Bob's first grant proposal was a horror story: It was long, verbose, and poorly organized. Fortunately for him, in 1975, one could write a grant proposal that had all of these flaws and more and still get funded. He did. But in 2015, he probably wouldn't have had a prayer and would have had to rewrite the whole thing. In 1975, the competition for grants was stiff; in the 2000s, it is close to ridiculous. Only the very best proposals even have a chance of success, and many that meet all of the scientific criteria for funding are not funded, simply because of a lack of money. Therefore, it is important to know how to write a grant proposal to maximize your chances of getting funded. In this chapter, we describe some basics of proposals, some keys to writing good proposals, and some things that agencies look for in making funding decisions.

Different funding organizations have different guidelines for writing proposals. There would be no sense to consume space in this book describing the requirements of various organizations; there are too many organizations and requirements, and the requirements are constantly changing. Rather, we here describe 18 keys to writing a good proposal. Paying attention to these keys does not ensure that you will be funded, but they will surely help!

SOME BASIC CONCEPTS ABOUT GRANTS AND CONTRACTS

Before describing the keys, we briefly summarize some basic concepts, beginning with a proposal. A proposal is a description of what you will carry out – usually research – if you receive funding. The proposal may request money for salaries, equipment, supplies, travel, reproduction, communication costs, experimental subjects, or whatever. Some proposals request funding for educational programs rather than for research. Typically, a proposal contains a statement of what is being requested, a description of why the research or program is important, a review of relevant literature, pilot data showing that your hypotheses are plausible, a description of just what will be done with the money, a budget, human-subjects approval from the review board of your institution (if necessary), and the proposer's CV. A proposal can be for a grant or a contract.

When you receive a grant, you receive support to accomplish some end, usually research and almost always research that you have described in the grant proposal.