So Who Reviews These Proposals Anyway?

You think and write and plan until your eyes get red and burn from concentration.

You spend hours laboring over an Excel spreadsheet, testing your dedication to clean language as you build a budget.

You follow every. single. rule., checking them off diligently.

You mail the blasted proposal with hope and fear filling your heart in equal parts. The results of this could change your life.

Then, as the mailbox clangs shut, you think, Who reviews this proposal anyway?

It depends. But it matters.

The federal government generally has a pool of people willing to read proposals and offer comments on their fundability. They've been provided with the criteria that the federal agency considers most important, and how to measure the adherence to the criteria. They're content experts, people who know the field the grant proposes to address. Some will be direct content experts - if your proposal deals with particle physics, there will probably be particle physicists on the review committee. But most grant opportunities are not that narrowly defined. They may want "science having to do with exploring space", and the fields could include both the natural and social sciences. So you could have a sociologist reading your particle physics proposal. Thus, your project must be explained clearly enough that a non-physicist can understand the general gist, the scientific value, and the value to society as a whole. He or she won't be able to judge the science most likely; the content expert reviewer will do that. But you have to be able to make the case generally as well.

Private foundations vary wildly. They may be so tiny that your application will be a one-page letter sent to a person who does this once a year and gets only a dozen proposals. They may be so large their process is similar to what the federal government uses, or even more stringent. The bigger foundations often include a site visit as part of their process. The small foundations may not have content experts; the large ones will likely have a mix. There again, clarity of thought, language, and value are keys.

There's a lot more to know about this, and we'll get to that. But it's a start!