Monday, February 14, 2011

Grantspace

Grantspace is a new website from the Foundation Center. It does not replace the http://www.foundationcenter.org/ web site, but acts as a supplement to it. The latter is a site for everyone (grant-seekers, grant-makers, media, politicians, etc.) while the former is especially geared to grant-seekers and teaching them how best to use the Foundation Center’s resources. So a lot of the links are familiar, but now they are all in one place.


The four main parts of Grantspace are Subjects, Skills, Classroom and Tools. Subjects are divided into the five main areas of grant-making: Arts, Education, Environment, Health Care and Human Services. Grant-seekers can find jobs, RFPs, news, Funder tweets, reports, and podcasts in their area of interest.


The Skills area has information on planning, proposal writing, management, legal issues, and using Foundation Directory Online. It includes sample cover letters and proposals that can be downloaded as pdfs .

The Classroom area has a training calendar with free and paid in-person classes and webinars. A search of the calendar can be limited by location or skill area.


The Tools area has a knowledge base of questions and answers, sample documents, the Catalog of Nonprofit Literature (a catalog of all the Foundation Center library’s books and articles, some of which are available online), a collaboration database, and the TRASI database for evaluating the social impact of a program.


Registration at Grantspace is not required, but it allows the patron to make comments, share items, create a profile, and subscribe to free e-newsletters.


If a patron is interested in a Foundation Center class at the library but is unable to make it in that day, or they want to learn more about grant-seeking before they come in to search Foundation Directory Online, please introduce them to Grantspace.


--Andrea @Central