The fifth edition updates the materials while broadening the appeal of the book to social service agencies including health, education, social services, and human services providers. The reader is taken from program design into a very comprehensive crash course on program evaluation. Readers will learn why it is important to measure program outcomes, how to measure them, and how to plan an evaluation design early in the planning process. After this, the reader will learn how to refine program ideas into objectives and implementation activities and write them in a format demanded by various funders. Throughout the book, readers are presented with agency/organizational analyses using a conceptual framework that is tied to a theoretical perspective about the desired outcomes. This framework provides the coherence for the book and assists individuals with the "mechanics" of writing and challenges them to understand why a particular strategy and with what desired and measurable outcome are they seeking. The book also conveys the "new grantsmanship" which is essential for navigating the economic, political, and social dimensions of proposal and grant writing.