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Researching Grant Opportunities--Basic
Tips and Strategies
In the earliest stages of
the grant development process, it helps to conceive of your research in its
broadest possible areas of application. It is extremely rare to find a
program or a Request for Proposals (RFP) that is an exact match to your
research plan; therefore too narrow a focus at this stage can lead you to
overlook worthwhile opportunities. Think in terms of potential outcomes
rather than the actual research design. Some useful questions to ask at this
stage:
- What potential benefits may
result from this research or project?
- Who would be interested in
the results of this research or project?
- What potential applications
are there for this research?
These are the questions
sponsoring agencies are asking when they formulate their funding
guidelines, even when they seek to fund basic research. Thinking in terms
of how your project addresses the needs and goals of a sponsor from the
outset will help you throughout the grant development process.
On a related note, OSP
often gets requests, particularly from administrators and program
directors, to find funding to support a particular program or to buy or
upgrade equipment. This is an unproductive way to approach grant funding.
While there is funding available to support programs and program
development and improve facilities, this money is distributed according to
many of the same criteria as research funding. As with a research proposal,
you need to think of your program development activities and equipment
needs in terms of a specific project, limited in duration with specific,
measurable outcomes. The three questions posed above still pertain, and
there are some other questions you should keep in mind as well:
- Who will benefit from this
project?
- Does the project improve on
existing practice at TC or elsewhere?
- Will the project produce
outcomes that might be reproduced at other institutions?
- How will curriculum
development or major equipment purchases improve retention and/or
assist students in a pipeline to advanced study in a particular field
or discipline?
- Can the institution support
the program after the funding period?
Again, the key at this stage is to focus less on what you want to do
with the money and more on why a sponsor might want to support a
particular activity.
The above link takes
you to SPIN (Sponsored Program Information Network) a
comprehensive, web-based searchable database of funding opportunities from
all sources (federal, state, local, private and foreign). You must access
SPIN from a computer logged on to the Internet via a TC/CU connection. The
system allows you to do a quick search by keyword as you would a
bibliographic or library database. The advanced search feature allows you
to refine your search by specifying other criteria and has the added
functionality of allowing you to save your search criteria and receive
updates on a periodic basis of your choosing.
In order to take
advantage of this feature, choose the "advanced search" option
near the bottom of the SPIN screen. This will take you a page that allows
you to specify criteria for each of 20 or so fields contained in the
entries for each funding opportunity. Most of the time, you will want to do
a search by keyword (the upper leftmost field). You can either do a free
text keyword search, or click on "keywords" to bring up a list of
words by broad subject area that the system uses to index entries. In order
to bring up the most relevant "hits," we suggest also specifying
criteria in the next two fields, "Applicant Type" and "Award
Type." For example, if you're a faculty member doing research into the
effectiveness of substance abuse intervention programs, you can use these
two fields to filter out grants to non-profits to provide such intervention
services.
Run the search to make
sure you get results that are useful, and adjust the search criteria if you
come up with too few or too many hits. Once you are satisfied with your
search results, click "save search." You will be asked to provide
an email address and to specify the frequency of your updates.
Other Resources
SPIN is not the best
tool available for finding foundation grants. Through Columbia University
Library's online database tools, the college now has access to the Foundation Center's Grant Databases. It may be
accessed here: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/
The Foundation Grants
Guide is particularly useful. It can often be difficult to decide whether
or not your particular project is a good fit to a foundation's funding
objectives, which are usually stated in broad terms. The Grants Guide
indexes actual awards made by over 32,000 corporate and foundation givers,
with fully searchable abstracts of each. This makes it much easier to
determine if a given sponsor actually makes awards in your area, and can
turn up unexpected resources. OSP has also compiled a list of 50 foundations to which TC faculty staff have applied
for or received funding.
Graduate students,
especially those of you in graduate programs, will want to check out the 2007-2008 OSP Guide to Funding for Graduate
Students. The Cornell
University Graduate School Fellowship Database is another convenient
resource for finding funding.
Other helpful websites
for grantseekers can be accessed at the following
link provided by Georgetown
University: http://thefdp.org/Resources/grants2.html
In recent
months, there has been an increasing interest at TC to conduct
international research and teacher training programs. There are two main
sources of information for funding opportunities for international
projects. One is the State Department's Request for
Grant Proposals webpage. The other is the Institute
for International Education (IIE). IIE is the organization that
administers the Fulbright program, but their website contains comprehensive
information on corporate and foundation funding for international research
and training programs as well.
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