Grant Proposals for Individuals
The main parts of a grant proposal for an individual are largely identical to those for organizations. You’ll still need a cover letter, executive summary, program description, and project budget. The support materials you’ll include, however, are quite different.
The Professional Resumé
Rather than a description of an organization’s history or background, a proposal for an individual grant seeker requires a professional resumé. This is different from a resumé you’d use to find a job. A professional resumé should emphasize professional accomplishments such as these:
• Scholarly papers presented at conferences
• Publications
• Exhibitions at galleries or museums
You might also list anything published about you and your work, such as book or art reviews or peer reviews of scientific work.
Only after listing professional accomplishments should you list your education. Hobbies and outside interests have no place on a professional resumé. Keep the resumé related to the purpose of the grant, and list everything in reverse chronological order—that is, put your most recent accomplishments first. Plan to revise the resumé for nearly every proposal to emphasize your accomplishments most closely related to the funder’s interests. Following is an example of a professional resumé for an historian.
Note the main organization of the resumé is in order of importance of achievements and then in reverse chronological order within sections. Hence, books, articles, reviews by other people of her work come first, and finally education.
Don’t risk killing your chances by getting artistic in your formatting. Keep your formatting plain and simple and in 12-point type to focus those reviewing your work on the work and not on your mastery of MS Word or graphic design.
Publications
Parks, Susan. Maize Cultivation as a Civilizing Factor. New York, NY: Obscure History Press, 2004.
“Crop Rotation in the Antebellum South,” Journal of Farming History, November 2005.
“Wheat, Maize, and Barley: Grains in Colonial America,” New England History Review, June 2004.
“Agrarian Economics in the 1820s,” New England History Review, February 2001.
Reviews of Maize Cultivation as a Civilizing Factor
“More Than You Thought You Could Know About Maize,” New York Review of Books, September 2004.
“The Corn Lady,” History of Food Quarterly, August 2004.
Professional Experience
Senior Lecturer, Culinary Institute of Vermont, 2005–present
Adjunct Professor of American History, Iowa State University, 2002–2005
Education
Ph.D., American Studies, Iowa State University, May 2002
M.A., American History, Iowa State University, August 1999
B.S., History and Culture, Brown University, May 1997
Statement of Purpose
Even a grant application that involves a lengthy application form still requires you to write something that describes the work you do. Your use of language is just as important in a statement of purpose as in your proposal narrative. If a professional panel will review your grant request, you may need to include some of the latest buzzwords; but if foundation staff and board will review your work, it pays to use common English. (You might want to reread “Buzz, Buzz, Buzzwords” in Chapter 14 before moving on.)
Here’s a simple formula for creating such a statement and keeping it short. First, remember your statement must relate to the project or work you’re seeking funding for and to whatever samples of your work that are part of the application, whether scholarly articles, reviews, or slides of paintings. Keeping this in mind, write one to three sentences (no more!) on each of the following points.
• What did you seek to accomplish in the work samples?
• How did you do it? Note any technical issues you encountered in producing the work sample (and in the case of visual art work, the medium and size of your art).
• What were any influences on your work that may help the person reviewing your grant proposal put your work in a context that helps them understand it?
That last point is definitely optional, but it can be helpful for someone unfamiliar with your work. For example, are you approaching mathematical theory in a manner similar to Turing or Russell? If you’re a painter, were you influenced by the Dada or Fluxus artists, or does some more recent artist share your zeitgeist? Here’s a statement of purpose a painter might write.
Representational painting remains a contemporary medium for me, through the subject matter I choose and through the varied types of paints I employ in my work. The accompanying digital files show paintings, all approximately 40×18 inches, of industrial landscapes.
Each painting was created using specially formulated paint that creates a crackled finish within hours after exposure to the air. This makes it necessary to work quickly with little time for reworking, which gives the work a spontaneity that is at odds with the aged appearance created by the crackling. Charles Sheeler’s paintings of industrial buildings first showed me the beauty that can be found there. The narrative qualities of Frederic Church’s paintings have also influenced my work.
WORDS TO THE WISE
I’ve seen a foundation president be totally put off an artist’s work by a pretentious, obscure statement of purpose, even though the work itself was initially of interest. Know the type of person who will review your proposal, and write everything accordingly.
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