Positioning for Grant Seeking Success

GRANT READINESS SELF-ASSESSMENT

PROJECT INVENTORY WORKSHEET - Individual:    xlsx   pdf

PROJECT INVENTORY WORKSHEET - Team:   xlsx   pdf

Learning about sponsors’ missions, priorities, and grant making processes will help you determine the best source of funding for your projects.

• Home page features
• “About” web site section
• Strategic plans
• Research priorities
• Budget requests
• Annual reports
• Serve as a reviewer
• Webinars
• Grants conferences and offerors’ days
• Contact with staff at conferences and meetings
• Advisory boards

This monthly newsletter available to the UNH community provides timely advice on funding opportunities and how to compete successfully for research and education funding from federal agencies and from foundations. New issues, published mid-month, are emailed to the Research Office PI/PD List.

Current and back issues are available in Box: https://unh.box.com/s/k5vaso4469fj4nnbbr6jhagbwku0nxo0

• Use Dimensions a linked research knowledge system
• Search the sponsor’s database:

 

A key to successful grant seeking is to build on-going relationships with Program Officers (also known as Program Area Priority Contacts, Program Contacts, National Program Leaders, Program Staff, Technical Points of Contact).

Relationships with the program officers can allow you to gain valuable decision-making information, both before and after you submit your proposal. By making this intellectual connection, you can draw on the program officer’s experience in your research area and in the sponsor’s priorities, preferences, and processes.

Successful awardees consistently and overwhelmingly attest to importance of this relationship building.
 

• Serves as the “face” of the program
• Cultivates new/the best ideas
• Provides informal feedback re: project match with program
• Reviews submitted LOIs for match with program

• Manages the peer review process
• Makes recommendations for funding based on peer reviews and other factors
• Communicates outcomes of review to applicants

• Provides feedback and consultation on declined proposals
• Manages award administration
• Reports performance, summaries, success stories and highlights to the sponsor
• Provides program communication, including outreach and promotion

 

• Send an email to request a phone conversation or in-person visit
• Meet at professional meetings/conferences – serendipitous or scheduled
• Attend sponsor-hosted grants conferences, proposer days, etc.
• Watch for and attend program officer visits to UNH

 

Effective Practices for Contacting Program Officers at Federal Agencies

Can We Talk-Contacting Program Officers --- Robert Porter

What to Say - and Not Say - to Program Officers --- Chronicle of Higher Education

Advice for Meeting Directors at NSF --- Richard Nader

One of the best ways to learn how to craft a competitive proposal is to serve as a reviewer. In addition to providing you with a chance to see a range of proposals (effective and not-so-effective), reviewing helps you become familiar with a particular grant program and/or sponsor, build your relationship with the program officer, learn how the sponsor’s review criteria are interpreted by other reviewers, and network with colleagues in your field. It is also a way to provide service to your discipline.

This article and the comments after it provide additional insights: Why I Became a Grant Reviewer.

Most federal agencies are always seeking to add to their rosters of potential reviewers to ensure a sufficient level of expertise and skill is present in the review panels without conflicts of interest.

Follow the links below to volunteer to be a peer review for these sponsors. If the sponsor/program you’re interested in isn’t listed, send an email to the program officer and ask!

Before (and after) applying, be sure your website, c.v., and other online professional profiles are up-to-date and include relevant keywords about your research areas.

Before applying, get a unique personal identifier by signing up for an ORCID iD and authorizing ORCID to link up your publications.

Before applying, familiarize yourself with the sponsor’s mission and the program’s goals.

When applying, be sure to(1) highlight relevant background and experience, not just your scholarly credentials, e.g., work and volunteer experience, college education, working with at risk youth, grants you have written or managed, completed research studies or articles, etc., and (2) explain why you will be a good reviewer for that sponsor and program.

 

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/faqs-on-the-acf-review-process

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ana/grants/ana-objective-panel-review

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/resource/discretionary-grant-reviewer-application-process

Basic Center Program
https://www.acf.hhs.gov/fysb/resource/grant-reviewer-bcp-2016

Family Violence Prevention and Services Program
https://www.acf.hhs.gov/fysb/resource/grant-reviewer-fvpsa-2016

Street Outreach Program
https://www.acf.hhs.gov/fysb/resource/grant-reviewer-sop-2016

Community Economic Development
https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ocs/resource/ced-reviewers

https://acl.gov/grants/peer-review-opportunities

https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/volunteer-be-reviewer

https://www.bja.gov/FAQDetail.aspx?ID=191

https://nij.gov/funding/reviews/pages/peer-reviewers.aspx

E-mail a current résumé or curriculum vitae to OJPPeerReview@lmbps.com. Write "Peer Reviewer Candidate" in the subject line. Applicants should indicate their juvenile justice-related knowledge and experience, including: gangs, mentoring, girls' delinquency, children's exposure to violence, substance abuse, tribal juvenile justice, Internet crimes against children, and more.

https://www.doleta.gov/doc/grant_panelist.cfm

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/tmip/resources/peer_review_program/process_guide/

https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/peer-reviewers/peer-reviewers-faq.html

Send an e-mail request including a brief CV to Benjamin Packard (packard.benjamin@epa.gov) of EPA’s Peer Review Division.

https://www.cies.org/program/peer-review

https://www.hrsa.gov/grants/reviewers/index.html

https://www.imls.gov/grants/peer-review

https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/volunteer-review-panels
If you don't see anything relevant on this list, then write to the program officer who runs the program that most closely aligns with your expertise. You can find contact information for all of them at the Program Officers List.

Send an email to panelistforms@arts.gov

https://securegrants.neh.gov/signup/

https://grants.nih.gov/grants/peer/becoming_peer_reviewer.htm

https://public.csr.nih.gov/FAQs/ReviewersFAQs/ECRProgram

https://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/merit_review/reviewer.jsp

https://www.samhsa.gov/grants/review/grant-reviewer-application

https://www.ars.usda.gov/office-of-scientific-quality-review-osqr/be-a-peer-reviewer/

https://prs.nifa.usda.gov/prs/preLogin.do?page=welcome