Free Consulting, Grants, and Fatal Flaws

One of the big tasks of this summer has been working on a grant proposal. My university doesn’t require me to secure outside funding as some do, but “they” definitely smile on it. Plus, it helps the long-term outlook of my career, it enables me to do meaningful research that I couldn’t do otherwise, and it can buy out summer teaching and course reductions. So I am trying to apply for grants from time to time.

As I wrote on Monday, I polished a grant application and sent it to the people at my university that critique grant applications. The person I was working with (former program officer at the National Science Foundation) said that the application looks really good and stands a reasonable chance of being funded…except for a “fatal flaw.” I was proposing some longitudinal research in an organization, which was fine, and proposing to use students to help with that, which was great, but I didn’t have an organization that had signed on. He said they would never fund such an uncertain project, particularly given that other parts of the grant depended on this one. Never mind the fact that the grant included incentives (in addition to free consulting) that were supposed to help me recruit an organization. Never mind the fact that I tried to “recruit” an organization for a project two years ago and got nowhere while discovering that cold calling managers is about on the same level as dentists and tetanus shots in terms of how I’d like to spend my time.

So I am letting the August 18th deadline pass and planning to recruit an organization this fall and submit the grant in January. I’m a little bummed because it pushes back the anticipated start date of the research, but it does postpone the pressure. And my application will definitely be more competitive with an organization that has committed to be studied. The nice difference between now and that failed experience two years ago is that was not for a funded project but this is. Which means that, because of indirect costs, the university has something substantial to gain by helping me. Which means that people at the university are trying to connect me to alumni and parents of students that can help me. You can help too. Any CEOs that are reading this are welcome to apply!