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Guest Post by Hamilton Davis.

The early 1970s were rough on Vermont’s criminal justice system. Central to that era was the long criminal career of Paul Lawrence, the bad cop who, while working as an undercover narcotics agent for state and local police, framed more than 100 young Vermonters on drug charges. Lawrence’s depredations managed to contaminate the whole justice system—state police and several prosecutors and judges—and his crimes and the resulting turmoil put Vermont on front pages across the land.

One public official deeply affected by the Lawrence mess was Kimberly Cheney, a Yale Law School graduate and a Republican, who had just been elected in 1972 as Vermont’s attorney general. Cheney, in his candid memoir A Lawyer’s Life to Live, tells much about his life in Montpelier, Vermont, as attorney general but also, earlier and later, as a small-town private attorney and county prosecutor. He describes all the moral quandaries, deal-making, the courtroom dramas, and the shenanigans that readers would expect from an observant lawyer-turned-author.

But what he also offers is a striking assessment of what became known as the “Paul Lawrence Affair.” Lawrence’s crimes were committed long ago, but Cheney’s book is an important reminder of how things can go wrong. The author is as tough on himself as he is on other players who were far more involved in that affair. That’s a quality that is rare and praiseworthy in the literature of public life.

A Lawyer’s Life to Live: A Memoir by Kim Cheney. Rootstock Publishing, February 2021.  

Reviewer bio: Hamilton E. Davis has been a journalist and policy analyst for more than 50 years. He is the author Mocking Justice: America’s Biggest Drug Scandal (Crown Publishers, 1978).

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

Guest Post by Kevin Wiberg.

This is a little book with a big heart and a lot of common sense.

In the fast-paced, high-stress world of securing competitive funding, it can be easy to chase opportunities and lose sight of what matters most—the people and communities who rely on the success of your work. While chasing the dollars is often driven by the organizational imperative to survive, it is an ineffective and uninspired strategy to engage grantmakers.

As my career has moved from grantseeker to grantmaker, Barbara Floersch has identified critical themes and strategies that I continue to look for when evaluating proposals. Don’t assume a grantmaker knows who you are and what you do; but do assume that most grantmakers will be deeply grounded in the fields, populations, and issues that your organization addresses.

A critical part of your organization’s work is to demonstrate competency, document a solid grounding in data trends from national to local levels, promising and best practices, identify who else does similar work, and how your organization collaborates with others to produce efficient and impactful outcomes. These are just a few of the critical lessons Floersch has shared with thousands of grantseekers around the US and internationally. I credit Floersch’s teaching and mentorship over the years with my success in securing millions of public and private dollars and these lessons continues to inform my work as a grantmaker.

A real strength of Floersch’s new book is her engaging and authentic communications style. She practices what she preaches, and I’m so pleased she continues to share her knowledge with a genuine interest in your organization’s success in addressing critical and compelling social issues and needs.

You Have a Hammer: Building Grant Proposals for Social Change by Barbara Floersch, Rootstock Publishing, January 2021.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Wiberg lives in Vermont and is the Philanthropic Advisor for Community Engagement at The Vermont Community Foundation.