Invest in Neighborhoods Inc. Invest in Neighborhoods Inc. The abstract, while written last, prefaces the proposal and may be the only opportunity to "sell" the project. Although brevity is mandated, the abstract must contain the essential information about the proposed project and explain to reviewers both the feasibility and the worth of the project.
Whether the grant proposal is submitted to the federal government, a state government, or a foundation or corporation, the review process will involve a number of reviewers. Many foundations and corporations have a grant administrator who oversees the collection of grant applications and conducts a preliminary review for completeness and sufficient detail. The proposal is then presented to the foundation or corporate board for final review and approval.
When submitting a grant proposal to a state or federal agency, the review process differs dramatically. Generally, agency staff screen the grant applications upon receipt and return those that are incomplete, nonresponsive to the grant announcement (with regard to program), or nonconforming to the grant format (for example, too many pages). Applications that progress through the initial agency screening enter a multistage review process. In the first stage, the project may be assessed by nonfederal reviewers. Applications that are judged to be lacking in any of the required components will be considered noncompetitive and removed from further review. Surviving applications will then be reviewed for technical merit by peers in the field. The peer reviewers are selected for their technical expertise in the field or discipline of the grant. A point system of scoring the application is generally used. Potential scores and weights of each section of the narrative can be found in the RFP for a government grant. Written notification will be sent to those applicants who are judged to qualify in terms of completeness, competitiveness, and responsiveness upon final review.
For applications that are not selected for funding, most state and federal agencies will provide written information concerning how the application scored in the review process, and copies of the comments of reviewers. This information is valuable if the agency is planning to resubmit the proposal at a future date because it clearly identifies the weak areas in the application.
For grants submitted to foundations and corporations, the grant critique is easily obtained. Some grant administrators at foundations and corporations will even be willing to answer questions by telephone about weaknesses they perceived in the proposal.
Should the proposal not be funded, organizations are urged to obtain a copy of the proposal review and to revise the grant proposal for a future submission. The review process information is a valuable tool for all future grant proposal writing and should be considered part of a learning experience.
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