsibilities (Lawson, 1975).

Another dissertation about fund raising at small colleges: Educational Fund-Raising in Church-Affiliated Colleges:a Predictive and Prescriptive Model was written by Joseph Oral Dean, Jr. His two main goals follow:

• To evaluate a formula to predict fundraising potential in small colleges, and
• To identify changes in the formula that allowed it to examine denominational support as a factor in potential gifts.

This study suggested church-related colleges have not utilized as many options as they should in pursuing financial solutions and that they needed a systematic model of fund raising and evaluation of their fund raising potential (Dean, 1985).

Dean discovered that being in a rural or metropolitan area does affect fund raising potential, which could relate to Lawson's emphasis on colleges being in the same region as a foundation. The rural/urban disparity is probably due to the availability of wealth a college may pursue. Rural areas do not usually have metropolitan extremes in income, so rural colleges will be disadvantaged in fund raising (Dean, 1985).

For church-related Christian colleges instead of interdenominational ones, data indicate denominational support is an important factor in their financial health. When utilized with the value of the endowment, denominational backing could be used to project 73.4% of the variance for predicted gift revenue in the group of 26 church-related colleges in that study. However, this did not guarantee church-related colleges with low levels of denominational support were suffering. The college out of these 26 that received the lowest percentage of total gift support from its denomination matched most closely that researcher’s “ideal” fund raising model, which interestingly enough belonged to Wesley Willmer, a source of much information for this researcher' study (Dean, 1985).

If there is such a thing as a guru in the overall world of small-college fundraising, that person would probably be Wesley K. Willmer. Starting with his dissertation, An Assessment of the Institutional Advancement Process at Selected Small, Independent Colleges in the United States (1980), Willmer also authored New Look at Managing the Small College Advancement Program (1987). He edited and contributed to Winning Strategies in Challenging Times for Advancing Small Colleges (1993) and Advancing Small Colleges: Strategies for Success in Alumni Relations, Communications, Fund Raising, Marketing, and Enrollment Management (2001).

In New Look at Managing the Small College Advancement Program (1987), Willmer points out that the president must actively promote advancement activities and be a fund raiser personally as well. Presidents have both a responsibility and an opportunity to secure major gifts. Without a fund raising president, a small college and its advancement office is crippled (Willmer, 1987). What Willmer says about major gifts in general can certainly be applied to foundation relations as well. Presidents who are supportive of grant writing will make this connection.

Willmer also makes the important point that colleges must seek capital funds and if they do not they will put themselves at a competitive disadvantage and thus raise less money than they might otherwise. Since capital campaigns seek larger amounts, they usually focus on bigger prospects and gifts (Willmer, 1987). What Willmer fails to note is that foundation gifts can play a large part in capital campaigns, and that when such grant proposals are being written that the proposals are administration-directed ones.Foundations only receive notable mention in a chart where they represent 16% of gift income and on the facing page where he notes they gave an increased amount since 1980 of 16% versus 13.7% previously (Willmer, 1987).

Administration-directed proposals have to be the most important grant writing projects since advancement activities must be consistent with institutional goals to achieve true effectiveness (Willmer, 1980).

Willmer, however, suggests that learning how the small college should handle prospect research is an area for further research, especially since most colleges do not have a huge number of available prospects (Willmer, 1987). To survive and grow, small colleges must keep the support of alumni and actively cultivate them, students, parents, businesses, religious institutions, and foundations (Willmer, 2001). Willmer never does specify how prospect research can work together with grant writing and whether that grant writing involves foundations, firms, or families and individuals.

Other and usually more general sources for fund raising advice for presidents or any fund raiser can come from literature and networking with peers through organizations such as the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB), Council of Independent Colleges, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), the American Council on Education (ACE), and others (Felicetti, 2001).

Results of a 1997-98 survey (conducted by CASE and the Council for Independent Colleges) show that colleges with enrollments beneath 3,000 started with notably smaller advancement budgets than those with higher enrollments. These smaller colleges still have to perform the same actions as their more financially secure and larger counterparts, and they probably have an even greater need to invest in advancement programs (Felicetti, 2001).

Ninety percent of gifts given to higher education come from 10% of the donors. Sometimes this ratio is 95 to five percent. Potential donors of such size must be located, cultivated, and approached properly. When a college is identifying major donors (which certainly include foundations) for presidents to cultivate, the president should go to the meetings where the best prospects are evaluated and screened (Felicetti, 2001).

This emphasis on a highly active presidential role shows advancement is really about building relationships. Finding and securing new donors is very difficult, costly, and time consuming, so maintaining relationships with donors is paramount. Experienced fund raiser, G.T. Smith, described five steps of the usual cycle of donor cultivation: “identification, information, interest, involvement, and investment” (Miller, p. 115, 2001). Saying “thank you,” while not explicitly talked about in Smith’s cycle, is crucial since it ensures the cycle has every chance to repeat itself (Miller, 2001).

This personal aspect of fund raising is important to remember since friends, alumni, and foundations are the best sources of gift income (Morris, 2001). But more needs to be said in the literature of how this “friend raising” interacts with grant writing and the small college grant writer.

In his dissertation (1980), Willmer lists “Director of Grants and Foundation Relations” in a table called “Titles of Other Functions” (Willmer, 1980, p. 90). He also notes that government grants provided 10.7% and foundations gave 13.7% of contributions to small colleges then. Although the figure for foundations is higher, Willmer does not devote time to focus on foundations exclusively, but he does give a bit of time to governmental proposals as a part of a broader area of government relations. Interestingly, even then, 81% of his small college respondents sought government grant funding (Willmer, 1980).

It is peculiar he did not include those seeking foundation funding. One table, “Title of Person Preparing Government Grant Proposals,” listed titles ranging from expected ones such as coordinator of grants, and director of foundation relations to various other individuals in advancement including its vice president and even the provost or president of the university (Willmer, 1980, 111).

This is an interesting variety of titles for grant writers and illustrates the partial devotion most grant writers are allowed to have.

In two previous tables, “Institutional Advancement Functions (Percent) By Enrollment Size” (Willmer, 1980, 72) and “Institutional Advancement Functions Prioritized for Entire Population” (Willmer, 1980, 73), grant writing is not mentioned at all. Either the college respondents included it in some other category or it was not a high priority to them. To be fair, in not mentioning grant writing much, he was probably just accurately describing the small-college advancement scene as it was. But since he should also have been describing what small college advancement offices should have been doing, it still seems strange he did not say much about grant writing (Willmer, 1980).

Federal relations involve not just the allocation of grant funds, but also the passage of legislation and other matters for the purpose of influencing political considerations in all types of federal operations. While many small colleges rely on their state and national associations of independent colleges, colleges should foster relationships with key government officials themselves. Again, an extrapolation to foundation relations could have been made but was not (Willmer, 1980).

This study, which is so thorough on almost all other aspects of small college advancement, seems to willfully ignore foundation grants and grant writing even though Willmer’s own statistics showed 25.4% of contributions came from foundation or federal grants. When one adds in business gifts, then that figure rises to 37.6%. Even though his “Summary of Subjective Institutional Need Responses,” showed respondents were interested in foundation, corporation, and governmental grants, he really does not address this other than a couple of quick nods to governmental grants (Willmer, 1980, 249).

Adding new prospective names to the mailing list is crucial and selling by personal visitation is the most effective method of gaining funds, a belief akin to Golden (1997). The president and the trustees play a role here, especially when the situation calls for a peer to solicit a peer. The number of calls made by a president correlate to the overall amount of gifts. Again, Willmer (1980) fails to extrapolate these facts to situations involving foundations.

Willmer (1980), however, did mention a small-college organization with some grant programs: The Council for the Advancement of Small Colleges (CASC), which is now called the Council for Independent Colleges (CIC). The CIC was started in 1956 to help non-accredited colleges become accredited and to work cooperatively on problems associated with their purpose and size. A crucial part of this process was to assess the advancement efforts of these schools (Willmer, 1980).

As the CIC now, it says the following about itself:

CIC is the major national service organization for all small and mid-sized, independent, liberal arts colleges and universities in the U.S. CIC is not a lobbying organization, but rather focuses on providing services to campus leaders as well as seminars, workshops, and programs that assist institutions in improving educational programs, administrative and financial performance, and institutional visibility (The Council of Independent Colleges. Serving Independent Colleges and Universities, 2006).

The CIC is useful, but it is not really a specialist in advancement or grant writing. The CIC administers grant programs with other organizations or corporations (The Council of Independent Colleges. Grant Programs, 2006).

Even though it has many other interests besides advancement, the CIC does engage schools in improving advancement processes. In partnership with CASE, it sent out surveys to CIC members to study the advancement practices of small and medium-sized independent colleges and universities. The current study's results will be available in summer 2007. The survey deals with the various foci of advancement as well as admissions and recruitment. It only touches on grant writing barely through a question about sources of gift income. Otherwise it seemed to be a thorough survey. Interestingly enough, Wesley Willmer was conducting this study (The Council of Independent Colleges. CIC/CASE Advancement Study, 2007).

Knowing much about other fund raising operations is crucial for a small college grant writer. The advancement office of a small college often does not have the choice to have one person working on each advancement function. Instead, all personnel often wear several hats (Willmer, 1980). Indeed this current study discovered the vast majority of small college grant writers perform other functions as well.

Regarding the changing nature of grant writers also performing other functions, one must realize optimal staffing at one small college might not be wise at another.

Variations in the size of the donor pool, college size, volunteer/trustee leadership,presidential activity, etc. affect staff needs. The best way to determine staffing, whether for grant writing or other advancement functions, is to look at the functional area that needs to be covered and then decide whether it needs the entire labor of one or more persons, or if one person can handle this function and others (Dowden, 1993).

Willmer contributes some excellent advice for small colleges in his “10 Criteria for Small College Advancement Success:”

1. Understand the global community surrounding your institution,
2. Clarify your institution’s specific mission,
3. Articulate and focus on your market position,
4. Concentrate on the long view,
5. Develop an institutional commitment to institutional advancement,
6. Assure allocation of adequate resources,
7. Promote leadership-based advancement,
8. Organize a selectively comprehensive program,
9. Use outside advice prudently, and
10. Evaluate effectively (Willmer, 1993, p. 21).

This body of work by necessity looks at the broader scene of small-college fund raising. Specific examination of the detailed work of a grant writer is not really possible with Willmer’s broad scope.

From these references one can see patterns in the literature. The works cited in this dissertation tended to discuss grants in general, research grants, “the how-to-get-grants literature” (McIlnay, 1998), perspectives of foundations and their program officers, educational grants overall, and the particular advancement opportunities and problems of small colleges.

How Well do Small Colleges Conduct Grant Writing

Although his study’s age and specific focus on only a certain category of small colleges limits its overall ability to be generalized to all small colleges, Mack’s study does seem to indicate the grant seeking and writing abilities of small colleges, at least those classified as Liberal Arts Colleges II, tended to be dismal. Colleges in his sample often received grants of only $5,000 or less and usually for operating purposes instead of for capital projects or new programs (Mack, 1983).

Summary of Chapter Two

Chapter Two reviewed existing literature that dealt, usually indirectly, with the specific topic of grant writing at small colleges. Only five authors (Mack, Glennon, Lawson, Dean, and Willmer) empirically studied small college advancement.

The work that was closest to the exact topic of this study dealt more broadly with the whole gamut of factors in the dealings of Liberal Arts II colleges with foundations, and not just grant writing. Pertinent literature tended to deal with effective grant writing in general, research grants, issues affecting small colleges, educational grants overall, and a look at grant writing from the perspective of foundations and their program officers (Mack, 1983).

This most closely related study that dealt with foundations and small collegesspecifically examined only colleges in the Liberal Arts Colleges II category of the Carnegie classification system. Since small colleges could also fall into the Liberal Arts Colleges I, Comprehensive Colleges II, and Comprehensive Colleges I classifications, Mack’s study could be rather limited in its potential to be generalized to all small colleges (Mack, 1983).

With this difference between this current study and Mack’s, along with this study’s more specific stress on grant writing, this dissertation maintained its unique nature. Since this study examined grant writing processes at small colleges of all classifications, it is important to keep this difference between it and Mack's study in mind.

Chapter Three: Research Methods and Procedures

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study was to examine the grant writing activities of small independent colleges, discover their typical processes and personnel management, and see whether or not such colleges are encouraging effective grantsmanship, as determined by general standards in reputable works on the subject such as Grant Writing in Higher Education: A Step-by-Step Guide (2004) by Kenneth T. Henson and The Foundation Center’s Guide to Proposal Writing (1993) by Jane C. Geever and Patricia McNeill.

This purpose has been mainly addressed through quantitative research methods and analysis as displayed through a survey of small-college grant writers. There is a narrative element through some open-ended survey questions. This chapter discussed the populations to be studied in this dissertation, the research design, and the instrument utilized to collect evidence.

Research Questions

The following research questions guide this study:

1. How many of the small colleges surveyed have a staff position solely dedicated to grant writing?
2. How many small colleges have formal training programs for incoming grant writers?
3. How supportive of grant writing are the advancement vice president, other high ranking advancement personnel, and the college president?
4. What quality control methods are used to ensure that proposals are well-written and believable?
5. How many of these colleges believe they have a successful grant writing program?
6. What are the crucial attributes for any successful grant writing program at a small college?
7. How do other small-college attributes such as religious affiliation, enrollment size, percentage of students who are members of minority groups, etc. affect grant seeking effectiveness?

Quantitative Research – Survey of Small-College Grant Writers

Research Design - Survey of Small-College Grant Writers

This dissertation was mainly quantitative with a number of narrative open-ended questions found within a quantitative instrument, a survey. This survey of small-college grant writers examined numerous variables that might explain the overall practice of grant writing at small colleges. This research was descriptive and cross-sectional since it gathered data from selected individuals over a single time period: August 18, 2006 through September 15, 2006.

Population - Survey of Small College Grant Writers

The researcher sent surveys to grant writers at small colleges. Some of these individuals solely wrote grants, but the vast majority had dual or more responsibilities. Nevertheless, they were all the chief grant writers for their respective institutions. Additionally, they all worked for small, private colleges in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois. The researcher chose these states for reasons of familiarity, convenience, and geographic unity.

Some colleges had more than one designated grant writer, which was why there were 123 survey recipients at 115 colleges. Recipients were located as follows:

Thirty recipients at 27 Indiana colleges,

Twenty recipients at 20 Kentucky colleges,

Thirty recipients at 29 Ohio colleges,

Nineteen recipients at 15 Michigan colleges, and

Twenty-four recipients at 20 Illinois colleges.

The researcher coded the respondents with one letter if they sent in their surveys through Ball State’s InQsit internet site for tests and surveys. For those who sent in their responses via the mail, the researcher coded them with two letters. For example, occasionally the reader will find a reference to something like Respondent B or Respondent LL, etc.

The researcher could speak authoritatively about the recipient sample population since he acquired the grant writers' names from their respective college web sites, which also usually showed their pictures and since he called and either talked to many of them directly or to their secretaries. So regarding the recipients, the researcher always knew their gender and almost always knew their race.

However, knowing such typical population data for the respondents was a different matter entirely. Since the survey was not only confidential but anonymous, in most cases the researcher did not know who the respondents were or the identity of their colleges. Unintentional exceptions to this included the following:

• The gender of those who mailed in their surveys based on their handwriting,
• The postmarks of the mailed-in surveys which often bore the names of the communities where the colleges were located,
• Those who self-identified their colleges by name in one or more of their responses, and
• Those who self-identified their colleges indirectly through various descriptions of their colleges.

Although the researcher was able to identify some of the respondents unintentionally, nevertheless, in discussing the survey response data, he kept their identities completely confidential and anonymous.

Data Collection - Survey of Small College Grant Writers

A statistically valid sample requires a minimum of 30 responses. To obtain at least 30 returned surveys requires sending out at least 100 surveys. To be safe and because the researcher located this many small college grant writers in his chosen geographic area, he sent out 123 surveys to 123 small college grant writers at 115 colleges in the states of Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois, each with an attached letter, along with a follow-up emailing of a letter and another copy of the survey two weeks later to gain more responses. He received 24 surveys through Ball State’s InQsit internet site for tests and surveys, and he received another 22 printout surveys through the mail. The overall total of surveys was 46, which is a 37.4% return rate. This return rate was surprisingly good considering the lengthy and in-depth nature of the survey.

During the month-and-a-half preceding the start of the first mailing on August 18, 2006, the researcher tried to call all the recipients before they received the surveys. In all but one case, the researcher made contact directly, left a voicemail message, or left a message with a secretary. Lists for these schools were obtained from the various independent college state consortia such as the Independent Colleges of Indiana.

The recipients varied quite a bit in the amount of time they invested in grant writing and the purposes for which that grant writing was directed. Conceivable categories included grant writers who work full time on grant proposals and even had assistant staff. Others also worked entirely on proposals but did not have assistant writers, only the partial and shared use of a secretary. Another group was made of people like the researcher who in his former capacity worked roughly half-time on proposals and half-time on some other development function and who shared a secretary’s time with colleagues. A number of these writers were advancement staff who invest 90% of their time into non-grant writing functions and were also called upon to write proposals since they are the best writers in their offices.

Most of these writers primarily worked on administration-directed proposals. For the purposes of this study, an administration-directed proposal is one that fulfills an administration’s current main priorities. For example, a research proposal to the National Science Foundation typically would not be such a proposal. A proposal to help fund an addition to a campus’ science building would qualify. However, there seemed to be some campuses where the only grant writing that occurs is connected with research grants

Besides the previous descriptions of small college grant writers, there were a number of different combinations of these roles. This was a very diverse population. A few random titles included director of grants and prospect research, director of corporate/foundation relations, director of corporate & foundation relations and grant writer (Gatto and Summers, 2005), and senior advancement officer and coordinator of volunteer services (Strickland, 2006).

Instrumentation: The self-developed survey had 26 core questions, most of which were either yes-no questions or short-answer questions. Eighteen of these core questions had follow-up questions. Sometimes there were as many as 12 follow-up questions or as few as one per core question. With both core and follow-up questions, there were a total of 79 individual questions. These questions were developed to be pertinent to the seven research questions of this study. Many of the short answer questions were open-ended enough to be considered narrative in nature. For example, question #10 -  “Describe the crucial attributes you believe are needed for any successful grant writing program at a small college?” – asked for a depiction of an ideal state, not necessarily a description of a current situation. So this question traveled into the realm of opinion.

However, even this question can be reported quantitatively regarding the numbers of people who answered one way or another. Since this was self-developed and was an untested instrument, the researcher established content validity by consulting a panel of individuals who have had much involvement with grants, solicited their opinions, and made revisions and additions accordingly. Additionally, the researcher's doctoral committee also suggested certain revisions and additions.

There were 46 strictly quantitative questions and 33 narrative ones.

IRB: The researcher submitted the survey to the Ball State University Institutional Review Board for approval after his doctoral dissertation committee had approved it.

Data Analysis – Survey of Small College Grant Writers

Descriptive statistics were used to analyze survey data. The survey questions were quantitative; were reported as percentages, frequencies, and means; and presented in tabular or narrative form.

Limitations and Assumptions - Survey of Small-College Grant Writers

Since the researcher sent these surveys only to grant writers in small independent colleges in Indiana and surrounding states, the data cannot be completely generalized to all grant writers, or even to just all college grant writers. Since the sample is so geographically based, the data collected might not even apply to all American small-college grant writers. Nevertheless, the descriptive data gained and conclusions one can infer from it should produce value for small college grant writers even outside the sampling area.

Summary of Chapter Three

In this dissertation, the researcher used mainly quantitative methods and analysis to research grant writing practices at small independent colleges in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois. Chapter Three described the study, research questions, quantitative research design, and the quantitative population. This chapter also described the procedures for collecting data and analyzing it. Appendix A displayed the survey questions that were sent to the small college grant writers.

Chapter Four: Findings and Analysis of Quantitative Data and Narrative Evidence

Chapter Four presents the statistical analysis and results of the quantitative research part of this study in which 123 small college grant writers at 115 colleges in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois were surveyed about their small college grant writing practices. There were a total of 46 respondents to the survey. Of the 79 total questions, 46 were strictly quantitative.

Chapter Four also presents the research findings of the survey's 33 narrative questions and analyzes that evidence. The purpose of the narrative questions was to describe and report the ideas about best practices in grant writing at small colleges. Chapter Five interprets and discusses that evidence.

Responses to Open-Ended Questions

Data reported in the narrative tables is understandably rather varied both in content and length. Additionally, each answer usually was used more than once since it supplied multiple concept categories in most cases. Initial analysis of each narrative question often produced as many as 20 or more conceptual categories.

Nevertheless, by looking for common ideas, one can unite similar concept categories and then refine and code these various commonalities until they can be "quantified" into a smaller number of categories. In fact, such a strategy must be used to reduce data to content one can meaningfully communicate. This method used by the researcher is called the "constant comparative method." In examining the narrative tables, the researcher used such a process. In using this process with each narrative question, the number of concept categories was reduced to 10 or less. The data analyzed with this process are mainly self-explanatory (Rudestam and Newton, 2001).

Survey Results

The order of the quantitative and narrative tables is intermingled since narrative survey questions were often follow-up questions to the quantitative ones or vice versa. Data reported in the strictly quantitative questions are mainly self-explanatory.

The researcher coded the respondents with either one or two letters of the alphabet. For example, occasionally the reader will find a reference to something like Respondent A, Respondent JJ, etc.

Core Question #1: Do you believe your college has a successful grant writing program?

Summary of Core Question #1

All 46 respondents answered this question. Out of these respondents, 21 (45.65%) said yes, and 20 (43.48%) said no. There were five (10.87%) other answers. Of the five other answers, one was completely negative, three were neutral sounding, and one was mildly positive.

Commentary on Core Question #1

With 45.65% saying yes, 43.48% saying no, and the 5 other answers (10.87%) being roughly equivalent in positive and negative sentiment, the respondents showed a definite parity in overall negative and positive views of their respective colleges' grant writing programs.

Question #1A: On what factors do you base this belief?

Summary of Question #1A

Core Question #1 said, "Do you believe your college has a successful grant writing program?" Those who said yes have their answers to that question listed under Positive Reasons, and those who said no have theirs listed under Negative Reasons.

Table 1

The Positive Reasons Table for Question #1A

Concept	Answers
1. High amount of faculty involvement	8
2. High administrative support, good leadership, effective teamwork, and sufficient staff	7
3. Recent success	7
4. Cultivating, identifying new grantors, and sending many proposals	7
5. Retaining earlier grantors, gaining consistent grant return, and achieving long-term success	6
6. General proposal success	5
7. Quality control, tracking proposals, and sharing grant information	5
8. Success of administration-directed proposals	4
9. Prestige of funding agencies and/or foundations	2
10. Success with governmental proposals	1

Table 2

The Negative Reasons Table for Question #1A

Concept	Answers
1. Low administrative support, lack of input from board, and insufficient staffing	16
2. Low amount of faculty involvement	8
3. Lack of cultivating and submitting few proposals	8
4. General proposal failure, inconsistent grant return, and lack of recent success	6
5. Lack of quality control and not tracking proposals	4
6. Irrelevance of whether grant writer position is funded, first grant writer the college ever has had, or new grant writer after many years of not having one	4
7. Failure to attract local, regional, or national foundations	3
8. Shortage of sizable foundations within the state	1