Research Paper on:
Nonprofit Organizations and Grant Money

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
there is an increasing number of organizations competing for grants and funding. These organizations must of necessity act before the coming change rather than react to a change that  has already taken place. The purpose of this research is to explore the challenges faced by non-profit organizations and determine the strategy that is needed for them to be  successful in the non-profit environment. One of the examples of a non-profit organization used in this paper is that of the National Endowment of the Arts. ABSTRACT Strategic  planning for funding for non-profit organizations could use some improvement, and two texts that are extremely helpful in this area are Strategic Management for Non-Profit Organizations: Theory and Cases, by  Sharon M. Oster and Strategic Planning for Public and Non-Profit Organizations by John M. Bryson. These are two of the best books for insight to the strategic planning and  funding for non-profit organizations. While budgets for funding are instituted for good reason, that being to keep a close watch on financial health, there is no doubt that funding variances  should be used with caution. The analysis of variance reports and monthly reports should be considered with a healthy skepticism for several reasons. "Budgets are often too late, too  political in terms of tradeoffs made, take too long to develop, take too many organizational resources and fail to measure the critical things that make non-profit organizations successful in todays  fast paced, global economy" (Babbini 1999, 52). The budget in the funding of a non-profit organization becomes the all-powerful law in too many cases, which causes people to manage  strictly to the budget and not to the realities of the competitive environment of raising grant money, for one thing. Those organizations that continually try to retain their traditional