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!

So You Have An Idea...

You have an idea so great that sponsors will line up to give you money to make it happen.

If they only knew about it.

Oh, wait. You have to explain the idea, in a way that lets the potential sponsor know you know what you're talking about, and you can make it happen. How do you do that?

You start by answering several simple questions about the idea. These are the foundation for your proposal to a sponsor, no matter how small or large, simple or complex your idea/project is.

What do you want to accomplish?
Who is your target market/client/audience?
Who will the activity/project happen with or to?
What resources will be needed to make it happen?
What tasks will have to be done to make it happen?
How long will it take to accomplish your goal(s)?
How will you prove it happened afterward?
How will you prove it accomplished your goal(s)?

When outlining your initial idea, you may have only one to three sentences answering each of these. As you develop the proposal, each of these will expand dramatically. It won't be intimidating by that point, because you have a blueprint, a map to follow.

We'll take each question individually in the coming weeks.

Now, go forth and think fundable thoughts!

THE RULES Part 1

Grant writing comes with lots of rules. I am not a fan of rules. Okay, some rules I'm all behind. I'm highly in favor of the "don't murder" one, and the "don't steal" one too. But a lot of rules have little to no defensible logic behind them. I struggle with those.

Many rules associated with grant writing can seem nit-picky and annoying. Trust me, I have picked some nits in my time, and been annoyed out of my black leather pointy-toed flats. I have wanted to plant one of those pointy toes right in a rule-maker's shin. Yet when you look closely at grant rules, the majority do have logic and are not that hard to follow.

And if you don't follow the rules of grant writing and submission? That great prose and stellar idea you spent hours and days and weeks crafting will land smack in the sponsor's trash bin. Even if you met the deadline.

Some sponsors have more pages of rules than they allow you to write for your submission. Every rule in there has to be followed. Some sponsors have so few rules you're not sure how to even ask for funding. You must somehow figure out how to approach them.

I will help you figure it out. But please, please... follow. every. rule. ALL of them. If the guidelines say it, do it. Just remember:

No rule is too small to trigger the trash bin.