This book examines the development of ideas in education and comparable institutions, how to encourage their articulation, how to muster the cooperation necessary to turn them into formal blueprints, and how to secure whatever support is needed to see them materialize as projects serving the interests of the originators and their institutions. It contains listings of useful resources and the most recent data on forms and required information for submission of proposals, and reflects changes in the names of agencies and in regulations governing grants to nonprofit organizations. It discusses how institutions, and the individuals who make up those institutions, create and develop ideas, and find sources of support, and demonstrates proven methods, supported with continual evaluation procedures, that carry a selected idea from a written proposal to the final project. The book also lists essential basic information sources (publications, news releases, telephone books, and the government printing office list of publications), and sources for assistance and training. Contains a 37-item bibliography and an index. (GLR)