by Sandra Jewell
Series Summary
This four-part series, written by the reviewer of numerous government grant applications, provides a first hand account of the federal review process. It discusses the process involved in creating a federal Request for Application (RFA), or a Request for Proposal (RFP), and chronicles the journey a submission makes once it reaches the funding agency. The series also describes factors that can summarily disqualify an application and others that can make it memorable.
Part One: The Award Process Begins
The agency is a beehive of activity as the RFA heads to press.
Introduction
I was a professional staff member for an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, which, like other government agencies, has a budget that primarily funds a myriad of grants and cooperative agreements.
During the 20 plus years I was there, I spent a lot of time reviewing the grant and cooperative agreement proposals that arrived with high hopes for funding.
We who were part of this process were always dismayed by the amount of effort that went into the sometimes overwhelming numbers of responses we received, and the comparatively few that we could support with our always too-limited funding capacity.
After serving on numerous review and ranking panels, and evaluating countless applications, I became adept at quickly and accurately predicting which would get the green light from reviewers.
This article is for all who have ever wondered what happens after your best efforts have left your control and arrived at the funding agency as a response to an RFA. It’s for those who were sure their application would receive funding that never came. And it’s for every great idea that fell short in the review process.
More ……………………
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Bio: Sandra Jewell lives in Atlanta, Georgia. She is a former employee of the Department of Health and Human Services where she was an award winning biostatistician, analyst and writer. She is now an author, grant writer and consultant to grant writers. She can be reached at WrittenMagic.sej@gmail.com or at http://www.WrittenMagic.net.
