Once you submit, the application leaves your hands and enters a process you can't see. It's easy to imagine a mysterious committee. The reality is more ordinary: a few people with a scoring form, a deadline and a stack of other proposals.
Knowing how that process works changes how you write. This article walks through a typical federal review from screening to selection, covers what to expect from foundations, and ends with practical ways to make your proposal easy to score.
Stage one: screening for eligibility and responsiveness
Before anyone scores the merits, many applications are screened. Federal funding notices are required to describe the criteria that make an application or project ineligible. Appendix I to 2 CFR Part 200 calls these "responsiveness," "go-no-go" or "threshold" criteria, and it requires the notice to list them with enough detail to understand the disqualifying factors.
Typical items are missing required forms, applicant types the program doesn't fund, page limits and missing attachments. An application that fails here never reaches a reviewer. The cheapest way to avoid this is to build a checklist from the notice early; how to read a funding notice shows how.
Stage two: merit review
Under 2 CFR 200.205, a federal agency must, unless a statute prohibits it, design and execute a merit review process for discretionary awards. The stated objective is to select recipients most likely to be successful in delivering results. The review is an objective evaluation against the agency's written standards, and the process must be described or referenced in the funding opportunity.
The notice also has to describe each review criterion and, if criteria differ in importance, their relative weights. That makes the notice your scoring sheet. Read it the way the reviewer will; decoding the scoring criteria goes into detail.
An example from NIH
Agencies run review differently, so treat this as one illustration rather than a rule. At the National Institutes of Health, the first level of review is done by a scientific review group, often called a study section. NIH says the review officer assigns at least three reviewers to each application. Before the meeting, each assigned reviewer writes a critique, scores each review criterion and gives a preliminary overall impact score.
Those preliminary scores help decide which applications are discussed. According to NIH, applications the group unanimously judges less competitive, typically in the bottom half, are not discussed and don't receive a numerical final score. For the rest, the assigned reviewers present and the panel discusses and scores. Scores use a 9-point scale where 1 is exceptional and 9 is poor, and the final overall score is the average of the panel's scores multiplied by 10.
NIH then adds a second level of review. Advisory councils review applications and summary statements in light of the institute's priorities, and advise the institute director, who makes funding decisions.
What to take from this: in a system like this, a small number of assigned reviewers read your application closely, and their preliminary scores can decide whether it is discussed at all. You are writing first for those few people, working through a form. Your opening pages and summary have to carry the argument, and each criterion has to be easy to find.
Before a panel meets, a reviewer has already formed an impression from reading your application alone. Give that reader a clear path: the need, the plan, the people and the evidence, in an order that matches the notice, so the critique they write can quote you accurately.
Stage three: risk review and selection
A high score does not make an award certain. Under 2 CFR 200.206, before making an award the federal agency reviews certain government-wide databases and assesses risk, looking at items such as financial stability, management systems, performance history and audit findings. The risk criteria must be described in the announcement. The agency can add conditions to an award where it finds risk it can manage.
Appendix I also says the notice must describe any program policy factors the selecting official may use, such as geographical dispersion or program balance, and give a brief description of how merit review results are used, for example whether they are advisory only. So the final decision can rest on more than the ranked scores. If your application is strong but not funded, that may be why; reading a rejection covers what to do next.
Foundation review
Foundation processes vary widely, and there is no standard form. Look on the funder's own website for a description of the steps, who makes the final decision and the timeline, and ask the program officer if it isn't clear. See talking to a program officer for how to ask.
What this means for how you write
Whatever the funder, the reviewer is a person with a form. These habits help.
- Make scoring easy. Use the notice's own headings and criteria names, in the notice's order.
- Answer every criterion directly. If a criterion has sub-parts, address each one by name.
- Put the answer first. Don't make a tired reviewer hunt.
- Leave nothing to assumption. If the reviewer must infer your staffing plan, you may not get the points.
- Check the required items. Forms, attachments and page limits come first, because an incomplete application may not be reviewed.
Say a hypothetical criterion reads "Organizational capacity (20 points)." A reviewer should be able to find a heading with that name, see the staff, systems and past results laid out and score the section without searching other pages. If the section is spread through the narrative, it can lose points even though the information is present.
Your next step
Volunteer to review for a funder or a local grant program. Reading and scoring other people's applications is the best training available for seeing your own work as a reviewer does. If reviewing isn't possible for you, ask a colleague outside your project to score your draft against the notice's criteria and mark the places they had to search.
SoliContraX checks each section against what the notice asked for before a reviewer does, and lists what is still missing, so you can fix gaps while there is still time. Upload the notice and see what a draft built from your own materials looks like. Start your next application.