Proposal Development
Tips from the sponsors
- Read the Instructions: Read solicitations and guidelines carefully and thoroughly. Follow formatting and note restrictions. Fully answer ALL questions and provide ALL documents.
- Prepare Early: Create a timeline for yourself to allow for completion, proofreading, and internal administrative deadlines. Reviewers can tell when a proposal is rushed.
- Use Sponsor Templates: Applications that stray from reviewer expectations may be rejected without review.
- Be Reasonable in Your Request: Ensure that your budget is a direct reflection of your narrative. Each budget item should have a strong, detailed justification.
- Consider the Review and Evaluation Criteria: The sponsor typically identifies the most important areas. Target effort to the pieces they've prioritized.
- Be Clear. Be Logical. Be Organized. Be Concise: Establish your main points without being overly complex. Write for reviewers who are experts as well as novices.
- Explain Why Your Idea is the Best: Make your improvements clear, and explicitly explain why your proposal is the best option over the alternatives.
| Finding opportunities | Writing the proposal |
|---|---|
| *GrantForward (requires UIS credentials) *Grants.gov *National Institutes of Health, Grants and Funding Page *National Science Foundation *National Endowment for the Humanities *National Endowment for the Arts *Department of Energy *Department of Defense *Illinois Board of Higher Education *The Grants Resource Center (requires UIS credentials) | *Write Your Application: NIH *General Grant Writing Tips for Success from USDA *Art of Grantsmanship - Human Frontier Science Program, Dr. Jacob Kraicer *The Science of Scientific Writing - George Gopen and Judith Swan, American Scientist *Proposal Writing Short Course from the Foundation Center *On Using Plain Language (from NIH, but widely applicable) *Guide for Writing a Funding Proposal by S. Joseph Levine, Ph.D. at Michigan State University |