MINDSET A. POINT OF DEPARTURE: You are brilliant and you have a great idea.   B. OBJECTIVE: Obtain funding to pursue your great idea as a research project. C. YOUR TASK: Move successfully from a to B.

BASIC POINTS TO KEEP IN MIND: Agency or foundation X provides funding to support research projects such as yours. It supports worthy projects such as yours. It is ready to support your research project. Simply stated, they want to give you their money. SELECTED AGENCIES/FOUNDATIONS FOR ARTS & HUMANITIES: National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, American Philosophical Society, National Humanities Center (Research Triangle, NC), Center for Advanced Studies (Princeton, NJ), Stanford Humanities Center, + residency sites for writers, artists, scholars such as the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center (IT), American Academy in Berlin (D), Camargo Foundation (Cassis, France), Warburg Institute (London, UK), & Yaddo. And let’s be sure to include Iowa’s Obermann Center for Advanced Studies PRACTICAL QUESTION: What can you do to increase the likelihood of receiving support?

FIRST OF ALL, YOU NEED TO KNOW WHAT YOU CANNOT CHANGE OR KNOW: You cannot foresee the pool of proposals within which your proposal will be competing. You cannot know who will be reading your proposal.   WHAT YOU CAN DO, FOR A START: Avoid anything that might decrease your chances of writing a competitive proposal.

Inform yourself about the application process Inform yourself about the application process. Ask Office of V-P for Research for samples of successful UI applications in your discipline or area. Learn about UI’s Arts & Humanities Initiative (AHI) program. Some applicants confer with agency or foundation personnel about application processes & acceptance rates. This is appropriate behavior. In all such matters, you want to present yourself as a serious and ambitious applicant. Keep in mind that everything you do develops your professional profile. Follow application instructions; organize your proposal draft according to the headings (topics, questions) provided. Make it easy fr your reader understand your thsis, methodology, work scedule, and projecteds outcomes. (oops!)

Be clear about the significance and originality of your project Be clear about the significance and originality of your project. The same holds for your timetable and projected outcomes. Explain with concision how you are qualified to accomplish what you propose to do with the funding you are requesting. Mention relevant skills and/or experience. Temper self- promotion with humility. Simplify your sentences. Check and recheck style, grammar, and spelling. Neatness counts.  

Confront the jargon issue: limit or eliminate terms that someone outside your field might not easily understand. Not everyone will immediately recognize expressions such as “epistemological break” in the history of science or “sample size vs. effect size” as understood by statisticians in conjunction with power analysis. Remember that while this is your proposal, you need not go through the application process alone. Consult colleagues and friends as well as CLAS and the Office of the Vice- President for Research. Be receptive to productive criticism.

Keep in mind that drafting a successful proposal is a learning process Keep in mind that drafting a successful proposal is a learning process. You may not receive funding the first or second time around. The effort to develop your writing skills in conjunction with a request for funding will surely be of long-term value. Try whenever possible to make your own good luck! Yes, you really can do this.