Grant Writing Tips
"How to Write a Low-Scoring Proposal"
Provided for districts to use in preparing Enhancing Education Through Technology Competitive Grants
The contributions to this document come from NWREL staff who have read and scored hundreds of state and federal grant proposals, We have sat in hotel conference rooms, department of education facilities or own office with stacks of proposals in front of us. We knew that these proposals have been written by people who spent days, nights and weekends crafting them. Failure meant that their students would not have access to resources or programs and that people might lose their jobs. It seemed like a daunting task as we looked at the piles of proposals in front of us.
To make the task less intimidating, we reviewers used the rubrics and criteria that were either provided or that we developed from the Request for Proposal (RFP). Often, these criteria were weighted to reflect what the funding agency felt were important priorities to address when writing an application.
Yet, as we read the proposals, we were continually surprised at how often critical RFP requirements were ignored, described inadequately or didn't make sense. Sometimes we wondered if someone was forced to write the proposal but really didn't have much stake in winning and really didn't want to win. Or on other occasions we assumed that the proposal we received was actually written for a different competition and ended up in our pile by mistake. So we decided to create the following list in the hopes that you will NOT make the same mistakes.
The major point to remember as you write your proposal is that readers, who don't know you or your situation, are probably reading many proposals and have limited time to decide fairly quickly whether your proposal should be funded.
Follow these to write a losing proposal.
1. Compliance: Ignore the RFP requirements on page length, formatting, submission times, partnership requirements, etc. The nice thing for the reviewers about doing this is that they have fewer proposals to review, because they never even see your proposal. These proposals are usually filtered out by administrative assistants before they reach the readers.
2. Responsiveness: Ignore the content focus of the RFP. For example, the goal of the E2T2 program is "to increase student achievement through the effective integration of technology into curricula and instruction." Make sure that the technology is central to what you are doing and that program couldn't be done as well without it. We have read proposals in which every teacher was going to receive a computer, but it wasn't clear how this was going to directly "increase student achievement."
3. Responsiveness: Ignore criteria because you believe they have already been met. For example, the E2T2 RFP requires a minimum of 25% for profession development (you did realize that, didn't you?). You may have spent the last two years doing extensive staff development and know your teachers are well trained and able to implement the proposal focus. So you write this in your proposal and say that the staff doesn't need training and you will spend the money on other needs. For the reviewer, your proposal is now noncompliant - and it goes in the "do not fund" pile.
4. Clarity: Develop broad, hazy, or unfocused objectives, or objectives not clearly linked to activities and budgets. We have read many objectives that leave us wondering what the project will do. Examples are, "Improve student achievement." Or "Increase student motivation." These kinds of statements are fine as goals, but too broad and general as objectives.
5. Clarity: Don't state the timeline or implementation steps of the project. Many proposals don't provide details on the project implementation or the staff that will implement it. If reviewers finish reading and don't know how the project will be done, you lose points.
6 Focus: Make the scope of the project too large either for the requested budget or the time available. Many proposers throw in everything that is mentioned in the RFP, hoping they will be more competitive if they promise to include each and every thing that a project could possibly address. Most reviewers have a good understanding of what is feasible to do on a given budget and timeline. Proposals often lose points for promising too much, rather than for being realistic and well focused.
7. Focus: Don't match your budget with the scope of work. Reviewers examine the budget to see if it is capable of supporting what is promised. Especially in technology related projects, a good portion of the budget goes for purchasing hardware or software, yet the proposal may also promise extensive staff development, curriculum integration and development, and technical support. If the budget isn't available to support implementation of all activities in the narrative, you lose points.
8. Evaluation: Write un-measurable project objectives. For example, many technology-oriented proposals state that standardized test scores will rise due to the use of technology. However, the evaluation design may include no way of distinguishing the use of the technology from other possible reasons for the change. The project timeline may not allow longitudinal comparisons of test scores or the project activities may target student performance in areas that are not reasonably measured by existing standardized tests. Lack of a workable method for evaluating the project is often a sign of an unclear or unrealistic rationale underlying the project design.
9. Evaluation: Don't include an evaluation plan, or if you do, make sure that it does not logically and clearly measure your objectives. Many proposals have no evaluation plan, an inadequate budget for a plan, or a plan that is ineffective and will not be able to determine if the project was successful or not. A rough estimate is that an evaluation plan must be supported by approximately 10% of the budget (the non-technology part of the budget) to provide useful results. Good evaluators can help craft effective and measurable goals, provide formative feedback during the project so that the director can make the project more effective, and provide the funding organization with the reports and data they require.
10. Professionalism: Avoid having your proposal proofread or checked for consistency by an objective reader. Reviewers understand that many proposals are created under very tight timelines, but even so, the proposal should have been read by others to see that it meets the RFP guidelines, that it reads well and is consistent, and that it doesn't have grammar or spelling errors.
Finally, we must add that we have written many proposals ourselves - some which we have won and more that have lost. Competition can be stiff even if you avoid these potholes. Good luck.
Michael Coe
Gary Graves
Seymour Hanfling
PS--If you don't like this advice and instead want to try to write a winning proposal, go to our E2T2 Resources for guidance.