Excellent sources of information about private funding are the corporate and foundation directories published by the Taft Group in Washington, D.C., and the Foundation Center in New York. Both include types of programs that are funded, financial data, and names of people to contact. In addition, virtually every state has a directory of corporations and foundations that operate there. And the Whole Non-Profit Catalog, free from the Grantsmanship Center in Los Angeles, is an excellent general resource. Finally, if you have access to the Internet, you can get to the Federal Register and Commerce Business Daily through commercial subscription services such as Dialog and Westlaw, or you can link for free through many web sites.
Application kits are available electronically from most federal agencies.
Besides all this, my humble but growing library includes newspaper and magazine clippings pasted into three-ring binders, and application kits and instruction manuals from the agencies I deal with the most. Perhaps the most important resource in my personal library is the proposal development workbooks I have assembled for various projects. I set aside a three-ring binder for each grant and divide it into sections using index tabs. Preparing a workbook is a great way to stay organized. This interview is the time to get an idea of what the funder is looking for in a proposal and what your group must produce if it is to have a winning chance.