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This site was created by Julie Fossler for UIUC LIS424. The author cannot claim any credit or responsibility for the information contained in the links. Last updated: 4/26/99

Applying for Grants, Scholarships and Fellowships

The best way to get a grant, scholarship, or fellowship is to know how to apply for one. There are several guides online that describe how to research funding options, request application materials, write grant requests, and complete the application processes. Following are some of these guides.

For starters, The Foundation Center has compiled a guide for grantseekers. The Foundation Center's User-Friendly Guide to Funding Research and Resources is a fabulous place to get a big picture view of grantseeking. It includes a question and answer section, a glossary, and tips for researching grants and writing grant proposals.

Another Foundation Center page is Proposal Writing: A Short Course. This gives a simple, helpful tutorial on proposal writing. It also includes a section on additional readings on proposal writing.

Penn State University created a guide for faculty members on Proposal Development. It includes a section on developing an outline, contacting agencies, and on preparing a full proposal.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has a fab list of internet proposal writing resources as well as resources in print. This is all part of their Grants Information Center, a fantastic starting point for grantseekers.

The Regional Alliance for Mathematics and Science Education hosts a Grant Writing Guide which covers the entire process and includes sample outlines, letters and forms, as well as information on what happens if you get funded or turned down.

Sea Coast Web Design has a 10-Point Plan for Standard Grant Funding Proposal which includes complete sample cover letters, applications and budgets, as well as tips and additional links to grantsmakers.

A good overview of what many universities need to go through when applying for grants can be found in Cornell's Guide to Proposal Preparation and Submission. Look through this to determine questions to ask of your university prior to applying for specific grants.

The University of Miami includes grantwriting tools in their Internet resources to support research at UM site. They brilliantly include Strunk & White's Elements of Style in their Tools for Writing Grants section.

The University of Southern California has a gopher site with sample inquiry letters and proposals, as well as some grantwriting tips. Don't let the gopher part scare you; their section on foundation funding gives great tips, although it is a bit dated.

The Evergreen State Society in Seattle, WA created a site on Institutional Fundraising which has a great question and answer section about grants. Although it focuses on nonprofit grantseeking, it contains relevant information for students and faculty members, as well.

The Paladin Group has a page on the Elements of a Grant Proposal.

The National Science Foundation hosts a Grant Proposal Guide which applies only to NSF grants. It gives a good indication of how demanding this process can be. FastLane is the official National Science Foundation guide to writing grants. It is an interactive real-time system used to conduct NSF business over the Internet.

The National Endowment for the Humanities also has a site for Applying for a Grant, as does the National Endowment for the Arts (Guidelines and Applications).

Finally, the Department of Education has a goldmine of information on applying for funding, starting with their What Should I Know About ED Grants? page. The DoE includes their FY 1999 Discretionary Grant Application Packages, their Guide to U.S. Department of Education Programs and Resources, a link to Education Department Grants Administrative Regulations (EDGAR), additional Grants and Contracts information, and Resources for Institutions.