Every now and then someone brings up copyright law, in particular, infringement, and related topics on some of the forums I belong to. So, I thought I’d talk about some of the main issues from the creator’s standpoint.

One of the most common questions I see is whether or not a writer, musician, course creator or any type of author/creator can just use something in their own work that is not in the public domain. That is, something that is copyrighted by someone else and still within the copyright period. For the most part, the answer is “no.” But, it’s the exceptions that confuse everyone.

About Copyright Law

One of the exceptions to copyright infringement is the “fair use” clause. This clause is found Title 17 §107:  Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use and says:

“Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

This is perfectly clear until you go to use this information. Then it becomes clear as mud. I actually read most of this law several times. There are sections that don’t apply to anything I create, so I skipped them. But this section is one of the most important for determining whether you can or cannot use copyrighted material. If you’re creating courses that you charge for, it’s a commercial venture and not a nonprofit educational one. But if you’re using the information simply to compare or criticize, or show an example of what you’re teaching about, you might want to get a legal opinion if that product (a writing or course) is going to earn you an income.

The simplest thing to do here is to make sure you are using either public domain or royalty free photos, music, writings, etc.

You can download the Title 17, US Copyright Law PDF here.

The next most common question I see is how to deal with someone who has published your work without permission. You have several routes here, depending on whether you have suffered any loss or damages.

• You can sue. This is costly, but if you have suffered significant damages it might be worthwhile
• You can send them a DMCA letter. DMCA refers to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. You can download that pdf here. 
• Even if you have not filed for a Copyright Registration, your work is copyrighted immediately once you have fixed it in any medium, such as writing online or on paper, recording in audio or video, or painted in any of the media available, digital or physical. So many things are date stamped these days that it shouldn’t be hard to show when you created your work. Despite that, do something to date your work as soon as you start working on it. One way is to write © “the date” and your name or business name, and then set that text to white (if on paper) or the same color as the background of your work. Integrate it in a way that raises the fewest questions about when you did this. I’m not sure how to get the copyright mark (©) on a PC, but it should be similar to the Mac which is option-G. My option key says “alt” so try alt-g.

Affordable Legal Advice

Again, I’m not allowed, by law, to give legal advice, but I can share a few things that might be useful. Beyond that, if you’re uncertain, you really should get legal advice. There’s a few ways to do this.

• Some attorneys will give you a free 30-minute introductory visit, and may tell you whether or not your intended use is legal or not. But attorneys prefer not to give their knowledge away for free, so he or she want you to schedule a paid appointment.
• USLegalForms.com offers legal forms. For $19.95/month you can download any form in their library and use or modify it to suit your needs.
• LegalZoom.com goes a step further. Not only can you pay a monthly fee to download forms you need, but you can also get legal advice for a fraction of what an attorney would charge.

Years ago when I was looking for model releases I subscribed to LegalZoom.com. My $19.95 subscription gave me the opportunity to download contracts in any category in addition to the releases. I now have a huge file of contracts to work from, far more valuable than the $19.95 I paid. So if you’re starting a business and need legal documents, these sources are excellent for forms, which most of us have no idea how to write. LegalZoom also offers legal advice from an attorney in whatever state you request, and assistance with documents, like wills.

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Another “Best Opportunity” Kept Secret

Grant writing isn’t for everyone. It’s not even the perfect job for every writer. But for those of us who fit the mould, it’s an absolutely perfect career. If you can write in several styles in one document consider giving this field a try.

What’s Unique About Grant Writing

Grant writing require a lot more discipline than many other niches. We’ve all heard, “Cut, cut, cut until it hurts.” The grant proposal is one document that will require you to cut lots of your best lines. That’s because each section of a grant proposal, also called a grant application, usually has strict word limits. Run over and your proposal will be rejected immediately, and with no consideration to the value of your request.

You’ll also have to write in various styles. The executive summary requires formal presentation while the letter of inquiry should be more engaging. Not that your executive summary shouldn’t be engaging, but it is the formal summary of the NPO and the program for which it is seeking funding.

You’ll be writing the budget narrative. Can you see yourself discussing the mundane details of expenditures in a way that keeps the reader awake, interested, and moving ahead, while justifying each within a limited word count? If you can you may be suited to this career?

The various other sections of the proposal will, most likely, have a strict word count. Each is designed to give the grant maker a full picture of how their money will be used by each applicant. Can you convey empathy for the beneficiaries of the programs that need funding? Can you elicit compassion from the grant makers while illustrating how your no-nonsense program will help THEM reach THEIR goals?

Grant writing is a combination of fact-reporting, story-telling, and copywriting that substantiates the need as well as your solution. It requires technical writing to report the facts, and journalism to convey the benefits to people. It also requires some quality improvement skills. This means being able to do the measurements necessary to both justify your need, and to report measurable outcomes that prove the value of your program.

But Wait! There’s More

Most new grant writers are surprised when they run into non-profit organizations (NPO) that are so miserably unprepared to submit a proposal that they wouldn’t be likely to win an award. Would you know what to do? If not, don’t let that discourage you. Even seasoned grant writers want to know how to overcome this hurdle. Here’s how I did it.

When I started writing grant proposals in 1989, I was completely naive about the grant writing processes. I just jumped in and started searching for funding and writing proposals for a rural hospital district. Right away, I ran into problems.

Often, I couldn’t find key people who had critical information I needed. This may have been statistics that justified their program, budget information for the financials required, or even signatures.

Other problems came up because programs weren’t really ready for funding and program managers changed statistics and descriptions of need and amount. One program manager kept changing the details right up to the last moment, including hair-splitting ones involving which pronoun to use. Murphy’s Law was alive and well, as the main copier went down, and the little one in her office was barely adequate for the six copies of 75 pages that we needed, in addition to staff from all the other departments dropping in for “just one quick copy.” Our hopes for this $300,000 government grant were squashed when the post office refused to post our proposal because we arrived just a minute or so past five on deadline day.

In another situation, it was merely by accident that I found out that another department was writing for the same grant I was applying for. Fortunately, only one was submitted. Imagine what the grant makers would think while reviewing two applications from the same NPO, and clearly, neither knew about the other. One of the big assumptions by grant makers is that the applicants are well-coordinated with partners and other services offered in the service area. This would easily reveal that we didn’t even know what was going on within our own facility.

We needed a system, so I developed one. One of the biggest aids in developing our systems was our continuous quality improvement program. We had just finished implementing this system and were enjoying great success with it. It’s simple steps enabled anyone to identify the specific causes of problems and solutions that would resolve them. Often the solution were new, revenue-generating programs. In fact, the programs this system helped us produce were what led us to seek grant funding. And, using that quality improvement program, along with the lessons learned from our mistakes, I developed an early version of my Stress-Free Strategic Grant Readiness, Planning and Management system.

Initially, we simply figured out all the steps that needed to be done while writing and submitting an application, and wrote them up into a procedure that every department would follow. If they wanted to write a proposal they HAD to let me know so that no one else would write a competing one. Alternatively, we had an opportunity to combine programs into a single request, and further refine the programs that were developing. It was a pretty simple system, but it worked well.

Over the years, working for different types of NPOs, it was clear that this system wasn’t a one-size-fits all program, nor was it even complete, itself. Over the next ten years I developed forms and sequences that did make this program a one-size-fits all, as each of the elements are modifiable to suit large or small NPO grant funding needs; simple or complex organization structures; and many or few employees.

Grant writing is in constant change

One of the biggest changes that has been developing over the last 20 years is the concept of grant readiness. While this can mean different things to different people, we all agree that, at minimum, it means that the NPO is ready to implement its programs, knows the exact need for their programs, just what role they will play, and has criteria set to meet all of these requirements.

My original grant readiness checklist was just 1-½ pages long. It was pretty impressive for its time. But, in light of my current seven-page checklist, it overlooked quite a few important details. Even today many grant writers don’t know what grant readiness is, or how to determine whether their NPOs or clients meet that specification. Without being grant ready these days, it would be very hard to win a grant award. Would you like to be the grant writer known for your grant readiness expertise? Read on…

The point is…

As easy as it is to enter the grant writing field, you also will want to have the skills to assess whether your client NPO (or employer) is ready to take on this huge funding and reporting commitment.

If grant writing is your choice – it does pay very well, by the way – consider, also, learning, right away, how to manage the strategic planning, grant readiness, quality management and other organization skills that you will, eventually, have to learn. By knowing these skills before you approach NPOs, you’ll be armed with a billable service that you can use to help your client become fluidly organized and grant ready, while salvaging a client that you might otherwise not be able to work with. But there’s no need for both of you to lose income. My 4-hour, self-paced course gives you the skills to turn non-viable clients into revenue sources for you, while increasing their chances of being funded.

My Stress-Free Strategic Grant Readiness, Planning and Management course has been discounted 50% to just $75.00 for this combination of three separate courses. But this offer is only good until April 4, 2016. You still have 30 days to review it for a full money back guarantee. Otherwise, you will have lifetime access to this course.

Please decide soon. This course will be “unpublished” on April 4. That means that after that date it will be available only to enrolled students, but not for new enrollments. Udemy is making some changes that prohibit keeping this combination course live.

However, at present, two of the three parts are live on Udemy. The third is in development. Also, the entire course is also available as a home study course (no video access, just the manuals and toolkit.)

Here are the details of the stand-alone grant writing courses on Udemy:

Win More Grants by Becoming Grant Ready: $50, 1 hour, lifetime access

Learn to make your NPO Grant Ready. Includes editable checklist and rights to use for your employer or clients.

Click for special price of $39.00

CQI/TQM for the Rest of US: $50, 2 hrs, lifetime access

Learn a simple, highly effective quality management system that anyone, even a high school student can use to make improvements.

Click for special price of $39.00

Stress-Free Strategic Grant Planning & Management: $50, 1+ hrs, lifetime access

Learn a truly stress-free system of planning and managing your grant submissions, and rest easy.

This course is not yet live. Please Check Back.

In the meantime, get lifetime access to all three courses in one course, discounted to $75. Available ONLY until April 4.

 Stress-Free Strategic Grant Readiness, Planning & Management

Home Study Course

If you’d rather have the home study course, which includes the full text book (used for the video script) and all of the forms, data base and examples in a downloadable toolkit please visit our Grant Planning page at  http://adhocgroup.net/AHG/Grants.html. Visit here to see the entire table of contents.

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Image Credit: Title: How to run an effective meeting; Photographer: Nguyen Hung Vu; Minor changes made; License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Udemy’s $19 Special

Grant Writing Courses

Price good until 2/20/16

These grant writing courses are every bit as good at full price, but if you’ve ever considered grant writing as a career, now’s your chance to get some pretty solid basic training in this high demand career. Of the over 1.5 Million nonprofit charities in the US, most are smaller organizations that don’t have a full time, or even part time grantwriter. Contracting as a grantwriter is a growing market, not a shrinking one. Not interested in contracting? There are still many non profits who are hiring talented writers.

BASIC GRANT WRITING

Grant Writing: Keys to a Successful Proposal Build your resume or freelance, learn grant writing skills and discover creative ways to fund your project or program.

Comprehensive Grant Writing for beginners: 7 simple steps Go from cash-strapped to funded with the help of a fundraising expert.

Grant Writing Basics A basic outline of information for individuals and organizations new to applying for funding through grants.

Grant Writing for Nonprofits and Freelance Writers Learn how to grantsmith winning proposals, think like a funder, draft a solid boilerplate, and build relationships. This one’s only $15

Nonprofit Grant Writers: How To Find Foundation Funding Become More Successful at Grant Writing by Finding the Foundation that Wants to Fund Your Nonprofit

Secrets to Successful Grant Writing Learning the Fundamental Tools to Simplify Grant Writing

Google Adwords Grant for Nonprofits Spending free money to drive online impact

SOLID GRANT PLANNING COURSES

Win More Grants by Becoming Grant Ready How to improve your chances of winning grant awards, outshine your competition, and impress grant makers. Don’t even try to write a grant if your NPO isn’t grant-ready.

Stress-Free Strategic Grant Readiness, Planning, & Management A complete system for optimizing a stress-free grant application strategy and submitting award-winning applications, never missing a deadline.

GOVERNMENT GRANT FUNDING

Stop Struggling To Get By: Apply To Top 25 Grant Programs This course gives you all you need to apply to the easiest government programs for solving your financial problems.

Winning your first NIH grant without losing sleep An introduction to the basics of NIH (National Institute of Health) grants and cooperative agreements, with tips and tricks from experienced leaders.

Federal Grant Writing 101 Grant Writing Classes on How to Write and Win a Federal Government Grant Award

GRANT PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION

Grant Professional Certification (GPC) Exam Prep Increase your generalist knowledge of the grant profession while preparing to become certified by passing the GPC exam.