Grant Writing Confidential

One of the best things that can happen to a grant writer is to have the Census roll around during a time of economic crisis, because decennial Census data hangs around for about ten years. It takes the Census Bureau around two years or so to publish the latest data, which then gets used until [...]

[Read more →]

Carefully study this screenshot of EDA’s website for the i6 Challenge: Bear in mind that the purpose of the i6 program is “to support groundbreaking ideas in science and technology,” and ideally to fund really innovative stuff (in this respect it’s like i3 or any number of federal programs). But you might notice something funny [...]

[Read more →]

Federal grant programs are constantly demanding “innovative” projects, even when the specific requirements of the program prevent any deviation from narrowly defined activities. Take two examples regarding how project services can be delivered: No matter what the RFP for any human services program requires, there are only two basic ways to deliver human services: you [...]

[Read more →]

Everyone has a Madeleine Moment from time to time, when a breakfast pastry or, for an old grant writer, an RFP, sends one into a reverie. I experienced a Madeleine Moment recently when the Office of Adolescent Health (OAH) issued two RFPs, one for Teenage Pregnancy Prevention: Replication of Evidence-based Programs and one for Replication [...]

[Read more →]

In the Ghostbusters movie, there’s a scene where Ray (played by Dan Aykroyd) tells Gozer to get off an apartment building. He then makes a critical mistake: Gozer: [after Ray orders her to re-locate] Are you a God? [Ray looks at Peter, who nods] Dr. Ray Stantz: No. Gozer: Then… DIE! [Lightning flies from her [...]

[Read more →]

Among the many oddities of writing proposals is that most RFPs require that the applicant demonstrate extensive collaborations or form partnerships. I don’t know why RFPs demand this, because it is unlikely that a collaboration between McDonald’s and Burger King would result in a better burger (McWhopper?). The feds specifically preclude businesses from “collaborating” through [...]

[Read more →]

NOTE: The Notices Inviting Applications (NIA) for Fiscal Year 2011 are now available. It took the Department of Education a year and three months to issue the second round, but I suppose that’s better than never. Subscribers to our e-mail grant newsletter saw that the Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) RFP was (finally) released on [...]

[Read more →]

I just posted “Where Have All the RFPs Gone?,” in which I speculated that the lateness of federal RFPs this fiscal year is probably due to the fact that overworked program officers are still chewing through last year’s proposals. Imagine my surprise when I read “Staffing Woes Hinder Job-Boosting Program” by Michael Aneiro in this [...]

[Read more →]

Subscribers to our Free Grant Alerts will probably have noticed relatively few large federal RFPs so far in this fiscal year, which began October 1. To paraphrase Peter, Paul & Mary, Where Have All The RFPs Gone?. I assume this dearth is because federal program officers are still churning through the tidal wave of Stimulus [...]

[Read more →]

One of the many interesting aspects of running a general-purpose grant writing firm is that we are often called upon to write complex proposals covering subjects about which we know little or nothing, as I discussed in No Experience, No Problem: Why Writing a Department of Energy (DOE) Proposal Is Not Hard For A Good [...]

[Read more →]