Improving the Odds Keys to Successful Grant Writing

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Improving the OddsKeys to Successful Grant
Writing

• Dr. Kristi H. Martines
• Director of Grant Development
• NKU, Research, Grants Contracts

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Top 13 Reasons Why Grants Receive Unfavorable
Reviews

• 13. Typos
• 12. Poor grammar
• 11. The use region-specific assumptions You
  know what youre talking about unfortunately,
  they dont! (bridge example)
• 10. Unclear writing! Too tired to hunt
  reviewers cant understand how the project you
  propose relates to the actual guidelines

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Top 13 Reasons Why Grants Receive Unfavorable
Reviews

• 9. Budget does not relate to proposal
  objectives, budget too high, budget too low
• 8. Sloppy work
• 7. Establishing a need for the project
• 6. Evaluation or lack thereof
• 5. No sustainability plan
• 4. Proposed project does not fit RFP call
  Program Director

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Top 13 Reasons Why Grants Receive Unfavorable
Reviews

• 3. Unreasonable goals
• 2. Duplication of efforts
• 1. LACK of PLANNING AHEAD writing, etc

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The use of region-specific assumptions

• You know what youre talking about, but do they?
• This program is aimed at working with people
  north of the Bridge.
• The CPu projects directly to the MFB, which
  projects finally to the SNpc
• It is vital that you know who your audience is!
• Never assume that a local audience will
  understand

6
Unclear writing

• Too tired to hunt reviewers cant understand
  how the project you propose relates to the actual
  guidelines
• Match wording in program solicitation with
  proposal headings (handouts)
• Uses evaluation criteria as best model
• Comments from NKU faculty who have reviewed
  proposals

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Unclear Writing

• NSFs new requirement
• (1) the intellectual merit of the proposed
  activity and
• (2) the broader impacts resulting from the
  proposed activity.

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Effective Writing

• You must mean what you say and say what you mean.
  Every person (at least on the 3rd draft) feels
  as though their writing is poetry its NOT!
• Have another two or three people read for
  content, language, spelling, grammar, and
  nonsense!

9
Unreal Budget

• While some granting agencies have salary caps, it
  is important to remember that the purpose of the
  grant money is to accomplish the project! (not
  necessarily to provide one with 50 reassign
  time)
• Never undersell! Shipping, handling, per diem
  (rats), etc.

10
Sloppy Work

• Believe it or not several reviewers have
  commented on the low level of professionalism
  displayed in some proposals
• Mislabeled figures, tables, appendices
• Missing text
• Section headers on last line of a page
• No consistency in margins, spacing
• Varying font type and size

11
Need

• What is your target population ?
• Who do you want to serve? regardless of your
  project, the organizations funding you want to
  know how they will be helping others?
• Funding agencies will also want to know what they
  are getting out of it.

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Need

• Once you know who you want to help, you will have
  to find proof that the target population needs
  help or-
• Proof that your project will be useful to science
  and society !
• RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH

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Evaluation

• Many proposals do not have an adequate evaluation
  plan.
• Formative Evaluation Making progress toward
  achieving its objectives. Measures throughout
  the project.
• Summative Evaluation Achieving its objectives at
  the end of the project period.

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Evaluation

• What is an external evaluation?
• Why is it important?

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Sustainability

• How will your project continue after the money
  dries up?
• There are few if any grant programs (public or
  private) who will NOT ask this question.
• How will you sustain your project?

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Sustainability (programmatic)

• Saying that you will apply for more grants is
  not enough!
• Buy in NKU, others??

17
Project does not fit the solicitation

• Trying to be sneaky! - CCLI
• Very, very important to discuss your project with
  a person at the funding agency before you write
  it up...

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Duplication of Efforts

• Important to determine if any local agencies have
  grants or contracts to do similar work - may need
  to reconsider submitting if duplication of effort
  is perceived.
• If significant differences or improvements in the
  proposed project's goals can be clearly
  established, and a collaboration developed,
  chances for receiving funding increase.

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And the 1 reason why grants proposals are not
funded...

• Lack of Planning

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Final Thoughts

• The grant needs to sound active and proactive.
  Weak writing, with too many unnecessary words
  leaves the reviewer dozing off. Keep it lively,
  with graphs and charts.
• Leave page limit to a minimum!
• To write a successful grant, one of the most
  important things is to have a unique idea or a
  novel project.
• The Abstract Use this to hook your reviewer!

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Always remember... Make the program officer your
friend!
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FIPSE Proposal

• Grade on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 4 (highest)
  each of the following
• Need
• Significance of Project
• Quality of Project Design
• Quality of Project Evaluation
• Give final grade on scale from 1 (lowest) to 7
  (highest)