The Hitchhikers Guide to Making a Difference

(version 0.8.7, last rev. October 2012)

The Most Important Thing to Understand about Grants

Believe it or not, many people, institutions, and government agencies really do have good intentions. There are all kinds of good things they wish they could do to improve people's lives, but they frequently lack the people (and sometimes lack the expertise) to do all the things they wish they could do. Although they can be short on people and expertise, they can be long on money and ideas about the kind of difference they would like to make.

This is the foundation of all grant giving and grant getting: a person or entity wants to make a difference in the world, and they have the money to do it, but they don’t have the time or expertise to make the difference they’d like to make. If you can persuade them that you have both the time and the expertise to make that difference, and that you’re a generally likable and responsible person, they would love to give you some of their money if you promise to spend your time and use your expertise making the difference they wish they could make themselves.

Grants are all about doing the right thing. If you’re goal in applying for grants is to "bring in money," you can quit reading here.

'''Step 0. Do you really need a grant?'''

Before you embark on this process, make sure you really need a grant. Have you considered the merits of being [| ramen profitable] instead?

'''Step 1. Know what kind of difference you want to make.'''

This is the very first, and perhaps most important, step. If you don’t know what kind of difference you want to make then stop here and go get on someone else’s grant as a graduate assistant or research scientist. If there’s not a difference that you’re personally passionate about making, no one is going to support your noncommittal, half-hearted attempts at "getting a grant."

'''Step 2. Find a granting agency that wants to make the same kind of difference you do.'''

Granting agencies have programs, strands, and other words for the areas they focus on. The National Science Foundation focuses on science, math, engineering, and technology. The MacArthur Foundation focuses on peace and security, conservation and sustainable development, population and reproductive health, human rights, community development, regional policy, affordable housing, and system reform in education, juvenile justice, and mental health. Granting agencies all have these lists on their website somewhere – it should be very easy to find. Once you decide what kind of difference you want to make you need to find a granting agency with the same interests you have.

'''Step 3A. If the granting agency has "Requests for Proposals" (RFPs) on their web site, find the RFP that most closely matches what you want to do.'''

Some granting agencies regularly publish RFPs – documents that describe the specific kinds of differences they want to make over the next 12 months or so. RFPs will list deadlines for when applications need to be submitted, spell out the format applications should take, etc. Most importantly, the RFP will spell out the very specific kinds of work the agency is looking to support in the near future. Find the RFP that best describes the kind of difference you want to make.

'''Step 3B. If the granting agency website says, "We do not accept unsolicited proposals" or something equivalent, proceed directly to step 4.'''

'''Step 4. Find the agency employee responsible for the program that best aligns with the difference you want to make, and "soft pitch" your idea to them.'''

Writing proposals is a ton of work, and you never want to do the work if there’s not a really good chance of having it pay off – you could have spent that time actually working on making the difference you care about! Before you start anything formal, find an opportunity to contact the Program Officer or other directly responsible person. Will they be attending a conference you're going to? Will you be in the area of the Foundation? If nothing else, contact them by email with a two or three paragraph description of the work you hope to do, and ask if it sounds like a good fit to them for their program. Be kind, friendly, and respectful (but not worshipful!) in this interaction. The personal relationship you develop with the people at the agency will be your single greatest asset in making the difference you want to make – they will literally become your partner in the work you will eventually do. Take every opportunity to be both great and grateful to them.

If you get an affirmative answer to your email, move on to step 5. If you get a negative answer, go back to step 2. If you find yourself going back to step 2 too frequently, you may need to go back to step 1.

(Note: I once had a friend who could find no one to fund his / her work. They felt that they were being discriminated against unfairly, since "everyone else was getting grants." What you need to keep in mind is that this is other people's money we're talking about - when you can find someone that wants to make the same kind of difference you do, you have a partnership. When you can't, you need to either go it alone or get passionate about something else. But don't complain that other people won't give you their money for a project they're not interested in.)

'''Step 5. If you’re going to be responding to an RFP, highlight the RFP.'''

If the agency you’re applying to uses RFPs, print out a copy of the RFP, get a highlighter, and sit down with both. Read through the RFP highlighting sentences or sections that are particularly applicable to the work you want to do. Read through it again and highlight any keywords or phrases that pop up again and again in the proposal - terms or phrases it seems like the organization cares about. Finally, read it again and highlight all the sections that describe things you "must do" in your application (e.g., describe the societal impact of the proposed work) and any formatting requirements (like page length restrictions).

'''Step 6. Draft your proposal.'''

The proposal should conform in each and every single respect to the requirements outlined by the granting agency (even agencies that don’t use RFPs will likely have a template they want you to use). Your proposal should look like every other good piece of writing you do: it should include an introduction that motivates the reader to both believe a problem exists and that solving the problem is an important thing to do; it should present a review of literature that reports attempts people have made at solving all or part of the problem you want to work on (or related problems); it should describe in a clear manner exactly the work you propose to do, including a list of deliverables and a timeline, it should describe anticipated results in a realistic way, and it should describe how you will measure the success of your work.

'''Step 7. Have someone else read your proposal.'''

Have another semi-intelligent person in your field read your proposal, with a specific eye toward answering these questions: "What's the problem he's trying to solve? How important is it that we solve the problem? What contributions have others made to solving the problem? What specific contributions is he proposing to make to solving the problem? What might some of the outcomes be if he succeed in the proposed work? How will he know if he's succeeded in making the difference he intended to make?" If your reader's answers to these questions aren't what you expected, return to step 6.

'''Step 8. Burn incense, say prayers, and develop a budget.'''

People aren’t kidding when they say that developing budgets is a kind of black magic. The best advice I can give you here is this: find out what other projects at institutions like yours pay people like the ones you need to hire. Always round up. Sum up all the lines in your spreadsheet for a total. Your first several times through this process, double that number – you’ll barely scrape by on this amount. (Once you get the feel for it and your estimates are more accurate, you can quit doubling.) Don’t forget that full-time people need benefits, which costs about an additional 45% of their annual salary, depending on you insitution's policy. Also don’t forget that your institution will charge you overhead, another additional 45% or so of the total amount you thought you needed, depending on their policy. (Some agencies limit the amount they will pay, but they’ll tell you that.)

'''Step 9. Run the budget by the Contracts and Grants Office (or equivalent).'''

When you’re a university researcher, agencies don’t make grants to you personally – they make them to your university. The Contracts and Grants Office will check to make sure you added your numbers correctly, used the right percentages for benefits and overhead, and so on. They generally require 48 hours to do this review (and it’s required). So don’t wait until the last minute to finish writing your grant proposal, only to find that you miss the submission deadline while your budget is being reviewed in the CGO.

'''Step 10. Submit the proposal.'''

Depending on the agency, submission may simply be a matter of emailing your doc and spreadsheet to the program officer. For others (like NSF), you may have to navigate a complicated web-based submission system where you upload different portions of documents into different places (and the Contracts and Grants Office has to create you an account, which also takes time – don’t procrastinate!) For your first few NSF grants, always budget a full 8-hour day just for submitting your completed grant.

'''Step 11. Wait.'''

Most granting agencies will give you a good idea when you can expect to hear back from them. Don’t blow your relationship with the Program Officer by emailing to ask about your proposal before that time has come. In many cases, successful submissions will be contacted ahead of the official notice date with requests for clarifications, changes to the budget, etc.

'''Step 12. "Then a miracle occurs."'''

Sometimes you find yourself in a new partnership, and sometimes you don’t. Regardless of which outcome occurs, get back in touch with the Program Officer and keep working on your relationship with them. Sooner or later, you’ll probably be trying to build another partnership with him or her in order to make the difference you feel passionately about making. If you're successful with your proposal, you now move from imagining, designing, and pitching on to executing your idea. And as someone once said, "I'll take a mediocre idea with great execution over a great idea with mediocre execution any day of the week."