Writing a Successful Grant Proposal: Tips for Competitive Funding Applications

Sitting down to write a proposal is a daunting task, even for people who have written many. This guide is meant to provide some overarching thoughts on how to approach writing a successful proposal.

Reading the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO)

The NOFO document contains everything you need to know. Take the time to read it, then re-read it. You will also want to share the NOFO with anyone at your university or institution who helps with budgeting, submitting proposals, and ensuring you are adhering to all the legal requirements of accepting the funds.
NOTE: Federal agencies use the term Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), but other commonly used terms are Request for Applications (RFA) and Request for Proposals (RFP).

What to look for first in the NOFO:

A funding program’s priorities, mission, goals and timeframe of expected outcomes are usually stated in the first few pages. You must align your proposed research to fit the priorities the agency has laid out. Check if the request is limited to certain crops or certain pests. Identify which stakeholders (such as farmers or ranchers) the agency intends to benefit through your proposed project. If you have any doubts about the fit of your proposed project, it’s helpful to reach out, by email or phone, to the agency contact on the NOFO. They are happy to talk through this with you.
Deadline. This is the date and time the proposal is due to the funding agency. It’s not negotiable. A good practice is to submit your proposal about 4 days BEFORE the due date. Computer systems can go down, and mistakes in your submission can sometimes be caught and corrected when submitted early.
There is a key section in the NOFO that is typically titled “Application and Submission”. This section describes, in order, the specific information the agency is looking for. It’s important to use this structure as an outline to organize your proposal. Make sure to address all requested information.
Evaluation criteria. This is an important one to read, as it describes the criteria by which your proposal will be reviewed for funding decisions.
Formatting – follow the prescribed format precisely. Contact the agency with any questions.

Here are a couple of tips that are useful to consider at an early stage of proposal preparation:

Start organizing the budget request right away. Many NOFOs have a 6-week open period (in other words, the time between issuing the NOFO and the proposal deadline may be only 6 weeks). Note that many institutions (for example, universities and non-profit organizations) require receiving proposal budgets 2 weeks prior to the due date. If more than one institution is included on the proposal, a cooperating institution may need its budget done 4 weeks ahead of time.

Request letters of support early. Letters from stakeholders and other supporters are among the most carefully read parts of proposals. A persuasive letter takes time to write. To ensure that letters arrive before the submission deadline, it’s helpful to create a spreadsheet with the recommender’s name, email address, which investigator will contact them, which aspects of the project you want them to address, and dates they are to be contacted and reminded.

Writing to the Reviewers and Agency

Your audience for a proposal includes both funding agency personnel and several (usually anonymous) proposal reviewers. The funding agency will have the final say in who receives funding, but the reviewers have a huge part in the decision-making process. Agencies take very seriously the selection of reviewers and assignment of proposals. If you have not served on a review panel before, it can be in your interest to volunteer to be a reviewer, since this experience leaves you with a clear idea of what the program expects from successful proposals.

How does the review process work?

Reviewers are most commonly from universities (staff, post-doc, faculty), federal agencies, or commodity-organization representatives.
They have expertise but are seldom experts in your specific area (conflicts of interests often prevent such experts from reviewing your proposal).
They will be reviewing multiple proposals (10 to 15 per reviewer is typical), often totaling hundreds of pages of reading.
Reviewers are making time in already busy schedules and can spend only limited time on each proposal.
Proposals must be read and scored before the panel meeting.
In many panels, reviewers assign a numerical score to each section of a proposal, based on the maximum number of points for that section, and also provide written explanations of their scores.
Review panels (the reviewers plus a program manager) get together to discuss and rank the proposals by suitability for funding. Each proposal receives only about 10 to 15 minutes of panel discussion.
Review panels recommend proposals, but funding agency personnel make final decisions on funding

Writing the Proposal

First Impressions

The first paragraph should clearly state the problem, audience, urgency, and expected impact.
Reviewers often form an opinion quickly, so make it easy for them to understand and support your work immediately.

Clarity and Accessibility

Every field of science has its own specialized terminology that people outside the field may not know. Have someone who is outside your discipline flag any words they think might confuse someone so you can either provide a short definition or use a more widely understood term.
Avoid acronyms when possible. Always write out the words of the acronyms when they are first used in the proposal.

Alignment and Framing

Explicitly tie your work to the funding agency’s mission, priorities, and review criteria provided in the NOFO. Directly quote them from the NOFO in your proposal.
Structure your proposal so that reviewers can easily map your proposal to the evaluation scoring categories.
Clearly show how your work advances the program’s goals, not your own research goals. Clearly demonstrate that the work addresses a well-documented current need.
Be specific: quantify likely impacts of your proposed work when possible for the stakeholders (economic, environmental).

Stakeholder Buy-In

Describe how stakeholder input was gathered and how this feedback will continue to be acquired during the project period.
Letters should show stakeholders are clearly engaged, supportive, and will benefit from the project if it’s successfully funded.
Refer to persuasive letters in your proposal by providing short quotes of key details.

Integrated Proposals (Research and Extension)

Show how research and extension components are connected.
Discuss how learning will be evaluated, why it is important to help stakeholders understand your work, and what they will gain.
Discuss how stakeholder feedback will influence the project or future work.

Team Expertise

Many projects involve multiple states and experts at several institutions. Clearly explain how project activities are split among the collaborators and how team members will communicate and coordinate.
Letters from collaborators should clearly identify who is doing what and how they fit in the organizational framework.
Highlight relevant experience and prior work of key personnel and clearly connect their expertise to project objectives.
Show why this team is uniquely positioned to succeed.

Preliminary Data

Present these data clearly in the narrative.
Use them to justify feasibility and reduce perceived risk of the proposed work.
Even preliminary work demonstrating that the proposed methods will work as expected is extremely helpful to reviewers.

Note: Projects don’t always produce the results expected and there are always unknown factors with the potential to interfere. Clearly explaining team expertise with the system and providing preliminary data reduces the perception of risk.

Objectives

Connect each objective to the project’s overall goals and the needs you described in the narrative.
Detailed explanations are good, but make sure there is a framework so reviewers outside your discipline can understand what you are doing and why.
Research objectives should clearly explain experimental design and how data will be analyzed.
Do not overpromise. Reviewers are quick to identify overly ambitious proposals.

Evaluation

Some agencies request a specific section that explains how your project team will evaluate the impact of your proposed work on the targeted audience. They may utilize an evaluation specialist to review just this portion of proposals.
Describe specific evaluation tools you plan to use and explain why they are appropriate.
Explain how evaluation data will be analyzed.
Explain how evaluation results be used to adjust or improve the project during the funded period.

Logic Model

This tool is a great way to organize your proposal and project, and is required by some funding programs.
If you have never completed one, it’s helpful to look up one of the many online tutorials.
Activities/Products column can be organized by objective, but the other columns do not need to be.
The short- and medium-term outcomes are measurable and should drive your evaluation activities.
Long-term outcomes should align with the agency and NOFO goals.

Budget

Start working on this with your institutional support personnel immediately.
The budget request must clearly align with the proposed work and specified NOFO funding limits.
Use the budget narrative to explain all costs. These narratives are read by reviewers who will want clarity. For example, you should explain what supplies you are budgeting for and how they will be used, and travel narratives should include specific meetings or locations.

Letters of Support

Use varied, authentic letters (not identical templates).
Letters can be formal or informal (emails, etc.) if allowed.
Strong letters demonstrate real engagement and demand.

Miscellaneous Advice

Write for Skimming

Reviewers will refer back to your proposal multiple times during the review process, so make it easy for them to navigate through your proposal quickly and find what they are looking for.
Use informative headings to separate parts of the proposal
Bold and italicized words can help, but do not overuse them.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Vague or overly broad objectives
Weak or generic stakeholder justification
Disconnect between objectives, activities, and outcomes
Overly ambitious scope without sufficient support
Heavy jargon or excessive acronyms
Poor alignment with NOFO priorities or review criteria

Reviewer Comments

Reviewers and the funding agency invest considerable time in writing the comments that will be sent to applicants. The comments help you understand why your proposal was selected for funding or not, but most importantly they are meant to help you. Comments identify strengths and weaknesses to improve future submissions.

If your proposal is denied funding, it is not fun to read the comments, but still important to read them carefully.
Try to remember that if a reviewer misunderstood something, the problem is often in the writing, not the reviewer.
You can reach out to the agency as well, as they can sometimes help provide further perspective on the comments. The agency can also usually share the percentage of received proposals that were funded.

Final Thoughts

A strong proposal is not just technically sound, it is strategically written for how reviewers read, understand, and score proposals. The most successful proposals reduce reviewer effort, clearly describe impact and feasibility, and make it easy to justify funding.