External Funding and Collaboration

1
External Funding and Collaboration

• NSF Teacher Enhancement
• Summer Institute
• Champaign, Illinois
• July 2002

2
What well cover

• Terminology
• Who should write collaborative proposals
• Essential proposal elements
• Success proposal generation
• Successful proposal implementation

3
Terminology

• PI principal investigator
• Co-PI co-principal investigator
• Grant usually involves research, no strict
  deliverables
• Contract usually are concrete, specific
  deliverables
• Program officer funding agency point of
  contact, provider of information, review panel
  organizer
• Review panel meeting of individuals selected to
  represent different points of view who will
  critique submitted proposals

4
Terminology (contd)

• Preproposal draft proposal submission that
  outlines the general proposal idea and rough
  budget. Feedback should be provided on the
  pre-proposal before submission of the final
  proposal
• Full/Final proposal final proposal submission
  containing all required proposal elements and a
  final (committed) budget

5
Terminology (contd)

• Proposal negotiation discussion between review
  panel decision and award to determine if the
  proposal can be changed in response to the review
  panels suggestions and be within a target budget
  determined by the program officer. To the
  proposers advantage to finish this step FAST.

6
Terminology

• Cost sharing amount of money/resources required
  by funding agency to be provided by the proposing
  institution
• In-kind is common
• Personnel time is common
• Cash is rare

7
Who should organize collaborative proposals

• Characteristics of good proposal leaders
• Energetic Type A
• Idea generator
• Compromiser
• Consensus builder
• Writing skills
• Organizational skills
• Patience Type B

8
What the proposal organizer should bring to the
table

• Institutional strengths
• Personal connections with peers and organizations
  in the field
• Past experience and successful performance on
  previous grants (track record)
• Personal credibility to funding agency

9
Becoming a proposal organizer

• Becoming a proposal organizer is a chicken and
  egg problem
• Critical elements come from successful proposals
• First time prospective PIs dont have a track
  record
• Solution become attached to a mentor who has
  been through this before
• Caution there are a lot of people who have
  been through this before and do it wrong

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Levels of responsibility

• Key personnel
• PI
• Co-PI
• Senior scientist
• Unnamed contributor
• General expertise

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Responsibilities

• Institutions Office of Grants and Contracts (or
  Office of Sponsored Programs or )
• Institutional signatures
• Proposal submission approval
• Subcontract generation and approval
• Changes to award
• Requesting award funding from funding agency
• Distributing award funding to appropriate
  institution budget line

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Responsibilities

• PI
• Technical/funding scontact for the funding agency
• Leader for management and implementation of award
• Approval for charges against the award including
  subcontracts
• Responsible for cost sharing accounting
• Periodic reports to funding agency
• Management of award
• Recipient of a percentage of the overhead
  collected
• Answer questions from funding agency

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Responsibility

• Co-PI
• Role defined by the PI and the proposal
• If at an institution different than the PI, will
  be funded by subcontract from the PIs
  institution
• Usually receives (at least partial) credit from
  own institution for funding received
• At universities, at least, receive partial
  remittance of overheads collected along with PI

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Essential Proposal Elements

• Funding opportunity identification
• Collaborators
• Proposal generation
• Proposal outline
• Budget
• Submission
• Reviews returned
• Debriefing for proposal

15
Opportunity Identification

• What are you interested in doing (interest drives
  proposals not vice-versa)?
• Subject area
• Possible partners
• Outcomes
• Ballpark funding required
• Possible cost sharing available
• Resources available

16
Exercise

• Create a MS Word document
• Make a list of the opportunity identification
  elements on the previous slide for a proposal you
  are interested in

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Funding Opportunity Identification

• Compile a list of funding sponsors
• Starting points
• Government agencies
• State agencies
• Industry
• Foundations
• Your own institution

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Funding Opportunity Identification

• Government agencies
• Know the politics
• http//www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/education
• http//www.nochildleftbehind.gov/
• National Science Foundation www.nsf.gov
• http//www.ehr.nsf.gov/ehr/esie/ (ESIE program
  website)
• Department of Education www.ed.gov
• http//www.ed.gov/index.jsp (Grants)
• Department of Energy http//www.energy.gov

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NSF Opportunities

• Instructional Materials Development (NSF 02-067)
• Centers for Learning and Teaching (NSF 02-038)
• Informal Education (NSF 0160)

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Department of Education

• Go to Department of Education web site
• Click on Grants and Contracts tab

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Funding Opportunity Identification

• State agencies
• State department of public instruction
• E.g. North Carolina http//www.dpi.state.nc.us/
• Use search function on keywords like grants or
  funding

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Funding Opportunity Identification

• Industry
• Intel http//www97.intel.com/education/index.asp
  
• Intel National and Community Grants
• http//www.intel.com/education/sections/corporate3
  /index.htm
• Matching Gifts/Volunteer Matching Grants Program
• Microsoft http//www.microsoft.com/giving/

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Funding Opportunity Identification

• Foundation
• Generally on the web
• Books of foundations
• Generally every large corporation has a
  foundation
• Intel (www.intel.com)
• Compaq (www.compaq.com)
• Microsoft (www.microsoft.com)
• Burroughs Wellcome Fund
• http//www.bwfund.org/science_education.htm

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Funding Opportunity Identification

• Foundations
• http//fdncenter.org/
• Search by keyword
• Search by state
• Grant maker search 3.0

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Exercise

• Find one government and one foundation funding
  source that might satisfy your requirements

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Opportunity Identification

• Narrowing the list of possibilities
• Determine return on investment (include overhead
  time for grant administration)
• Make sure it is something you want to do
• Optimally the project is something you were going
  to do anyway
• Minimally it should not be distracting
• Chasing money for the sake of funding is
  counterproductive

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Opportunity Identification

• Meet with the Program Officer (or minimally
  arrange a telephone call)
• Take a one page white paper of what you think
  will respond to the opportunity solicitation
• Take a folder of information about your
  institution targeted to the opportunity

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Opportunity Identification

• White paper sections
• Project Summary
• Project description
• Background
• Needs
• Project Partners
• Goals
• Outcomes
• Project Design
• Technology Plan
• Work Plan
• Evaluation Plan
• Dissemination Plan

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Opportunity Identification

• White paper sections (contd)
• Biographical Sketches
• Bibliography

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Exercise

• Generate a draft white paper with the preceding
  sections for your proposal

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Opportunity Identification

• Agenda for Program Officer meeting
• Provide overview of your institution
• Request a solicitation overview
• Discuss the one page white paper and whether it
  responds favorably to the solicitation
• Receive pointers from the Program Officer about
  white paper changes
• Ask Program Officer about other proposals that
  have been funded that are similar to the white
  paper
• Establish a relationship with the Program Officer
  that will enable follow-up email and subsequent
  visits
• Take good notes!

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Opportunity Identification

• Realistically assess chances of winning
• Raw probability
• Ask Program Officer how many proposals submitted
  last round and number of winners
• Better estimate
• Experience
• Budget
• Meet expectations of solicitation
• Competitors
• Comparison to previous winning proposals

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Opportunity Identification

• Revise white paper
• Send to Program Officer for comments or review
  changes by telephone
• Use the white paper to solicit partners
• Send the white paper to your Grants Office to
  keep them in the loop
• Receive feedback, if any
• Receive institutional experience about the
  funding agency (success of others, pitfalls)

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Exercise

• Go around the room and assess the probability of
  success of a proposal for the funding source
  identified

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Collaboration

• Breakdown the solicitation into subject areas
• Ensure there are collaborators with credentials
  in each subject area
• Utilize networking to find potential
  collaborators
• Ask Program Officer for potential collaborators

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Exercise

• Add a short phrase about what each potential
  collaborator would add to the proposal

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Collaboration

• Establishing collaboration
• One approach is to have a meeting with all
  potential collaborators identified
• Determine theme for proposal based on
  solicitation
• Identify how each collaborator supports the theme
• Identify role of each collaborator
• Identify benefits to each collaborator

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Collaboration

• Pitfalls
• Identification of the PI, co-PIs, senior
  scientists and unidentified collaborators. All
  must be engaged
• Collaborators who are too busy
• Not establishing a strong probability of success
  for this proposal and the collaborators
• Budget

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Proposal Generation

• Two primary jobs
• Content Leader (usually the PI)
• Responsible for content in the proposal
• Defining roles of collaborators, adding
  collaborators, removing collaborators
• Deciding on budget
• Assigning writing assignments
• Establishing milestone dates

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Proposal Generation

• Logistics Leader
• Forms
• Creating proposal drafts from submitted text
• Enforcing proposal generation timelines
• Calling funding agency to resolve logistical
  problems
• Calling collaborators
• Interfacing with Grants and Contracts

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Proposal Generation

• Secondary roles
• Content section chairs
• Individual contributors
• Technical writer
• Proof reader

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Proposal Generation

• Steps (6 months to complete)
• White Paper
• White Paper revised
• Pre-proposal (short version of full proposal) and
  rough budget
• 1st draft full proposal
• 2nd draft full proposal and 1st draft budget
• 3rd draft full proposal and 2nd draft budget
• Final full proposal and final budget
• Signed institutional commitments

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Proposal Outline

• Cover sheet and forms
• Project summary
• Project description
• Background
• Need
• Project Partners and Roles
• Goals and Objectives
• Outcomes

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Proposal Outline

• Project Description (contd)
• Project Design
• Technology Plan
• Work Plan
• Project Management
• Key Personnel
• Advisory Committee
• Evaluation Plan
• Dissemination Plan
• Institutionalization

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Proposal Outline

• Institutional Resources Available
• Bibliography
• Biographical Sketches
• Budget
• PI institution
• Subcontracts
• Current and Pending Support (NSF)
• Project Data Sheet (NSF)
• Letters of Support

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Budget

• Every funding agency has its own form
• Generates most of the disagreements after award
• Can be fatal to the project if miscalculated
• Has the potential to be audited during the
  project and after project completion
• Cost sharing can be underestimated but better not
  be overestimated
• Required cost sharing can range from 0 to 50

47
Budget

• Proposal submission requires institutional
  signature
• Engage Grants and Contracts early in the budget
  process they can be your best friend or worst
  enemy
• Determine budget expectations of the funding
  agency early

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Budget

• Budget justification
• Shows how you arrived at the numbers you show
• Reviewers key in on certain aspects of the budget
• Amount of funding provided directly to teachers
• Amount of funding for subcontracts
• Amount of funding for overhead expenses
• Make sure anticipated expenditures are allowable

49
Budget

• Cost Sharing
• Pre-award costs incurred usually dont count
• NSF has a 90 day rule for costs incurred prior to
  award
• In-kind as well as cash allowed (fair value)
• Personnel costs are popular
• Cash is unpopular

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Budget

• If budget is not competitive, try
• Negotiate with your institution on indirect costs
• Increase cost sharing
• Decrease scope of work and decrease cost
• Increase economies of scale
• Leverage previous work
• Decrease level (and cost) of personnel involved

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Submission

• Requirements
• Cover letter official transmittal
• Proposal usually several copies required
• Font size
• Margin requirements
• Section lengths
• Signatures gathering PI/co-PI signatures tricky
  for multi-institutional proposals
• On-time delivery crucial!!!

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Submission

• Plan ahead
• Know what must be done the last week
• Make emergency plans
• Editing
• Photocopying
• Delivery
• Parallelize tasks as much as feasible

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NSF Helpful Hints

• Register your school district NOW with FastLane
• Register as a PI or co-PI NOW you never know
  when youll need it

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Exercise

• See if your organization is registered with NSFs
  FastLane

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Review Panel/Evaluation

• Review Panel
• Diverse set of content experts to review the
  proposal according to the solicitation guidelines
• Proposal must address critical items in
  solicitation
• Proposal must be cost effective
• Written review(s) done by panel and provided to
  PI
• Recommends funding or no funding
• Program Officer is the point for the final
  decision
• Budget and scope negotiation after review

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Reviews

• Provided to PI
• Contains strengths, weaknesses and recommendation
• Blueprint for resubmission if proposal declined
  for funding
• However a different panel will most likely review
  a subsequent proposal
• There are no guarantees in life
• Panel dynamics can affect the proposal evaluation

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Debriefing

• Debriefing strongly recommended whether the
  proposal is funded or not
• Will help to establish better relationship with
  Program Officer
• Will provide insight into program requirements
• Program Officer can describe the ambience in
  the room and not just the conclusions
• A face-to-face meeting with the Program Officer
  will yield the best information

58
Proposal Implementation

• Get a fast start even before formal award
• Subcontract generation is usually the biggest
  problem
• Work should start even before subcontracts are
  completed
• Tight subcontracts are needed in case of trouble
• Most institutions have standard language for this

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Proposal Implementation

• Set up meeting dates a year at a time
• Establish a web presence and reserve URLs
• Visit the Program Officer as soon as possible
  after award for formal debriefing and to show
  start-up progress

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Proposal Implementation

• Communicate with Program Officer on a quarterly
  basis
• Quality quarterly reports will set you out from
  the other winning proposals quarterly visits
  will really set you apart
• Submit all required reports on time
• Affects subsequent proposals
• Communicate program changes to Program Officer
  and keep a written record of notification

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Bias

• Hiring proposal writers isnt helpful unless
  expertise transfer occurs
• Need expertise in own organization
• Writing is only part of the game
• Success is strongly influenced by the content
• Proposal writing cant be an as time allows
  activity

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General Helpful hints

• Never start a proposal with less than 3 months to
  the pre-proposal or full proposal submission
  deadline
• My personal limit is 6 months
• Scale the effort required to the expected reward
• Small award amounts should take small amount of
  time
• For new solicitations, the proposal organizer
  should know the solicitation is going to be
  released before it is released
• Give calls from funding agencies highest priority

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Summary

• Flowchart (ahhh, a programming term) of how to
  create and submit successful proposals
• There is no one right way to do this
• Proposal writing is a stressful experience
• Success (or hit) ratio is important
• Reward vs. effort is important

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Reference

• Proposal Planning Writing, Lynn E. Miner and
  Jerry Griffith, Oryx Press, 1993.