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Know your panel: understanding your funder is strategy, not background reading

Know your panel: understanding your funder is strategy, not background reading

by Dave Thomas | May 11, 2026 | Grant proposals

Most guidance on grant proposals tells you to write for your audience. Reasonable advice, but incomplete. Understanding your panel is a strategic exercise: a disciplined attempt to see your proposal through the eyes of the people holding the decision, and to position...
What is your team actually arguing? Alignment before the grant writing begins

What is your team actually arguing? Alignment before the grant writing begins

by Dave Thomas | May 11, 2026 | Grant proposals

Individual researchers can resolve their central argument alone. Teams rarely can. The process of writing a grant proposal together forces a set of strategic choices that most teams have never explicitly made: which idea is primary, which threads get subordinated, and...
Your proposal’s public summary is not a formality: it is your opening pitch

Your proposal’s public summary is not a formality: it is your opening pitch

by Dave Thomas | May 11, 2026 | Grant proposals

The public summary is where strategic clarity and communication skills meet most visibly. It is the section where you must answer, in plain language, the question every funder is quietly asking: does this team know what they are doing, why it matters, and who it is...
Criteria are not a checklist: they are your scoring system

Criteria are not a checklist: they are your scoring system

by Dave Thomas | May 11, 2026 | Grant proposals

Funding criteria are not bureaucratic boxes. They are a window into what the funder believes matters. Before you write a word, sit with that for a moment. What change is this organisation trying to drive? What risks are they trying to manage? The answers shape not...
Writing for specialists and generalists without losing either

Writing for specialists and generalists without losing either

by Dave Thomas | May 11, 2026 | Grant proposals

Who decides whether your proposal gets funded? Not one person, and not one kind of person. Most grant review panels include specialists who live and breathe your field generalists who do not. Understanding that difference is a strategic decision before it is a writing...
Why most research proposals fail (and it’s not your research)

Why most research proposals fail (and it’s not your research)

by Dave Thomas | May 11, 2026 | Grant proposals

Most research proposals fail before reviewers ever reach your research description. The killer? No storyline. Your proposal is not a data dump. It is an argument. But researchers routinely bury their breakthrough beneath layers of technical detail, or spend precious...

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Recent Posts

  • The proposal as a whole: making every part pull in the same direction
  • Know your panel: understanding your funder is strategy, not background reading
  • What is your team actually arguing? Alignment before the grant writing begins
  • Your proposal’s public summary is not a formality: it is your opening pitch
  • Criteria are not a checklist: they are your scoring system

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