Finding a New Pattern: The Composer

I've written a series of blog posts about building a Recommender app by creating the required knowtifacts and dropping them into the Recommender Apperator to generate the app. My example was a Whiskey Recommender, and it was a more complex version of the Recommender pattern I introduced in my book The Shape of Knowledge. Earlier, simpler Recommenders covered in the book were the Beach Town Recommender and the Knowledge Artifact Recommender.

The Recommender knowledge pattern is one I created based on some of the work we've done at Apprentice Systems, building intelligent systems for clients. It is a simple pattern that contains both a triangle/tree (the Context Decision Tree) and a square/table (the Options Table). An optional component is a folder full of images depicting the various options in the table.

Once I defined the Recommender pattern I looked for simple examples I could use to build demo applications. In other words, the Recommender was a pattern looking for problems to solve. Now I am going to switch gears to a new pattern, one I discovered only recently, in the process of solving an important real-world problem. I believe this series of posts will make even clearer the potential of the methods I am laying out in The Shape of Knowledge. I am not espousing these ideas because they are nice to know. I am doing this because I want to make a positive difference in the world.

It was in the spirit of making a positive difference that I visited the local food bank two months ago, to see how I might volunteer. I went ready to pack boxes of food and make food deliveries, but after a brief interview with the volunteer coordinator, she decided I could make the biggest impact by helping them write grants.

Grant writing is actually the process of writing grant proposals to foundations, asking them to grant money to support nonprofits in their efforts. Charities rely on grants for both general support and project-specific support, and many nonprofits could not exist without these funds. Writing grants is a time-consuming and onerous task, and many organizations end up hiring a 'grant writer' to help them in this effort.

There is an industry of individuals and organizations that thrive on the fact that nonprofits have neither the time nor the skills to jump through the hoops of grant writing. Every foundation has their own process, which often includes filling out a custom application -- sometimes in hard copy, often online. The one-off nature of these applications means every grant proposal is usually a cut and paste exercise in Microsoft Word, using past proposals as the raw materials for new proposals. This process can be haphazard and inefficient.

It's also hard to find foundations that are likely to support the request of the charity, based on mission and geographic fit, so database companies have sprung up to meet this need -- for a stiff monthly subscription fee. My personal experience with the quality of the leads coming out of these services would indicate this is not a good investment.

I don't begrudge anyone making a living, but personally I have a problem with so much of a charity's funds being diverted into the process of writing grants. I would like to see the food bank's money going to feed hungry people! I think foundations that support the food bank would want this as well.

I also think that funds should be directed to the nonprofits with the best programs, not the best grant writers. With that principle in mind, I decided that philanthropy is a sector that could benefit from a bit of technology disruption. A high potential piece of that disruption is a pattern I identified by working with the grant writing process -- I call it the Composer.