Every donor is unique. For example, the institutes that comprise the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have dissimilar missions, and each has its own culture and requirements. The same can be said of the Department of Defense (DoD) and a myriad of other donors. Chasing the money rather than good ideas is a major flaw. Donors do not fund those focused on money, they fund those who are passionate about a good idea that aligns with their goals. Consequently, here are the five things you need to know about the language and culture of any donor before you write:

• What are the priorities of the donor? Each donor has its own priorities. For example, the National Science Foundation (NSF) encourages interdisciplinary programs and transformative ideas, and their definition and characteristics appear on their website. The DoD has five major foci: peacekeeping and war-fighting efforts, homeland security, evacuation and humanitarian causes. Each of these subcategories has their own mission and language. Turning to foundations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation seeks to understand the world’s inequities. “Whether the challenge is low-yield crops in Africa or low graduation rates in Los Angeles, we listen and learn so we can identify pressing problems that get too little attention. Then we consider whether we can make a meaningful difference with our influence and our investments, whether it is a grant or a contract.” As this demonstrates, each donor clearly addresses their funding culture via their priorities.
• What is the mission of the donor? All donors have their own missions, which give us an understanding of how they visualize their funding priorities. For example, the NSF’s mission is: “To envision a nation that capitalizes on new concepts in science and engineering and provides global leadership in advancing research and education.” The NIH’s mission is: “To seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.” The Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) run by the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command of DoD has a similar emphasis to NIH, but its mission is to relate health research to the armed forces. Even though both NIH and DoD fund innovative ideas to combat disease, their missions and foci are different.
• What have donors funded in the past and why? One of the best insights into a funding agency is who and what they funded in the past and how much money they awarded. Federal donors list abstracts of winning proposals, along with the name of the funded institution and the Principal Investigator/Project Director. Accordingly, we can instantly know who they consider credible and their focus. Foundations will often describe what they have funded in the past on their website. Their 990pf tax forms will also show how their funds were allocated. The decisive question for you to ask is how your idea and their funding patterns match.
• What are the evaluation criteria for awarding grants? How grants are evaluated is one of the best indicators of the donor’s culture. This will include the evaluation criteria, who the evaluators are and how they are chosen. For some donors, such as NIH and NSF, reviewer selection is not a blind process as reviewers who are chosen have a deep understanding of the agency culture. In the case of foundations, it is more difficult to discern who the reviewers are, but one good way is to understand the vision of the leadership and the makeup of the board, which will be reflected in the reviewers chosen.
• What is the language of the donor? In many cases donors speak different “languages”, which are in the same family of languages. For example, the various US Department of Education Title Programs (e.g. Title III or Title VI), address different topics. Some address underrepresented groups, others international and others centers of excellence. Similarly, NSF directorates and NIH institutes have different missions, speak to different audiences, and address their vision of the world on their own terms. It is these “languages” that need to be understood, spoken, and incorporated into grants in order to give you the competitive edge.

In conclusion, submitting similar proposals to different donors is a fatal flaw. In order to succeed, we have to understand first and seek to be understood secondly.

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CoSTEM

The multi-agency Committee on STEM Education (CoSTEM) has generated four new grants for 2015 that shift the focus to the teachers. These four funding opportunities will facilitate and encourage teachers and education administrators to develop additional high-quality STEM programs and lessons by sponsoring the following:

• STEM Innovation Proposal – This $170 million grant program will be divided among those who can demonstrate fresh ideas and new techniques to teach the next generation of innovators.
• STEM Innovation Networks – School district and college partnerships are the target of this $110 million program. The goal is to increase the number of students in STEM field career tracks.
• STEM Teacher Pathways – Recruitment and training of STEM teachers is the primary directive of this $40 million program.
• National STEM Master Teacher Corps – $20 million has been dedicated to recognition and assistance for outstanding STEM teachers who are having a real impact in their communities.

NSF

The National Science Foundation (NSF) offers ten STEM-focused grant programs, each with numerous possible directions for proposals. Primarily, the NSF focuses on undergraduate and higher levels of education; however, the agency does partner with organizations and other agencies to augment secondary STEM education. Also, the Broader Impacts section of each NSF proposal must include an outreach component in order to strengthen STEM education. Typical NSF STEM grant programs are:

• Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program (STEP) – The goal of STEP is to increase the number of students earning undergraduate degrees in STEM disciplines, with awards between $50,000 and $1.5 million.
• Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE: EHR) – This program seeks to make STEM undergraduate education a better-supported set of disciplines, whether by improving student learning experiences or institutional program reform. Awards range from $94,000 to $2 million.

Department of Education

More than thirty-four programs at the U.S. Department of Education focus on or give priority to STEM education. With the recent movement toward STEM-oriented disciplines, even more programs will be developed. The Department of Education supports all levels of education, and many K-12 school systems depend on this funding. Two examples of STEM grant programs are:

• Mathematics and Science Partnerships – The goal of this program is to improve math and science education via partnerships between K-12 school systems or education programs and STEM professionals, and between teachers and institutions of higher education for training purposes.
• Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program – This initiative solicits long-term projects to increase the number of people from underrepresented groups, especially women.

Private Foundations

An increasing number of private foundations are taking the initiative to solve the STEM education problem in America. Support for teacher training, innovation in the classroom, or undergraduate research is available from many organizations, from local community nonprofits to globally recognized foundations. Some examples are:

• Gates Foundation – A technology component and teacher support are required for the CollegeReady program, which seeks to improve personalized learning in the classroom.
• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation – The Leadership Diversity program seeks to sponsor faculty positions and professional development for underrepresented groups.
• Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Foundation – The Noche de Ciencias program sponsors a series of informative and interactive student activities throughout the community to generate an interest of the STEM disciplines in Hispanic students.
• Burroughs Wellcome Fund – Promoting Innovation in Science and Mathematics (PrISM) awards are granted to exceptional K-12 teachers for classroom support in STEM education.

The call to action from these organizations has broadened the horizons for those who have been seeking to make a difference in their classrooms or institutions. Innovative, creative, and outcome- and student-centered approaches are what will drive the changes toward correcting America’s STEM education problem.

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The Learning Environment and Challenging Curriculum

Funding requests should include the following best practices for a positive learning environment:

• Encouraged collaboration between students
• Topics that relate to student interests and the discovery process
• Integration of math, science, and technology to help students understand the importance and connections between these fields
• Focus on hands-on experience, not just textbook learning
• Students should be helped to understand that failure is a normal occurrence while learning, and under no circumstances should they be punished for failure
• Flexible curriculum that demonstrates and facilitates creativity
• Use of latest technology, visual aids, and laboratory kits to foster learning
• An inquiry-based experiential curriculum that is clearly defined and understood
• Real-world applications
• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Student-centered plans to carry out investigations
• Students critiquing their own and their peers’ science practices
• Criteria that incorporate local, state, and national standards

Teacher Training on Inquiry-Based Learning

I would agree with Bill Gates, who said: “Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.” Teacher training should be ongoing and provide the techniques to use state-of-the-art technology and experiential teaching approaches. The focus should be on how teachers and students can work together as active learners. Specifically, training should include:

• Outcome-based lessons, whereby teachers transform their classes to include components of their training
• Topics for classroom instruction, such as: inquiry-based science teaching, the frontiers of science, and the analysis of difficult problems
• Subjects that lead to inquiry-based science learning with embedded student experiments
• An emphasis on the importance of student diversity, individuality, and uniqueness

Defined Outcomes or Assessment

Your proposal should clearly identify goals and objectives, and success should be measured against them. These should reflect the short-, mid-, and long-term outcomes. The evaluation should include a mixed method approach, in which quantitative and qualitative information is sought. The resulting assessment must clearly demonstrate a continuous effort to improve the program and ensure that all students are reached.

Sustained Commitment from the School Leadership, Parents and Community

In order for any STEM program to be sustained, collective support should be a major factor. This should begin with the school leadership, who should encourage and reward teachers who practice inquiry learning. Just as importantly, parents should be recognized for being involved in their children’s education. The community can also become an active partner via the funding from private industry.

These elements need to be included in a funding request to the donor to win STEM education grants. Both the public and private sectors are now offering funding opportunities, based on the urgency of this problem.

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