Selecting A Funding Agent
Who/What Are Funding Agents?
- Entities (can be people, nonprofits, businesses/corporations, federal institutions) that provide grantseekers (in this case, you) with funds to fulfill a shared goal.
How We'll Be Categorizing Funding Agents for This Class
Tier I
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Tier II
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Tier III
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Selecting a Tier
- For the sake of this assignment, you will choose one Tier of funding agents to send your proposal to (completely your choice), and subsequently choose one to apply for.
- The same application should be written differently depending on which Tier is selected
- This demonstrates an understanding of your audience
- Also will make your audience more likely to engage with your topic (as opposed to a generic proposal)
- Example: Tier I agents may be more receptive to charts and graphs than Tier III agents, regardless of subject material.
- Determining which tier you want to pick your funding agent from is your choice- there is no “right” or “wrong” one for your particular project.
- Different agencies/companies may resonate or disagree with your values and goals, as well as with how you plan on conducting your campaign.
- Ex: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation might not want Twitter to be one of your genres in the campaign; they might also not want to fund a campaign on dental hygiene. It’s not that they don’t care about these issues, but it might not be part of their mission statement in terms of how they want to allocate their funds. It would be more effective to find someone who values your campaign than to have to convince others to care.
- Your argument should mention not only why the issue is worth caring about, but also why they should fund your campaign as opposed to others like yours.
Writing Your Proposal
- Whichever Tier you select should dictate how you approach writing your proposal
- Your Design Brief for this assignment should elaborate on which Tier you chose and why, which funding agent you decided on and why, as well as how you tailored your proposal to that specific agent/tier, and how it might look different given another choice.
Potential Resources
- https://www.fic.nih.gov/Funding/NonNIH/Pages/default.aspx <- helpful link to find Non-NIH funding opportunities
- https://phpartners.org/grants.html