Step 1:  First Things First

Before the decision is made about whether or not to prepare grant proposal, it will be necessary to confer with your departmental Chair to determine the feasibility of submitting a competitive proposal.   Guidelines for specific grant competitions are most often specified in a Request for Proposal (RFP) or a Request For Application (RFA).

Prior to scheduling a meeting with the Chair to discuss your ideas for the proposal, you should become familiar with the following aspects of the RFP:

• Application deadline
• Required partnership entities (many require a partnership in order to submit).  Notice whether partnership requires formal written agreements or letters of support.
• Maximum funding amount
• Expected number of awards
• Proposal page limits
• Requirements for matching funding (sometimes required)
• Whether a university can submit only one application or multiple applications

 
It may also be helpful to review the university policy on Applying for Sponsored Programs (UPPS 02.02.01) prior to your meeting with the Chair to familiarize yourself with the guidelines that relate to the overall grant submission process.

The Chair may request that the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development join the meeting and, if so, the Chair will provide notification of the meeting date and time. In addition to discussing the purpose of the grant and its fit for the department, the following items will be of special interest to the Chair:

• Will the grant involve release time for faculty?  If so, how will it be funded and at what rate?
• Will the grant involve classes being offered to students?  If so, when will classes need to be offered and will the grant cover salary for faculty to teach courses or will the department be asked to fund faculty salary to teach the courses?
• Will the grant need office space?
• Will the grant need administrative support?  In most cases, administrative support must be included in the grant budget.
• Will other faculty members be collaborating on proposal development (within COE or external faculty)? If faculty from other departments will be involved, the Chair will advise how to go about communicating with other departments.
• Will grant involve incentive pay for any faculty members?  Such pay is only available if certain criteria are met and only with advanced approval of the departmental Chair. 

The proposal developer should also be aware that schedule of course offerings is finalized six months in advance to the start of the semester.  In addition, getting a new course approved is a lengthy process requiring approval not only of the university, but also of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. 

After you have secured support from your Chair for proposal development, the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development should be notified.  At this time, it will also be necessary to inform the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) by submitting a Proposal Notification Form (PNF) which can be accessed on the OSP website. 


Step 2:  Proposal and Budget Development

Developing a grant proposal is, in many ways, like building a house.  You wouldn’t want to start without a blueprint.  All members of the  “building crew” need to be aware of the timeline and need to be kept apprised of any changes in the plans.  

The Proposal Development Timeline--As tempting as it is to jump in and start writing, it is even more important to identify which pieces of the proposal will need more lead time and to schedule your efforts accordingly.  For example, support letters should be requested early in the process and any formal agreements or contracts will need time to be developed and approved.   The proposal developer should also, early in the process, become familiar with the required grant submission forms so there will be sufficient time to compile these prior to the grant deadline.    Like any complex project, it is important to start with the submission deadline and work backwards to establish intermediate deadlines to guide your work along the way.

Grant Partnerships—Grant submissions that require partnerships entail extra time on the front end to build consensus and ownership among the partners and to develop a plan of work that utilizes the talents of all partners and is beneficial to interests of all partners.  No one likes to be consulted at the last minute nor should they be expected to support a plan to which they had little opportunity to contribute.   Partnership endeavors often require compromises and entail high degrees of tact and interpersonal expertise in negotiating matters of “turf” and delegation of responsibility.

Budget Development––Many seasoned grant writers find it helpful to develop the overall grant budget early in the proposal development process because program plans, and consequently the proposal narrative, will in large degree be determined by the available funding.  The OSP budget specialist will assist you in developing the budget and will prepare the budget forms for the proposal submission.  Being aware of the following budget considerations will be helpful to you in the budget development process:

Administrative Support-- It is necessary to budget for sufficient administrative support to operate the grant.  Grant operation involves a lot of specialized paperwork, meticulous record keeping, and continuity of administrative oversight.   In order to have this type of administrative support, it is necessary for the grant to budget one or more administrative/secretarial positions. 

Fringe Benefits—In addition to salary expenses, the grant must also pay fringe benefits for any personnel employed by the grant.  A good rule of thumb is to calculate 26% of salary for fringe benefits.

Indirect Costs–All grants are charged indirect costs by the university to help pay for the costs incurred in housing and servicing the grant.  The indirect cost rate varies depending upon the funding source for the grant and the agreement that the university has with this particular funding source.  The OSP budget specialist will ensure that the correct indirect cost rate is used in budget development, but it is important for the proposal developer to understand that a portion of the total grant amount will be expended on indirect costs.

Follow the RFP Guidelines—Funding agents and proposal reviewers expect to see the grant components specified in the RFP in the order suggested in the RFP.  In addition, it is in your best interest to clearly label these using the same terminology specified in the RFP.  Not including a required component or not having it clearly labeled will most likely result in your grant proposal not being funded, so it is worth the extra time to double check to make sure all of the grant expectations are addressed and all required forms are submitted correctly.  It is also critically important to follow all formatting requirements such as font size, single or double-spacing, page limitations, etc.   Failure to comply with these requirements can result in your proposal being disqualified. 

Understand the Interconnectedness of a Grant Proposal—Most grant proposals involve several interconnected components.  For example, most require goals or objectives; the program description or narrative describes the plans for carrying out these goals and objectives; and the evaluation plan specifies the measures that will be used to determine the degree to which goals and objectives were accomplished.   The program timeline and management plan specifies tasks that must be completed to accomplish the objectives and the person responsible and the date by which the task is to be completed.  The budget must be reasonable and sufficient to support the work specified.  Proposal developers should be aware that changes in one part of the proposal will necessarily affect other parts of the proposal.  For example, adding or deleting a goal will necessitate changes in the program narrative, the evaluation plan, the management plan and the budget. 

Keep Your Chair Informed As The Proposal Progresses—Programmatic and budgetary changes will arise as your proposal takes shape.  Many of these will have departmental implications and need to be cleared with the Chair prior to including them in the proposal.  For example, if additional sections of a class will be needed, the Chair needs to be consulted. 

Proposal Editing––It is important to have one or more professional colleagues read and make editing suggestions on your proposal, and it may be helpful to have them review sections as they are developed.  RFP guidelines should be provided so that the reader will have the “roadmap” to what is expected in the proposal. 

Step 3:  Proposal Submission

All proposals MUST be submitted through OSP and cannot be submitted directly by the proposal developer.  OSP will coordinate the proposal approval process and will acquire the signatures that are required for the proposal to be in compliance with university, state and federal guidelines.  This approval process typically takes several days and, thus it is important that the proposal developer be in close communication with OSP in the final week prior to submission so that they can facilitate and support a smooth submission process.