Your writing style might combine the sophistication of John Updike and the warmth and humor of Susan Isaacs, but if you haven’t done your research, you might as well unplug the computer. Research is the most important thing a grant writer does. Really!

Funders find it insulting if you send them an inappropriate grant proposal. Wouldn’t you? And raising money is just too hard to waste your time crafting a proposal only to have it fall flat because you didn’t research the funder thoroughly.

Always be sure you have the most recent information. Several years ago, I had written off one foundation as a prospect because when I researched it, it had a small endowment and made only small grants to small arts organizations. But was I surprised when I recently visited its new website. One of its founders had died a year ago, leaving a major bequest to the foundation. Typical grants were now 10 times what they had been 8 years ago, and there were new program areas as well.

The Internet has revolutionized research for grants, just as it has everything else. Today, you really cannot do grant writing or any kind of fundraising well without utilizing the Internet. In this chapter, I’ll introduce you to my favorite places to get the scoop on just about anyone and any funder. (The next chapter reviews the offline research tools you might also use, some of which duplicate online resources and others you’ll find only in print.)

A word of warning: websites change every day. In the course of my research, I found that some sites I’d used recently no longer existed. Others were still there, but URLs of specific pages had changed. If you’re unable to find a page I’ve given a specific address for (such as gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html), try searching again by taking off the letters after one or more backslashes (for example, try gpoaccess.gov/fr or gpoaccess.gov) until you get the correct website. Then use the site’s search tool or site map to locate the topic you need. Of course, you can also use any general search engine like Google or Yahoo! to find an organization if all else fails.