• Increasing emphasis on grants that address pressing societal issues, such as climate change, public health, and social inequality. For example, there has been a surge in grants for renewable energy research, community health initiatives and programs aimed at promoting diversity and inclusion in various fields.
• Growing popularity of collaborative grant programs that encourage partnerships between multiple stakeholders. These initiatives recognize the importance of interdisciplinary approaches and collaboration across sectors to tackle complex challenges.
• Rising interest in supporting sustainability of projects that not only deliver immediate results but also have the potential for lasting positive effects on communities, ecosystems, and economies.
• Advances in data analytics and artificial intelligence that enable funding agencies to better assess the potential impact and feasibility of grant proposals, leading to more informed decision-making.
• Intense competition for funding, with many worthy projects vying for limited resources. Donors are placing an emphasis on funding projects that are innovative, have wide impact, address significant issues of relevance to them, and are well written.

In response to these challenges and opportunities, there is a growing emphasis on capacity building and support services to help applicants strengthen their grant-writing skills, develop robust project proposals, and navigate the intricacies of grant procurement. Organizations such as universities, non-profits, and government agencies are offering training programs, workshops, and mentorship opportunities to empower aspiring grant seekers and increase their chances of success. For example, we at the Grant Training Center have seen a threefold increase in the number of professionals we train in our Grant Development workshops, as well as in the requests we receive for the grant reviews and editing of grant proposals.

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The LOI should be written to communicate at least three things:

• That you have researched the donor and know the project fits their guidelines as well as their culture and language.
• That this is a substantial and needed project with real outcomes that serve the constituents.
• That you, your team, and institution are capable of succeeding if funded.

A Letter of Intent should be composed as follows:

• The opening paragraph should include the summary statement, which will be the roadmap of your proposal. This first section should stand alone and address: what, who, how much, and over what period.
• The Statement of Need (1-2 paragraphs) will include the problem, the science/field as it currently stands, what is unknown, what is proposed, and who will benefit by the intervention.
• The Project Activity or approach will address: what and how, innovation, partnerships, and all activities to be undertaken. This will be the bulk of your letter.
• Outcomes (1-2 paragraphs) will relate directly to your measurable objectives, will contain the specific deliverables/outcomes, and will show how you propose to achieve them.
• Credibility/credentials will address the project director’s and team’s credibility and why they are best equipped to carry out the project. Indicate awards, rankings, and tangible measures that set you apart from your peers. Also, describe what each team member will contribute to the project and how they will work together.
• The Budget (1-2 paragraphs) should be abbreviated; save the detail for the complete proposal. Instead, write a few sentences addressing other funding you have received or plans to raise the rest, and how the program will be sustained after the project is complete. Try to imagine the questions the reviewer will ask.
• The Closing Paragraph should refer to the solicitation instructions and the contribution that the intervention will make to the field/constituents. If it is a scientific research, reference should be made to the contribution you will make to your science and science in general.

Additional tips:

• Visualize your proposal and how it will unfold.
• Address the match between the donor’s mission and yours.
• Ensure that you avoid jargon, unnecessarily flowery language, superfluous adjectives and adverbs, and remove indefinite terms such as “might” “possibly” and “hope.”
• Get feedback from your colleagues.
• Review, if possible, other LOIs written to your donor.

The post The Letter That Will Get You Funded appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

The development of a competitive and winning bid takes time, proper planning, the identification of the right resources at the right time and place, and implementation of both art and science practices. Win strategies are devised, value propositions are offered, the science case is conceptualized, solutions are engineered, graphical depictions of funder visions are created, and win themes and discriminators are sprinkled throughout the proposal – all carefully developed from the issues surrounding the procurement. This is how the proposal becomes funder-focused, not just where the program office is now, but where they are going in the future.

Ultimately, a winning bid tells a story: “Michelangelo said that he did not sculpt marble; he discovered it in the sculpture that was already hidden in the stone that released it. In winning proposals, we discover the solution already hidden in the Request for Proposal (RFP) that released it, and finding a cost-effective way to create a larger market that may have discovered us, as we look to our projects to signal us of events to come. To win, we must invite the audience to reflect on what the future might look like in their eyes. There will be those who are persuaded by art, and those who are moved by pure science. The challenge is to offer both, affordably, and then to let those who released the RFP think they discovered it…”

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Let’s begin with Joan Didion, who talked about the “infinite power” of grammar: “To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object photographed.”

She reminded me of Gopen and Swan’s seminal paper, “The Science of Scientific Writing,” which replaced the standard rule-focused approach to writing improvement with an interpretative approach focused on readers’ expectations.

Your readers — the reviewers of your proposal — are looking for answers to specific questions. But more importantly, they expect to find them in particular places. When the answers aren’t where they expect them, they’re more likely to miss your point entirely, or worse, assume that whatever they do find there is the real point.

Their first question is ”whose story is this”, and they look for that answer in the subject of your sentence. Consider these two sentences, which describe the same activity but have different subjects:

• Training in responsible conduct of research will be provided.
• Students will receive training in responsible conduct of research.

For the first sentence, reviewers are more likely to expect details about the curriculum; for the second, details about how many or which students will be trained.

Their second question is “what is this about”, and they look for the answer in a strong and active verb. Too much academic writing converts strong verbs into nouns — a process called nominalization. Usually, this requires adding a weak or auxiliary verb. Consider these sentences:

• The team will meet monthly.
• The team will have a monthly meeting.

Those two extra words seem negligible here… but if you nominalize just half your verbs, you’ll waste a full page in a 20-page proposal.

The reviewers’ third question is “how does the material link backward and forward?” They look for context and perspective at the start of a sentence or paragraph – what Gopen and Swan call the topic position. To maintain your proposal’s logical flow, reserve the topic position for old material and connect it to what follows. If you put new material here, you’ll change the focus of your story and increase the chance readers will follow the wrong trail.

Their final question is ”what material warrants my attention?” They expect to find new and important material at the end of a section, paragraph, sentence, or even a clause. This is the stress position – and Gopen and Swan claim that the misplacement of stress-worthy information is the number one writing/reading problem.

The topic and stress positions are especially important in panel reviews which have a mix of “expert” and “lay” readers. Even a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study section which appears to be populated by experts in your field will include people who are less attenuated to the fine points of your arguments.

The lay readers need context to understand where you’re headed. They’re more likely to parse the topic position closely but defer to the experts’ judgments about their details. The opposite holds for the experts — they’ll skim the topic position but read the stress position closely to evaluate your theory and methods.

You will win more grants if you align your points with reader expectations. This reader-oriented approach echoes Joan Didion’s thoughts about sentence structure. Rhetoric is like real estate: the three most important concerns are location, location, and location.

The post Critical Tips for Captivating Grant Writing appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

What does that mean in practical terms?

It turns out that professional writers—novelists, essayists, and journalists—have a lot to say about that. If you google “writers on writing” you’ll find hundreds of quotes. Here are five of my favorites and how they apply to proposal writing:

Elmore Leonard: “Leave out the parts the readers tend to skip.”

Simply put, most proposals have too much information. A Pew study showed TV weather reporters actually became more skeptical of climate change as they accumulated knowledge. Articles, book chapters, and books aim to inform; proposals are meant to persuade. To do so, give an expert audience only as much background as it needs to see that you’re grounded in best practice; focus on what you’re doing that’s new. Conversely, give lay readers only what they need to understand the elegance of what you’re proposing and what they’ll get from it.

Practically, this also alleviates the ubiquitous and crippling struggle against page limits.

Steven King: “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart”

This can apply in several ways. You might have a profound insight that puts a whole new wrinkle on the field but doesn’t change your work plan in any meaningful way. Discussing it here distracts the reader from other concepts. Save it for a book or article. Or, you want to do something that is really cool and are burning to share it… but there isn’t enough time or treasure in the budget to actually do it right. Leave it out of the proposal and talk about it with friends over a distilled beverage. The most common way this comes up is when you share your document with colleagues and there’s something that no one understands. Maybe that idea isn’t ready for prime time.

Joan Didion: “All I know about grammar is its infinite power. To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object photographed.”

Gopen and Swan’s seminal article “The Science of Scientific Writing” cites research showing that readers interpret your writing based on six expectations.² Among these: they expect to find any new or important information at the end of a discursive unit (i.e., a clause, sentence, paragraph, or section). If it’s elsewhere, they are likely to miss it and interpret what is there as your main point. Conversely, they expect to find context and perspective at the start of the unit. Violating these expectations increases the likelihood that your writing will be misinterpreted.

Kurt Vonnegut: “Give the reader at least one character he can root for.”

The most persuasive arguments use three rhetorical devices: logos (logic), ethos (authority), and pathos (emotion)—but the academic argument shuns pathos. Granted, it isn’t relevant for most single investigator research projects—but it is somewhat relevant for center grant proposals, more so for projects that include trainees, and highly relevant for fellowship applications. Even on single investigator research proposals, you can make an emotional connection with the reader using metaphors to bring your vision into their world. Effective use of pathos to augment strong arguments from logic and authority can provide a competitive edge.

George R.R. Martin: “There are two types of writers: architects and gardeners.”

Architects plan in advance – where will everything go, what each paragraph will say. Gardeners plant a seed but don’t know how the plant will develop. Martin is a proud gardener, but he doesn’t have to address formal review criteria. You, on the other hand, need architectural drawings—storyboards—that lay out the structure and content of each section (and even each paragraph). That’s how to ensure your proposal addresses all the review criteria, mirrors the language in the program announcement, and gives proportional attention to the factors that go into the evaluation.

The post How to Write Persuasive Proposals appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

Once, when I worked for a small, under-resourced organization, we created a project that perfectly fit a community need, was structured for efficiency, and had a large return on investment from donors. I approached an eager donor who was familiar with our efforts, our successes, and our available resources. I asked him for $1.3M. He told me he loved the project, was thrilled with our design, and really wanted to give us the gift. Then, he said, “unfortunately, your organization doesn’t have the ability to receive a gift as large as $1.3M.” I was dumbfounded. We had done everything right in evaluating, justifying, and planning a strategy to meet an essential need in our community. Yet, as an organization, we didn’t have the operational structure to receive a large donation. In that instant of excitement and disappointment, I realized that all fundraising efforts should only start after a close examination of an organization’s situation, their board, their staff, their infrastructure and their standing in the community. Each of these will influence an organization’s potential for raising funds.

The key steps in the process of assessing your fundraising capacity are: understanding how your organization is perceived internally and externally, knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and prioritizing your efforts and resources. Likewise, a solid market analysis is essential in developing a diversified and successful fundraising strategy.

After these initial strategic considerations, the next level of capacity building is to determine the size of your potential donor database. Once you identify these donors, begin making the match between you and them and solicit funds to develop projects of mutual interest.

Specifically, the steps to build your organization into a financial success are:

1. Know your organization by creating:
   1. Strategic plan
   2. Market analysis
   3. Needs assessment
   4. Current assessment of potential donors
2. Build a successful board consisting of:
   1. Community leaders
   2. Business leaders
   3. Political leaders
   4. Philanthropic leaders
3. First level fundraising strategies consist of:
   1. Classic and contemporary media presence, from local news to social media
   2. Regularly scheduled newsletters and updates
   3. Direct solicitations to the donors you already know
   4. Building member databases
      1. Collect emails at public events
      2. Provide free membership while sharing emails
      3. Use current members to introduce new members
   5. Annual appeal letters to donors
      1. Tell a story
      2. Explain how the potential donor can help
      3. Ask for the money
   6. Exploring area philanthropies & corporate donors from
      1. Community foundations
      2. Local businesses
4. Second level fundraising strategies consist of:
   1. Grants
   2. Small to medium-sized special events
   3. Planned giving programs
5. Top level fundraising strategies consist of:
   1. Capital campaigns
   2. Large scale events

Fundraising strategies vary from one type of organization to another. If the organization is small, it is best to employ a strategy that builds your supporter database and directly solicits them for cash donations. In contrast, a large, established organization may be in the perfect position to host a sizable gala.

When your organization has a track record of successes, strategic efforts should be made to attract the most powerful and influential board members. These board members will bring credibility to your organization as you begin to seek larger donations. As your board stature grows, so will your options in fundraising.

An honest assessment of your organization and your place in the community will help you understand the best approach to take to effectively secure funds. Thus, with broad community recognition, a strong track record of success, financial efficiency, and influential board members, you’ll be able to employ a large diversity of effective fundraising strategies.

The post How to Build a Successful Nonprofit appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

The pre-review steps are:

• A rigorous review of your grant by one or more of your trusted colleagues, who are equally knowledgeable in your discipline.
• Comments from a naïve reader, who is a professional outside your field. If that person does not understand 50% of what you are trying to say, your grant is in trouble. The reason for this is that often, the donor reviewers who score your proposal are not necessarily knowledgeable in your area of expertise.
• Proofreading by a professional editor, who will check for correct grammar, transitions, effective language, and the fit for the audience you will be addressing.

Alternatively, you can enlist the services of an organization that conducts professional grant reviews for a small investment. This type of grant review will encompass all three colleague reviews described above in one package.

Following is the pre-review process further broken down into key elements:

The Content Reviewer(s)

Experts in your field should be your first reviewers. My recommendation is that you select one or more trusted colleagues, who will be critical, have received grants in your area, and who serve on review panels on an ongoing basis. They will give you invaluable information about the strengths and weaknesses of your proposal, and how to address any problems.

We follow this process at the Grant Training Center. In many cases, our pre-reviews are more extensive than the donor review process your grant will undergo. We rigorously address each sentence and paragraph, along with the totality of the proposal, according to the RFP/RFA directions and the review guidelines. Once you receive this methodical feedback, you will be in a much better position to assess what needs to be changed and proceed accordingly.

The Naïve Reviewer

It is a good practice to have your grant reviewed and scored by those who may not be in your field. Consequently, you will be able to gauge how much of your grant can be understood by an educated layperson through their comments. They could be professionals who have been funded in the past, but in other areas of expertise. As is the case with most foundations, you might not know who the reviewers of your grant will be; it could be the program officer or perhaps some of the board members, who may not necessarily be knowledgeable in your specific discipline. Thus, it is essential that when you write, you write for a broad audience that will need your assistance in understanding your proposal. I have seen very complicated research grants that were written so effectively that they could be understood on a variety of expertise levels.

The Editor

Editing the proposal is the last phase of polishing your final product. Editing should take place after you have made all content changes and simplified your concepts for a larger audience. This phase is much more extensive than just grammar corrections. The editor should address effective transitions, make sure sentences are short and meaningful, and ensure the overall professional appearance of your grant. This person may not need to share your area of expertise, but should be a professional editor/writer who does editing on an ongoing basis. Editors can be found at your institution, through professional associations of editors, or through organizations such as ours.

You may wonder if money spent on review services could be better utilized in other ways. The reality is that the pre-review process dramatically improves your chances of being funded the first time. Thus, the time and resources that you will save more than justify the cost.

Even if you chose to hire an external organization, the amount of money you will spend on a grant review should be a small fraction of the grant budget. Hence, my strong recommendation is that you include this pre-review step in your timeline for preparing your proposal.

The post The Final Step to Avoid Grant Rejection appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

How to prepare

How well do you know the donors? What is their culture and language? With whom will you communicate even before you write the first word? Unless you understand what the donors want, you will not know how to communicate with them. Unfortunately, many grant writers I come across believe that the donor will give them money as long as they have a good idea. In reality, grants are awarded to those who have the ability to deliver on the donor’s interests.

How to persuade

Once you understand the donor, you can then seek to be understood. Your grant must be an idea that the donor wants to fund, and it will need to be explained precisely. This idea will best be captured by its simplicity and not its complexity. It is important, however, not to misconstrue simplicity as a “dumbing down” of ideas, but rather as complexity that is easily understandable. Next, you need to persuasively demonstrate the difference your idea will make in the lives of your constituents. Your introductory paragraph should have a strong impact statement that catches the reader’s attention. Open with the importance of the problem in terms of numbers or a forceful statement. For example: “Driving while talking on a cell phone, even hands-free, results in as many accidents as drunk driving.” This will awaken the interest of the reader and will provoke him/her to think seriously about your proposal.

How to connect

Now you are ready to invite the reader on an adventure using the art of storytelling. Competence alone is not enough to connect. When the message relies only on competence, writers become rigid and often get caught up trying to prove why their thoughts, ideas, or messages are the “right” ones. They focus only on themselves and they miss small moments to meaningfully connect and build trust with their audiences. Facts don’t change people; stories change people. The most successful grant writers are the best storytellers. They realize that stories bring facts to life.

Your goal is to capture the hearts and minds of grant reviewers. You will need to utilize an empathic grant writing style – your proposal cannot be a sterile, robotic document. The basis of your proposal is your good idea, which should be strong, innovative, well-thought out, and sincere. Your research will demonstrate that the problem you are addressing can be solved and your story will convey the overall impact of resolving a difficult problem for your constituents.

How to address the key parts of your proposal

The first impression: You will begin this process on the introductory page – your abstract. There, you will make the first impression of who you are, what you want and how you are going to achieve it. This first page will be a work of art, the snapshot of your entire proposal and the roadmap of your grant. It should never be an afterthought, since you never get a second chance to create a first impression.

The need: The need statement, which will be about thirty percent of the total proposal score, will be a persuasive argument that will include research, data, illustrations, and possibly well-structured anecdotes and specific examples. If your idea is solid, even though there may be some flaws in the approach, you stand a good chance of being funded. Your statement of need will include interventions that are innovative, make a real and tangible difference, and touch the lives of your beneficiaries.

The plan of operation: This section is the cornerstone of the strategic approach you need to take to execute your proposal. You will define the roadmap of your grant via the goal, measurable objectives, activities, timelines, personnel, evaluation, and budget. The direction of your proposal will now become immediately clear. You will speak as a person who fully understands the execution of your grant, tying every piece of the puzzle together.

At the end of the day, you will need to conceive of the grant package as an artistic endeavor. Be aware of the flow or the “music”, the visual rhythm via the illustrations you include, and assure that you have a mutual ethos, conversation, and communication with the funder. Be conscious of the ultimate gestalt of the package. Your goal – WOW!

The post Grant Success: Stop Stating, Start Connecting appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

Why do you want to do this? The immediate answer should be because you care about the idea, which will serve either a specific population in need or fill an important knowledge gap in the field. Another important reason for your desire to do this is your passion for the subject. This is a key element in grant writing that should be expressed in an honest and convincing manner. Unfortunately, this is a major pitfall for many investigators who have been taught to write manuscripts, which require a dispassionate writing style that utilizes a passive voice.

Why does it need to be done? Your own hunch is the first step in answering this question. You probably have worked in the field and noticed over and over again that something is missing and needs to be corrected. The next step is a thorough review of the literature that will address what is absent in solving the problem that you propose to tackle. It might also be that you have made a thorough investigation of what your population needs via questionnaires, observations, and discussion. Their answers will lead to the intervention and the reason you are about to apply for a grant. At this point, you will need to address the significance of your project in an innovative and transformative way.

Why should we believe that you can do it? If your project is feasible, focused and persuasive, the next step will be to convince your donor that the project is worth doing and that you are the best person to do it. The single most persuasive item that you can provide is evidence of your credibility via your extensive experience in the field, your academic training, publications, synergistic activities, and if the donor requires, letters of support from colleagues, supervisors, partners and mentors. The same would apply to your team and organization. In other words, is your team credible, and is your organization supportive?

How are you going to do it? This will be your business plan, which will be logically written in the prescribed format that the donor requests. The “how” requirements can vary from grant to grant. For project grants, it will include the goal and the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) objectives. For a research grant to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), it will include your hypothesis, specific aims and methodology. For others such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), your intellectual merit and broader impacts will delineate how you will do it. This section will require specificity, creativity and a keen understanding that there may be obstacles along the way, but that you are prepared to address and solve them when you encounter them.

Where have you gone for the information? The steps you have taken to understand the need for your project will be shown by the literature review and the preliminary data. For example, have you thoroughly researched the problem? Did you address the “so what” question? Did you seek evidence-based information? An example of the latter might be the best evidence for diagnosis, treatment and prevention options for health disorders that are tailored to the characteristics and context of the individual patient and the resources of the provider.

What distinguishes winning proposals are the answers to the above questions, which ultimately translate to your thorough understanding of the problem and your passion and fervor in undertaking the project. Your credibility as the director of the project and the credibility of your institution will also be key contributors to a successful proposal. At the end of the day, the pathway to being funded will depend on clear writing, a thorough literature review and a detailed and focused business plan that walks the donor through the actions that you will take to succeed.

The post Five Key Questions for Grant Success appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

Preparation

Superior grants are well-prepared and demonstrate strong attention to detail. Inferior ones are often written last-minute “in hopes” of being funded and will almost always be rejected. It takes time to complete an excellent literature review, develop preliminary data, assemble a credible team, speak with program officers, and write clearly and logically.

In my own grant writing experience, I made every word count. I had my colleagues criticize my grant, asked naïve readers to tell me what they did not understand, and brought in editors and graphic designers for the final touches. I have always viewed proposals as business plans that should be at the same time works of art. I look at things this way because when it comes to the donor’s evaluation, there’s the good, the excellent, and the outstanding. Only the outstanding get funded.

Perseverance

I believe that perseverance is a key component of success. Your focus should not be on the difficulty, but on the achievement. Not knowing how to write a proposal is a common problem for all beginners. Initially, as a “young investigator” you may have trouble being funded simply because you do not know how to go about it. Training on how to put a good proposal together can be a first and very helpful step. Preparing a proposal as part of an experienced team can be a second helpful strategy. Ultimately, submitting the proposal to the best of your ability will be a third. Failing at that first submission should then lead to a better understanding of how to repair your mistakes. It might take several tries, but perseverance will ultimately pay off.

Credibility

Grants require competence, strength of the ideas, and proven track records. One of the key evaluation components for all grant submissions is the credibility of the requester. If you don’t have a good track record, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be funded. You might have to demonstrate previous success in less competitive grants such as those offered internally by your institution or through foundation support. A strong publication record in top journals and superior recommendations from deans and department chairs are also extremely important.

Passion

You need to write your proposal with passion and communicate that excitement. Excellent grant writers know how to tell a great story that is both passionate and pragmatic. Your story should convey the overall impact of resolving difficult problems for your constituents, or the importance of the science for which you are filling a research gap. You must make it obvious that your proposal matters by addressing the impact, the “so what question”, and the paradigm shift you will make in the field. It is this passion that you want to convey to the reviewers.

At the end of the day, superior grants are a product of preparation, preparation, and more preparation. Once you are prepared, credibility, attention to detail, passion, and conviction will enthuse, and ultimately convince your donors. Finally, learning from your mistakes and persevering in spite of difficulties will eventually pay dividends and set you on a path to become a successful independent investigator.

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