Grant Writing—Action Movie Style

Street Traffic in Mirissa, Sri Lanka

Image Credits: Zoshua Colah

(A True Story of the Day Everything that Could Go Wrong…Did)

Unexpected plot twists and of course, action—are great in action movies. Trying to submit a grant proposal while suddenly finding yourself at the edge of a gravel cliff with a bus heading towards you at 60 miles an hour?—Not so great!

Of course I exaggerate. But listen to my true story about the day everything that could go wrong, did.

Spoiler Alert: Lesson about Time Management.

I swear I am not making this up; it was the last hour, of the last day, to submit a huge government grant proposal which we, a team of 5-7 people had worked on for the last two months.

It started with the budget getting approved late. And by getting approved late, I mean the CFO had only received it the same morning and had sent it ‘downstairs’ back to the grant team about 30 minutes before the submission deadline.

Now all of you federal grant folks know that elements of the budget cascade into the certificates and representations (also known as “certs and reps” for short).  For those less familiar, “certs and reps” are documented statements and assurances that organizations provide to affirm compliance with various federal requirements and regulations when submitting a grant or contract application.

While I opened up the certs and reps and started typing in final budget numbers feverishly, the document formatting started swimming around in ways that increased my anxiety.  I could feel the beads of sweat forming on my palms.  I remember my internal dialogue as my urge to hurry up and print the document clashed with my stubborn refusal to submit an unprofessional looking document with gaping spaces.

Five minutes later my brain deemed the document presentable. Back then, the document still needed to be manually printed, then scanned, emailed back, renamed, and finally uploaded.

I hit print. Nothing happened. I hit print again. Nothing. The internet had cut out. Yup.

Have you had moments in your life which are so visceral and yet surreal at the same time? My heart was pounding and making me short of breath, while at the same time I felt like I was in a bad dream. I have a vivid image of the pale white face of my grant team lead, who had stayed quiet and collected under the circumstances, and was now visibly shaking. His ears a bright red. 

A few minutes later someone did something and the internet came back. I physically raced down a hallway to the printer and scanner—racing back to my seat to email the final certs and reps to the staffer doing the final upload.

It was seven mins past the deadline of 5pm.  A massive rush of collective adrenaline pumped through the hallway while furious shaky fingers hit the magic button “send…”

The most beautiful sight displayed – the grant acceptance confirmation page! We had done it!

Hurray! Months of writing, coordination and Skype calls (this was before Zoom) later, all was well – or so I thought. I could actually eat my lunch now.

The next day, as a post-submission formality I logged into grants.gov and tracked the submission.  I found our application and application status – REJECTED!  The system which had accepted it kicked it back.

Well, the only thing that could be done now was to plead our case. A senior director got on the phone with a big wig at a US government agency who apparently tut-tutted but agreed to accept the excuse that the grants.gov system had slowed down while multiple organizations attempted to submit at the same time, causing our upload to be accepted seven mins late. A few finger wags over the phone later, the big wig agreed to accept the proposal.

Here’s the kicker..what if he didn’t?

Hundreds of hours of collective work by budget analysts, HR, program officers, head honchos, and foreign consultants would have resulted in an immediate denial.

That was the moment I decided there MUST be a better way. And that was the moment I decided that when I was a team lead, I would NOT allow this to happen.

I am self-aware enough to realize that while a certain amount of pressure is helpful to keep the momentum going in preparation for a deadline, I do not need the bungee-jumping level of excitement while submitting a proposal.

If you ever work with me and wonder why I insist on building in a buffer of time – well this is why.

I am a big advocate for creating project plans and sticking to deadlines, communicating when we get behind and building in buffers of time. Because, as we all know, life happens.

So maybe next time you have a big grant coming up, think of my cautionary tale and give yourself plenty of time.

Do you have a grant writing ‘adventure’ you’d like to share? Add your story below!