Why so many grant proposals fail

I know SpaceX isn't a grant applicant, but let's pretend for a moment it is, and it described itself thusly:

"We build rockets."

Or even more honestly, "We build rockets. Often they don't blow up!"

Imagine how much excitement that would generate.

Instead, for its upcoming IPO, Elon Musk's organization is describing itself thusly:

"Our mission is to build the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars." There's more, but I'll stop. You get the idea.

Or look at Adam Neumann. Here's his introduction to his IPO filing for WeWork. (In case you don't remember now, WeWork is a company that rented shared office space to start-up businesses and freelancers):

"The We Company's guiding mission will be to elevate the world's consciousness. Living a conscious life means choosing to live proactively and with purpose. It means being a student of life, for life, where we accept that we are always growing and in a constant stage of self-discovery, self-growth, and change."

Really.

Now, as any sentient being knows, both of these descriptions are a far cry from what either of these companies are.

And to be clear, I am not advocating grant seekers to describe their organization in deceitful terms that bear no resemblance to what said organizations really are, although I would argue that in particular WeWork does exactly this.

But so many of the grants I read start off something like "Xxx is a non-profit that tries to make life better for children and disadvantaged people through donations and volunteer work." Or something like that. I nearly fell asleep typing that sentence.

By the time the grantor gets to your application, they've read that basic sentence ten thousand times. And they've tossed all ten thousand of those applications into the trash. So where do you think yours is going?

So what to do? You have to answer some vital questions and you have to answer them right off the bat. You can't wait till paragraph two or three, because they ain't gonna read that far.

You need to tell them why your organization is uniquely valuable, what it's doing in your region or for your particular target group that no one else is, and why doing that thing is extremely important to the well being not just of the people you're serving, but more broadly of society. Why will life be better for everyone if you get this grant, if you serve this under-served community?

Again, I'm not advocating lying. But Elon Musk apparently thinks sending many of us to space will "extend the light of consciousness to the stars." And, yes, honestly, technically it will. Think about it. For the first time in history, we would be an interplanetary species. Is this a good thing? Well, I don't know and neither does Elon, honestly, because it hasn't happened. We don't know what the full range of effects would be. But if someone doesn't agree with the implication that it will be immensely beneficial, they can pass up funding it, which in this case means not buying into the IPO.

A good way to pitch your organization's mission and value is to ask AI. I'm not a big proponent of letting this technology do your work for you. But when you use it as a super-smart assistant to gather information or insights that you then weigh is a legitimate use of the technology.

And what I find helpful is to open an AI site, plug in my client firm's URL, and then ask something like, "Read this organization's website carefully and thoroughly and then find out the thing it is doing that is unique and extraordinary. Then write an accurate but highly enthusiastic description of that unique selling proposition." Or whatever. You get the idea.

The unique selling proposition, or USP, goes all the way back to the early days of advertising. Coined by Rosser Reeves, a "mad man" from the 1940s at the ad agency Ted Bates & Company, the USP is exactly what it sounds like. What makes your product or service different, unique, and niche-filling like nothing else around?

Once you've got that, trumpet it. Frame your ask around it. Because it's what makes you Jackie Robinson and not Jerry Priddy. Mozart and not Salieri. A Porsche and not ... you get the idea.

Shoot for the stars. Don't give them the same things they see every day. As the computer company used to say, Think different. Tell 'em why you're special.

New Rules Would Politicize Grant Decisions, Scientists Say | from MedPageToday

Intent is to cut DEI, but scientists see a dystopian, anti-science power grab

by Cheryl Clark, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today

June 2, 2026

A sweeping proposed rule that would transfer federal grantmaking decisions from scientific experts to senior political appointees is "dystopian," "disastrous," and a "flagrant assault on our democracy," scientists and health advocates said.

The White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) document, issued May 28, seeks to give the Trump administration authority over funding throughout the government, they said.

The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) said that if finalized, the White House rule "would replace scientific merit with McCarthy-era politics," and called on Congress to block the rule.

IDSA president Ronald Nahass, MD, said in a statement that the rule would compromise "medical research, public health, and healthcare access for vulnerable populations."

"Make no mistake, the impacts of this proposed rule would be dire; it would fundamentally alter the U.S. approach to science, drive away multitudes of researchers, and eliminate the promise of lifesaving cures for decades to come," he added. "Placing grant decisions in the hands of politicians and requiring that scientists adhere to the Administration's ideology is a serious limitation on civil liberties and would diminish the development of high-quality research."

Elizabeth Ginexi, PhD, a former NIH scientific program official, told MedPage Today that if finalized, the rule would take "the scientific civil servant out of the picture and put the control at OMB for deciding what gets spent or not spent."

"If an institute has a grant it wants to fund ... they'd have to send it to HHS, and presumably even further to the OMB for clearance," she said. She wrote in a June 1 Substack that the rule "is the universal legal framework governing every federal grant to every recipient across every agency in the federal government. When OMB rewrites it, they are rewriting the rules for all of it."

"They don't want civil servants making those decisions, and they certainly don't want that much money going to people they don't care for," Ginexi told MedPage Today. "This is pretty dystopian stuff."

In her Substack from May 28, the day the proposed rule was published, she listed 18 "key changes" it would make to the grant funding process. A sub-headline said OMB director Russell Vought "is going to destroy American Science."

For starters, much of the proposal's wording targets any grant "designed to advance unlawful identity-based 'diversity, equity and inclusion' (DEI) policies" or "award programs to serve a 'woke' policy agenda that deliberately favored certain identity groups over others."

Ginexi, who left her job last year because she felt pressure "to implement the political whims of the administration," said insiders have told her much of this proposed rule is already embedded in NIH practice. Anonymous officials are changing what study protocols are used "even after the peer review process found the study to be meritorious," she said.

The proposed rule goes much farther than just eliminating DEI from federally funded scientific projects. Other provisions would give the administration the authority to terminate awards even in the middle of the grant period. It would also forbid collaboration with researchers in certain countries.

Using grant funds for a subscription to a business, professional, academic, or technical periodical would be disallowed. And it would prohibit the use of funds for professional journal article processing charges, which several scientists said could limit their ability to publish.

It also would require grantees to get federal approval before grant funds could be used to attend conferences, and only if approval is specified in the grant. A grant also could be rejected if the applicant is a member of certain organizations deemed to "undermine public safety or national security."

Ginexi said she was able to compare language in last year's rule and found a consistent change. "Every single instance where there was the word 'guidance,' now that's been replaced with the word 'regulation,'" she said. In effect, the rule is a legal mechanism "to turn a guidance document for good grant making to what is now a fiat."

Other scientists and public health advocates are fighting back with a campaign to encourage opposing comments on regulations.gov by the July 13 deadline. Colette Delawalla, CEO of Stand Up For Science -- which is holding an emergency meeting to rally opposition -- said that could convince Congress to block finalization.

"This just disastrous rule is a flagrant assault on our democracy," Delawalla told MedPage Today. "Scientists for so long have been happily living under our little rock, staying in their labs, and not concerned about politics. Those days are now over."

Physicians and other health providers will be affected as well, she said. "Physicians are arguably the frontline witnesses to our nation's health disparities. And this is going to make those so much worse," Delawalla said.

Sudip Parikh, PhD, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of American Science, called the proposal a "brazen power grab ... to buck the will of Congress and the American people," adding that it will "make future discoveries less likely."

"Alzheimer's disease will not be cured by a budget analyst from either political party," he added.

An editorial in the journal Science called the proposed rules an effort by the Trump administration "to mortally wound the nation's scientific enterprise."

"Peer review has never been formally binding, but this proposal would dramatically expand the power of political appointees to override expert assessments of scientific merit," it stated.

Jeremy Berg, PhD, a former director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, told MedPage Today the goal of this policy is "to undermine university business plans."

This administration "has big objections to universities as being 'woke' and supporting things they find politically objectionable ... particularly universities that have academic medical centers and are very dependent on NIH funding for a lot of what they do," Berg said. "If you can undermine that whole process, you can bring the universities to their knees. ... And it also becomes harder for scientists to publish."

"Scientific grants will no longer be funded based on objective peer review by scientists, but instead, subjectively by ideologues without the requisite expertise," Steffanie Strathdee, PhD, of the University of California San Diego and co-director of its Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics, told MedPage Today.

"Such deadly public policies will ensure that America is no longer the world leader in science," she said. "Fewer meritorious grants will be funded, fewer young scientists will want to conduct research, and more scientists will leave the U.S. for other countries."

Elizabeth Skerry, regulatory policy associate for Public Citizen, said the rule is "part of the Trump administration's attack on science, research, and education. It's also in keeping similarly with the administration's attacks on federal agencies."

Is This the Last Normal Year for American Public Schools?

As kids across the country head into summer break, there's a sobering question worth asking: Are we watching the final year of public education as we've known it?

Tucked inside Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" is a new school funding mechanism that takes effect in January 2027—right in the middle of the next school year. Education historians and policy analysts are sounding the alarm, and for good reason: We've tried something like this before, and it didn't go well.

How the New Program Works

The new system is being called a national voucher program, though it functions more like a private school subsidy. Taxpayers, whether or not they have school-age children, can redirect up to $1,700 of what they would owe in federal taxes to "Scholarship Granting Organizations" (SGOs). Those organizations then distribute the funds to families to cover tuition or other educational expenses at private schools. Families earning up to 300% of their area's median income are eligible, which in some high-cost cities means households making over $300,000 a year could qualify.

Participation is opt-in for states, and so far 29 states have signed on, with others still working through the political calculus.

The Budget Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About

Here's where things get troubling for public schools. When a student leaves for a private school, they take their per-pupil state funding with them. But the costs left behind don't shrink proportionally. Teacher salaries, building maintenance, heating bills, and bus routes remain largely fixed whether a school has 500 students or 300. The result is a potential funding cliff—revenues drop sharply while expenses hold steady, at least in the short term. If enough families take the subsidy and leave, districts could spiral into a budget crunch that drives even more families away, compounding the problem.

Who Actually Benefits?

Not everyone loses. Large, established private schools with existing fundraising infrastructure stand to receive a significant cash infusion. And because there's no cap on how much tuition an SGO can subsidize, wealthy private schools could theoretically pocket very high tuition payments funded by the program. Affluent families who were already planning to pay for private school may end up getting a significant discount courtesy of federal taxpayers.

Rural districts, even in deeply red states, will likely be the hardest hit. Conservative legislators in states like Texas have pushed back hard against voucher-style programs precisely because they understand how damaging they can be to underfunded rural public schools.

We've Been Here Before

Here's the historical twist: This isn't a new experiment. For the first half-century of American education, states routinely divided their education budgets between public and private institutions, and the results were consistently poor.

New York City did exactly this until 1825, parceling out small allotments to dozens of private and religious schools while leaving public schools chronically underfunded. The consequence: thousands of the city's children received no schooling at all. In 1826, city leaders made the decision to consolidate all education funding into the public school system. By eliminating the redundant costs of maintaining parallel systems, they were able to educate far more children.

In the 1840s, Massachusetts education reformer Horace Mann made a similar case statewide, collecting data showing that divided school budgets produced only six months of schooling per year. By consolidating funding into public schools, he managed to extend the school year, raise teacher pay, improve facilities, and provide free textbooks.

The data from that era is stark. In states that kept splitting their budgets between private and public schools, adult illiteracy rates were dramatically higher. By 1840, roughly 1% of white adult men in Massachusetts were illiterate, compared to 19% in Georgia and 27% in North Carolina—both states that continued subsidizing private academies.

What Comes Next

There are still enormous unknowns: which remaining states will opt in, what rules they'll impose on SGOs, how many taxpayers will actually participate, and whether the program will outlast the current administration.

What isn't unknown is the general pattern. Splitting public education dollars between competing school systems has consistently produced worse outcomes for more students—especially those in rural and lower-income communities. The 19th century figured this out the hard way.

We don't have that excuse this time.

Based on reporting and analysis by Adam Laats, originally published in Slate.