Since October 1997, I have extensively researched a number of topics and issues on the Web. I have found hundreds of search engines all over the world, even specialized search engines and local engines, e.g., Ananzi only covers South Africa. In addition to English, I can read Spanish, French and German, so I have even done some research in those languages.
IN THE PROCESS I HAVE DISCOVERED A SIMPLE FACT:
On any given topic or issue, there is either a lot of information on the Web, or almost none. Which is the case can be determined in about 2-3 hours.
Simply put, if you don't find a lot of information on the Web in 2-3 hours, you won't find much, no matter how much additional time you spend.
The best way to start research is with a search engine. I have tried dozens, and I always wind up going back to Google and AltaVista
WHICH BRINGS US BACK TO SEEKING GRANTS.
Awhile back, my pastor asked me to search the Web for grants that might be useful to our church or various ministries. Simply put, there is almost no information on the Web about obtaining grants.
I tell you this not to discourage you, but to keep you from wasting time and raising false hopes. Information on how to obtain grants is available -- but not on the Web. The few grants I found were mostly small-dollar grants to local organizations, e.g., within the grantor's city or county. The rest were mainly U.S. government grants for specific military scientific research.
Every non-military grant I found on the Web specifically excluded religous organizations. None of the grants I found could be applied to an organization's operating expenses.
WHY GRANT INFORMATION IS NOT ON THE WEB
There are several reasons why grant information is not available on the Web: (a) It requires constant updating. (b) The Web is still a relatively new technology. (c) Organizations engaged in giving away money don't spend large amounts on website development. (d) Organizations with substantial resources tend to be controlled by older persons, who are less Web-oriented. (e) There are more than enough grant seekers using traditional application techniques. (f) Charitable organizations usually have a large percentage of undertrained and underequipped personnel who don't have the time and resources for extensive use of the Web. (g) Accumulating and maintaining current information is costly, labor-intensive and time-consuming.
OBTAINING GRANT INFORMATION
Various grantors have application deadlines throughout the year. To be useful, application information must be current. Compiling such information is so costly, time-consuming, and labor-intensive that only one organization does it on a large scale. That organization sells books and CD-ROM's with the data. Prices range from $149 for a book covering a particular field to over $1,200 for a CD-ROM. A new book or CD-ROM must be purchased each year.
Remember -- checking around for grants is generally done by volunteers. As a practical matter, telephone calls to a business or philanthropic organization generally must be made when the time is between 10:00-11:45 a.m. or 1:15-4:00 p.m. at the recipient's location. Often, follow-up calls must be made over a period of a few days or weeks.
Considering also that most of these will be long-distance toll calls, it generally is not practical to start randomly calling organizations to find out what grants they might have available.
Despite the high price of the CD-ROM, if your church or organization is SERIOUS about seeking grants, don't waste your time surfing the Web. GET THE CD-ROM — IT WILL PAY FOR ITSELF MANY TIMES OVER WITH JUST ONE GRANT RECEIVED.
More Information: The Foundation Center
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ON A MARGINALLY RELATED MATTER: FOOD DONATIONS
Does your organization have a continuing need for donations of food? If there is a food canning or bottling facility in your area, contact them and ask about low-fills. Modern automated food processing plants fill thousands of cans or bottles per hour. Due to normal mechanical tolerances, some containers wind up with less than the nominal volume. For instance, a can labelled "12-ounces" might actually contain anywhere from 11-1/2 to 12-1/2 ounces. Low-fills fall below the manufacturer's minimum quantity, i.e., a can might contain 11.4 ounces. The contents are perfectly normal in quality.
To avoid lawsuits and claims of fraud, low-fills are automatically shuffled off to the side by the machinery. Profit margins are low, so it is not cost-effective to open containers, put the contents back into the main vat and discard the container. Instead, manufacturers store low-fills. When a charitable organization asks for donations, the manufacturer donates low-fills, without disclosing that the can contains slightly less than the normal volume.
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ON ANOTHER RELATED TOPIC: DONATED COMPUTERS
Does your organization need more than one or two computers?
Buy them! Do not ask for donated computers!
Awhile back our church looked into starting an Information Technology Ministry including a Computer Center. "Somebody who knew somebody" managed to get a company to donate twenty computers.
We were all thinking, "Isn't God great!"
Well, this had nothing to do with God!
Larger corporations know that churches, schools, charities, etc., will often ask them to donate computers or money for computers. On the one hand they want to appear to be "a good corporate neighbor". On the other hand, they don't want to incur any expense.
What do they do?
When they take old computers out of service, instead of spending money to have them recycled, they "shove them in the back room somewhere." When non-profit organizations ask for computers, they give them their old junk--without an operating system. The company erases the operating system because it buys non-transferrable licenses.
Microsoft does not discount its "full-install" Windows operating systems. When we tried to use the computers we found it would cost about two hundred dollars per computer for an operating system. (Churches do not have the right to steal software on the grounds that "We're a non-profit organization." Taking one disk and copying it onto twenty computers would be twenty federal felonies.)
Furthermore, the computers were several years old--their microprocessors weren't fast enough, they didn't have enough memory and their hard disks were not large enough to run current software. Upgrading them would require replacing virtually everything. The company decommissioned them because they were "beyond their useful life."
Of course, since the company had already "generously" donated twenty computers, we couldn't expect them to pay for operating systems.
Well, why not ask for individual donations of computers?
Again, that sounds reasonable, but it doesn't work in practice. What you get is a bunch of outdated equipment from different manufacturers. Each machine has to be independently maintained. Add-on equipment or new software that works on Machine 1 causes Machine 4 and Machine 6 to crash. Substitutes that work on Machines 4 and 6 cause Machine 1 to crash, etc.
Of course, you are trying to have volunteers maintain the system. They quickly get disgusted and stop helping.
Then something even worse happens: some well-intentioned but completely untrained and technically incompetent person says, "Let me see if I can figure this out." Pretty soon, the equipment isn't working at all.
The moral of the story is that--like it or not--if you need more than one or two new computers, buy them.
(Ultimately, we did not set up a Computer Center, because (a) computer equipment would cost too much, (b) there was no available room, (c) even if there had been room, computer center space cannot be shared with other activities and (d) in addition to computer equipment we would have had to buy desks, chairs, etc.)
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