Ten Steps to a Successful Proposal
1. Contact us
4. Write your Proposal to fit the funder's requirements
6. Complete a Proposal Routing Package (PRP)
7. Get your Proposal signed by your department head and dean
8. Submit your PRP to ORA for approval
9. Submit your proposal to the funding agency
10. Turn your funding notification into money you can spend!
The concept paper, sometimes called a prospectus, preliminary proposal, or pre-proposal, is a useful tool for several purposes. It helps clarify and organize ideas in a written form and provides the basis for a funding search. From the concept paper, an individual is able to develop any number of grant applications for the same idea.
Read more about the concept paper (PDF)
Proposal Guidelines
If you are submitting a proposal to an agency with specific guidelines, follow those guidelines closely. Often, applications that do not follow guidelines, organization, content, format, etc., exactly are returned to the Principal Investigator (PI) without being reviewed. When such guidelines are unavailable, use the following elements of a good proposal. (PDF)
Helpful Guides
- "Guide for Writing a Funding Proposal" by S. Joseph Levine, Ph.D.
- A Practical Guide for Writing Proposals by Alice Reid, M.Ed
- Sciencecareers.org “How Not to Kill a Grant Application”
- OCLC- Grant Writing Guide
- University of Pittsburgh Proposal Key Components
- Foundation Center- Proposal Writing Short Course
Specific Agency Guidelines
- Grants.gov- Apply for Grant
- DOE- Grantmaking at ED (PDF)
- National Institutes of Health Office of Extramural Research Grant Writing Tips Sheets
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases All About Grants Tutorials
- National Science Foundation Proposal and Award Policies (PDF)
- The Social Science Research Council The Art of Writing Proposals
- Basic Elements of Grant Writing (from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting)
- Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance: Developing and Writing Grant Proposals