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.
Although procedures vary somewhat among agencies, depending on the agency and on the problem addressed by the RFA, the review process is guided by regulation and is fundamentally the same everywhere.
Beginning the Process
The federal fiscal year begins anew and, ideally, budgeted on October 1. This is when each government division and branch that has been allotted funds for predetermined projects can officially begin the process of creating an RFA.
The draft RFA is written and rewritten by staff until all the components are buffed to a high gloss, then it proceeds up the chain getting approval and sign off at every step. Everyone involved is keenly aware of the impact of an official statement from a federal agency and every public release is vetted numerous times by a variety of personnel.
The final version of the RFA makes it to the Federal Register and Grants.gov, notifying the world of grant or cooperative agreement money available for specific project areas.
There are restrictions on eligible responders. Applications are solicited from entities or jurisdictions believed to have the capacity to engage the specified activities of interest to the agency that developed the RFA. For example, if an RFA from the Department of Education will accept applications only from school districts of a certain size, that restriction will be clearly stated and strictly observed by the funder. In fact, the fastest way to have an application disqualified is to ignore any of the stated requisites outlined in the RFA.
The final date for submitting proposals is usually about 60 days after the publication of the RFA, but can vary by a month or more. Hard copy applications are accepted after the due date only if the sender can provide a FedEx, USPS or other receipt showing that it was mailed on time. With the advent of online submissions, the occasional late arrival is quickly vanishing.
Because federal grants often offer substantial funding, the competition can be intense no matter how few awards are anticipated. A Health and Human Services RFA directed at medical schools, for example, could generate one or more responses from every one of the 160 in the U.S. even though there may be no possibility of funding more than a few. The division or branch sponsoring the RFA often has no initial idea of the number of responses that it will receive, but their estimate improves as interested potential applicants contact the agency, often for more information or clarification.
Applications arrive at the agency at a central location, usually a grants management office, and receive their first vetting. This office looks only for basic compliance, such as signatures in the right places and the inclusion of the correct forms, and then forwards the packet to the branch responsible for funding the RFA.
That branch then distributes the applications to reviewers who have been solicited in advance, along with the review schedule, a copy of the RFA, scoring sheets with the points attributable to each section, sign-off sheets for declaring a conflict of interest if one exists, and anything else deemed important to that particular review.
Part Two: The Objective (Peer) Review
The applications have arrived and the objective review begins.
The central procedure in the federal funding cycle is the objective, or peer, review, which is carefully, legally, designed to maintain the integrity of the decision making process.
Before the peer review panel meets, a non-voting (technical) reviewer from the branch sponsoring the RFA vets each application to ensure its compliance with the goals of the branch.
Because objective review is so crucial to the ethical strength of the process, the peer reviewers who score the application are never from the branch soliciting the proposal because the likely applicants are generally constituents of that branch, sometimes known personally to branch staff.
The grant writer would do well to remember that funding decisions rest largely in the hands of reviewers who almost certainly have no direct experience with the subject area.
There are other important issues to remember when replying to an RFA:
First, no one is ever hired by an agency specifically to review grant applications. Reviewers take time away from their day jobs, usually in other parts of the agency, to do this as a service to the soliciting branch. They also know that their branch will need reviewers for their own RFAs.
The reviewer is often given three to five applications to evaluate within a brief time frame. Before the review panel meets, s/he first must invest the considerable effort needed to get up to speed with a new subject area and with the needs of the funding branch as documented in the RFA and any supporting materials. The next step is to read and score the applications, each of which can easily require a full day, and then to spend one or more days participating on the panel.
The entire review process is a massive investment of time and emotional energy and can leave reviewers bleary eyed.
It’s been said that half of all grant applications are poorly written, which may be an underestimate. And to be honest, almost all applications make for tedious reading for reviewers who, as mentioned earlier, are rarely more than temporarily and peripherally involved in the subject.
There are several strategies to consider when developing a response to an RFA that will reinvigorate a reviewer:
First, to help ensure that a proposal ends up in the fundable range, which will generally be well above 90 points on a scale to 100, present a great, new, idea. Reviewers love to have the possibility of helping along a creative and significant initiative.
Although grant writers may have little control over the proposed project, they have considerable control over something equally essential: its presentation. If a grant writer can create an application that is professional, well written, and responsive without being terminally colorless, reviewers will be grateful. More important, they’ll pay attention.
Here are a few more suggestions:
Many requirements are included in an RFA but one of the most crucial is unwritten: Responders must convince the reviewer that the proposal is important. Every word in the application should be strictly, concisely, targeted to that goal. Among other things, that means that the writer should diligently avoid unexplained assumptions and field-specific jargon.
Conversely, there is no point in over explaining anything that is common knowledge. Reviewers may regard too much irrelevant verbiage as a loss of focus within the proposal and, worse, have their own attentiveness derailed by insignificant details.
No matter how good the idea, it’s not going to sell itself. So, right up front in the beginning paragraphs of the narrative, tell the reader why this proposal is worth doing. Never assume that the reviewer knows or will spend extra time filling in gaps that should be part of the presentation. If applicable, spell out what is known, what is unknown, and where the proposed activities fit. Bring the reviewer up to speed at the start or risk the possibility of permanently losing traction.
Don’t underestimate the potential for confounding the reviewer in the dozens of pages of detail that comprise the usual application. Eliminate cross references that require diversions to another part of the proposal and, where feasible, include an abstract summary of each section.
Applications that do well are concise and clear. They flow. They have none of the confusing juxtapositions and inconsistencies that so often baffle and frustrate reviewers. They tell why the project activities are needed, what the applicant expects to achieve, and the methods that will be used. They explain how their progress will be assessed and what happens if and when federal funding ends. Depending on the RFA and agency goals, reviewers often expect funded proposals to be eventually self sustaining.
The application should be internally consistent. Nothing is quite as unmistakable, or as jarring, as an application put together by a number of writers with different writing styles. To get the money in cases like this, someone must do the editing.
In terms of style, another extreme is the application transparently created by a coolly disinterested, professional grant writer. Occasionally an application is so slick it reads as though it was untouched by human hands, sort of like a house decorated by Holiday Inn. Proposals that sound as though humans are only an after thought rarely do well in the review process.
Part Three: Evaluation
Create a simple, effective plan for evaluating results.
The funding agency would like to believe that it is making a wise decision when it chooses to fund an application. So, when the funding cycle is complete, the grantor will expect to receive the evaluation that was promised in the document.
There is arguably no part of a proposal that gives applicants more trouble, or that is more important to reviewers, than the evaluation. There are many types of evaluation, some academic and arcane, and books have been written about them.
In the real world, excluding agencies that require rigorous science and statistical precision, the evaluation expectations of reviewers are usually rather basic.
Here are a few things to remember:
Life will be easier for both grant seeker and grant writer, and the odds of funding success will be improved, if evaluation planning starts the day the decision is made to respond to the RFA. It is critical that evaluation considerations be built into every step of the action plan. An effective evaluation is almost never glued on to the proposal after it’s finished. It should be an integtral part of the proposed project.
What should be evaluated?
First, and most difficult, agency personnel will want to know if the project made a difference. Did it alleviate the problems defined in the needs section? If the success of the project can’t be assessed with the typical short term funding but results may be measured at a future date, the application should explain this. Also include copies of any preliminary evaluation forms that might be used, discuss the initial results achieved, and the final results expected.
Qualitative evaluation is an extremely under-utilized method of creating a subjective impression of success. Before and after surveys, questionnaires completed by the participants or clients, suggestions, comments, and so on can provide a sense of where the program has been and provide input for future direction.
For a more robust evaluation, it is a good idea to build the cost of a professional evaluator into the application’s budget.
Second, and much easier, is process evaluation. Reviewers want to know that, if a funded application turns out to be a rousing triumph, it can be replicated in other locations. Or if the program wasn’t successful, they’d like to know what may have caused the shortfall. Unless the fundee documents specifically how the project was implemented, in what settings, how many clients and what kinds of program staff were involved, the problems encountered and what worked and when, no one will be able to duplicate the project no matter how successful it was, or assess its flaws if it doesn’t meet expectations.
Process evaluation means counting and keeping track and it’s important.
Which brings us to the forms that will be used in the proposed project.
Reviewers are usually keenly aware that forms play a major role in the execution and successful evaluation of funded projects. Many grant applications give the appearance that form design was regarded as a minor annoyance when it was considered at all. The efficacy of any entry, tracking, or other forms used in the project is critical to the project’s success and assessment. Forms deserve careful, logical forethought and should be constructed to capture all important information in a non-overlapping format.
All forms which will be used by the applicant should be submitted with the application, usually as part of the appendix.
When reading a post-project evaluation, the funder would much rather see that the project didn’t work as planned but staffers have ideas about what to do differently next time, than to hear that no determination of effectiveness is possible because the record keeping was sloppy.
Part 4: Submit and Wait
A Final Check Before Clicking the ‘Send’ Key
It goes without saying that the reviewer must be convinced that the applicant organization is capable of effectively completing the activities it proposes. To be convincing, the application must be a picture of competence. So, before the successful grant writer signs off for the last time, s/he takes one last look to make sure that it is neatly buttoned up and all visible details are under control. Some examples:
- The table of contents is coherent with all pages numbered and accounted for.
- The numbers and statements in the various parts of the RFA match. Don’t think, for example, that someone won’t notice if the budget narrative doesn’t match the budget numbers.
- The activities presented are realistic and likely to produce the results listed in the statements of objectives and goals.
- The activities are do-able within the proposed budget.
- The application is clear, concise and logical. All required sections are present and accounted for, in the order mandated in the RFA.
- There is a sense of urgency built into the application. If there is no indication of an imperative, immediate need, the funding will likely go elsewhere.
WERE WE FUNDED?
OK. Everything was done right: The specifications of the RFA were followed to the letter; the proposal included terrific ideas that were coherently and cogently presented. All ‘i’s were dotted and ‘t’s crossed. Does that mean the application will be funded? Unfortunately, there are never any guarantees. The competition is usually fierce, the propensity of the reviewers, despite best intentions, an unknown. If not funded this time, the application may be successfully revised and submitted again, maybe at another time or place. Don’t waste your time resubmitting the same application to the same agency without revision.
Always, whether funded or not, the grant writer should request a copy of the written assessment that each reviewer was required to complete for the application. It should give some useful clues about what went right or wrong in the review.
After the review process is finished, the applications that scored highest are reviewed by the branch which produced the RFA and will monitor the funded projects. If there are close calls among the proposals or in the scoring, the final funding decision is made by the branch in accordance with the agency’s goals. That’s one of the reasons for the grant writer to be in touch with the branch producing the RFA at the time the decision is made to apply. There is no substitute for being on the same page as the funders.
In the end, the very best that a grant writer can do with a federal RFA is to make sure that the application is conceived and written in such a way that reviewers regard it as a serious, important and fundable proposal. Grant writers who can do that are well on their way to success.
############################################################################
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 www.WrittenMagic.net.
