Adapt the tools and templates below to get a proposal to submission stage efficiently. Review guidance in the Proposal Development Quick Guide. Find more resources in FAQ What resources are available to help me learn how to prepare a proposal at the UW?
Utilize the above tools and templates in the following practices to get the most value out of them.
Twelve weeks is the ideal minimum time needed to develop any grant, and multi-institutional grants require even more time. Utilize the Proposal Development Quick Guide to develop your own checklist and get yourself started.
You can start with an analytical tool to help you determine if you should even pursue the grant proposal. The Opportunity Evaluation Matrix provides a set of strategic criteria to be used in making a decision about whether to pursue a funding opportunity.
“Success” however, should not be measured solely on the likelihood of receiving funding. Developing an interdisciplinary proposal is a unique opportunity for innovation and an exchange of ideas that will provide the seed for future successful collaborations.
Complex, collaborative grant proposals require a more intense level of project management to prepare. Once the decision is made to go forward the next step should be a meeting between the PI and the lead admin who will be ordering and preparing much of the grant proposal content. Use the PI/Admin Planning Meeting Agenda to guide this discussion. The key items to cover in this initial meeting are the: 1) NOFO/RFP/FOA required components, 2) Work plan, 3) Roles and Responsibilities, 4) Review cycles. Once completed, these communication documents are best kept in a folder that can be shared by the entire proposal development team. Tools such as Dropbox or Google Drive can provide team document management environments.
This complex planning tool is very effective at combining many different requirements and deadlines into a single document. The project PI and/or Admin should carefully comb through the RFA/RFP and develop a list of all required proposal elements that will be part of the complete package submitted to the sponsor. These elements should then be mapped to deadlines. This tool can be very time consuming to construct, but becomes a valuable reference. In its most basic form, this document records the relevant page numbers from the RFP/FOA as well as agency-specific proposal guides and policy statements. Other useful information that can be recorded on this document include: section page limits, section team leader name, section due date and a space for status updates and notes. Prior to submission, this document will also serve as a checklist to ensure all required proposal elements are complete.
The calendar and work plan highlight different aspects setting and tracking deadlines.
Use the workplan as a touchstone in weekly meetings and ensure everyone on the proposal team has access to the document.
Draft an Accountability Matrix before the proposal kick-off meeting so that it can serve as a conversation starter for the group. This document has been useful even in teams that have previously worked together in clarifying assumptions as to which tasks will be completed by which team member and identifying unfilled roles on the team, but will be especially useful in large, interdisciplinary teams working across departments and schools. Revise the document as appropriate. In some cases multiple roles may be filled by one team member, in others, tasks from a single role may be divided among two team members. Once complete, this document should be made available for reference in the proposal Dropbox or other shared folder.
The Review Cycles Tracker will help you delineate the number of anticipated proposal drafts, the due dates for each, and the names of individuals who have agreed to review those drafts. Setting these dates early will allow reviewers to plan accordingly, and allow them time to provide meaningful feedback. In our experience, draft review deadlines were far more likely to be met when reviewers were given dates ahead of time.
The Proposal Kick-off Meeting should involve anyone expected to play a major role in the proposal development process including the lead PI, Co-PIs, Co-Investigators as well as the department or PI’s administrative and budget development specialists. The meeting agenda includes suggested topics to cover at the kick-off meeting including a portion of time dedicated to reviewing and revising the timelines and tracking documents.
A standing weekly meeting dedicated to status updates on the progress of non-technical aspects of the proposal, and review of the timeline or calendar can go a long way toward keeping the proposal development process on track. It can also reduce time spent exchanging emails and phone calls, as team members will often keep a list of items for discussion during this time. Depending on the complexity of the proposal, a 30-minute teleconference can often be sufficient for this purpose. Discussions may include progress updates on:
Having access to a shared space when coordinating the development of a large proposal allows for efficient distribution of the documents associated with the proposal. This will eliminate various versions of proposal documents being emailed back-and-forth and will keep the most current versions of all documents in one place that all appropriate team members have access to any time. There is no ideal tool, but you should figure out a way for proposal teams to share proposal sections, sponsor information, and project management documents. UW IT offers a couple of different tools/solutions to help in storing and editing shared documents. Read more about using the UW Google Drive and OneDrive for Business on the UW IT Connect website.
A best practice for setting up shared drives on which you will store your proposal documents is to establish the following folders: Technical Proposal (Abstract, Executive Summary, Research Strategy), Budget (Budget spreadsheet, Budget narrative), Supplemental Documents (Appendixes, Past Performance References and Biosketches), Subcontract Documents (Subcontract budget, Scope of Work, etc.), Sponsor Documents (FOA, FAQs, modifications, documents from the prime applicant, etc.) and Project Management: (Timelines, Roles & Responsibilities, Contact list, Primers). Each folder should have an Archive subfolder for old versions; never delete an old version — always move to the Archive folder).