What is Grant Writing? If one were to “Google” grant writing on the Internet, you would get well over 5 million hits citing articles, booklets, papers, etc. that all contend to have unlocked the secrets to successful grant writing. The term itself has become a catch-all for the many processes throughout the Grant Lifecycle.
Grant Lifecycle
Understanding the lifecycle of a grant can be confusing, which is why we’ve developed a grant lifecycle approach to help faculty, staff, and students better manage their proposals and awards.
The lifecycle of the grant process consists of the following:
- Pre-award Phase
- Idea/Research/Program Creation
- Funding Opportunity Research, Research, & Research on multiple levels
- Application & Programmatic Requirements Review including policies and procedures
- Grant Readiness – getting all required documents in order Grant Writing/Editing
- Submittal
- Award Phase
- Funder awards the grant
- Award Agreement is finalized
- Research/Program/Project is implemented
- Post-award Phase
- Research Program/Project is monitored
- Grant Reporting is done according to the grant requirements
- Compliance – both programmatically & financially
- Grant Close-Out
- Sharing the results
Specifically, Grant Writing is the practice of completing an application process for a financial grant provided by an institution such as a government agency, corporation, foundation, or trust. The application processes are often referred to as either a grant proposal or a grant submission. Successful grant writing requires a clear understanding of grantsmanship from conception to compliance. While the principles and fundamentals of grantsmanship apply broadly, consistently successful grant writers are able not only to utilize knowledge about the form and content of the proposal documents, but also the intertextual relationships of the specific proposal to other, related documents (e.g., the funding agency’s own mission statement and current projects, correspondence with agency personnel, supplementary materials, budgets, general and agency-specific writing guidelines, etc.).
Each grant submission is as unique as the specific program being written about and the uniqueness of the funder it is being written for or presented to. Because of that, the OGAC will offer flexible training opportunities upon request. These training sessions can be general overview sessions or customized sessions for specific departments or individual Principal Investigators (PIs). Our goal is to provide the Monmouth University Community with the tools necessary to maintain a high level of quality, integrity, and compliance in all areas of research and sponsored program administration.
In the meantime, please check out the following link to Basic Grant Proposal Components.
If you are contemplating writing a scientific proposal, the OGAC recommends consulting the Scientific Sponsor’s Website first, reviewing the actual Notice of Funding Available (NOFA) and any other supplemental documents for guidance, and consulting the following resources:
When writing a scientific proposal, please also consider the Broader Research Impact of your work.
The broader impacts of a research project are those components that go beyond the advancement of knowledge, have the potential to benefit society, and contribute to the achievement of specific desired societal outcomes. As an example, The National Science Foundation (NSF) requires proposals to address the broader impacts in addition to the intellectual merit of the project. Other federal funders are increasingly incorporating a requirement to address the social impact as part of your proposal.
Self-Study Resources: The OGAC recommends the following resources for a generalized overview of grant writing and the grant writing process. They are as follows:
- Grant Writing for Dummies (6th edition) by Dr. Beverly A Browning, MPA, DBA
- Grant Writing for Educators by Beverly A. Browning
- Grant Writing Strategies for Developing Winning Government Proposals by Patrick W. Miller, Ph.D.
- Finally- Outcome Measurement Strategies Anyone Can Understand by Laurel A. Molloy, MPA
- Perfect Phrases for Writing Grant Proposals by Dr. Beverly Browning
- Professors as Writers by Robert Boice