Winning Grants Step by Step takes a pragmatic tone. It accepts the rules of the game and offers to show you how to win within them. "Most funders prefer to give grants for new and expanding programs or in support of special projects and new ideas rather than for the general operating expenses of an organization or the ongoing costs of established programs," it explains. "Because funders have these preferences, this workbook uses the idea of creating a new program as the basis for developing a proposal." (The book does also give examples of core operating support proposals, and does start with a planning guide to help you see which programs fit your priorities).
In the introduction to Grassroots Grants, on the other hand, the publisher shares her qualms about publishing a book about grants at all, preferring that the reader focus first on developing more renewable and less restricted gifts from individual donors. "This book is about two things: money and power," says Grassroots Grants, and calmly analyzes the dynamics of both in the grant proposal process. This big-picture view is in the end more pragmatic - it encourages you to take control of the grantseeking process by searching out those funders and pitching those programs that really best fit with what you are trying to do.

Both books have excellent project planning guidelines. As Winning Grants Step by Step observes, "Generally, organizations will spend approximately 80 percent of their time planning a project and only 20 percent of their time writing and packaging a proposal," so this section is obviously very important. Both books ask questions such as "What is unique about your organization's project?" "Is anyone else working on a similar project?" "What members of your community support each project?"

Both also contain useful information about finding appropriate funders, which is key to the process - much more important than your writing skills is finding the right funder who cares about projects like yours. Although Winning Grants Step by Step puts this information at the end in an appendix, you should really read it first, particularly the excellent section on corporate giving programs. Grassroots Grants contains very helpful guidelines about what to consider when deciding whether a funder is really a good fit for your organization, and detailed information about ways to develop good relationships with potential funders.

The books have different approaches to how they help you with your own writing. Winning Grants Step by Step has a workbook format, with questionnaires you fill out as you go, so that by the time you have completed them you will have addressed most of the subjects covered in a typical proposal, and it will be easy to cut and paste the appropriate bits into the funder's preferred format. It comes with all the worksheets on a CD-ROM so you can fill them out electronically and reuse them. If you like project planning, but get nervous about the writing process, this format may help walk you through. Grassroots Grants has questionnaires throughout the text, and it has more examples of proposals, query letters, and other documents with notes on how they were developed. If you like to write by reading examples to inspire you to your own purposes, this book will suit you.

Ultimately, these books complement one another. Even if you prefer the workbook format of Winning Grants Step by Step, the "big picture" you get from reading Grassroots Grants will help you answer all those questions. Likewise, if you prefer the style of Grassroots Grants, you can still benefit from the excellent sections on overhead costs and planning for sustainability in Winning Grants Step by Step.

What's most useful about Carlson's book is that it provides a summary for participants and another way of explaining some of the things I teach. There are also good worksheets included in Carlson's book, designed to help first-time grantwriters grapple with the different proposal elements. Carlson also includes a CD-ROM with different forms that can also be helpful.

However, there are important limits to Carlson's book, thus the caveat in my review title that you NOT use this book alone.

1. Carlson's book is very general. For certain funders or funding areas (such as in HIV/AIDS), grantwriters need to include and be very familiar with things like public health data and certain standardized evaluation methods. You will not get that kind of information or guidance in Carlson's book.

2. Some of the sections lack sufficient details that can help first-time grantwriters better understand the concepts. For example, the budget and budget justification section are weak. She does not provide any explanation for "priority/target populations," a concept important to HIV/AIDS and other public health programs.

3. Carlson starts off with a good premise: Helping grantwriters understand the writing of a good proposal by having funders--the people who would actually read and decide on your proposal--speak about what makes good and bad proposals. It's a great idea and one that is the backbone to my own workshop. However, it is a thread that Carlson quickly drops and doesn't bother to integrate into the entire workbook.

4. Finally, the different elements are presented in such a way that they remain disintegrated, separate, fragmented from each other. In reality, a good proposal (i.e., one that is most likely to be funded) includes all the required elements (abstract, description of need, work plan, goals and objectives, evaluation, etc.) that are written well, are strong in content, and all work together in an integrated way.

To Carlson's credit on my last point, I should note that very few writers of grantwriting books and guides have succeeded in showing the latter, although I think it's one of the best signs of a well-written, strong, viable program.

In summary, then, this is a good first place to start if you're new to grantwriting or need a refresher. But definitely use it in conjunction with a great workshop and/or other grantwriting resources that are available.