A professional SBIR grant proposal will increase your chances of winning.

By Lisa Stewart

To prepare an award-winning grant proposal requires dexterity. You must write a succinct, hard-hitting sales piece that describes core technical information you can back-up with research. Your language must impress and enlighten technical experts in your field, and be crystal clear to laypeople. It needs to be high on active verbs and descriptive facts and low on fluff and fillers (which indicate a lack of facts). Here are the building blocks of your grant proposal:

Summary Abstract
Think of the summary abstract as the executive summary in a business plan. It should be written after you have completed your entire grant proposal. This one-page document describes the Phase I research you must conduct to provide proof-of-concept for your product or technology, which will lead to Phase II development and commercialization. Introduce the market, why the product of your research is important, the problems it solves and where and how you will sell it. The summary abstract should, in a couple of sentences, explain the overarching research method that your Phase I grant will fund, a sentence about the plan of work and name your key players with a brief mention of their credentials.

Project Narrative/Research Strategy/Project Description
This section has different names depending on the agency to which you are applying, whether that is the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, etc. It contains the following sections, which for some agencies are stand-alone sections:

• Significance of the problem// What problem or need does your technology solve, and what are potential risks and work-arounds?
• Proposed innovation// Describe the product or technique in detail and how it uniquely solves the problem or fills the need.
• Relationship of this project to the present state of knowledge in the field// Explain exactly how your technology differs from other technology being developed in your field to remedy the same or similar needs.
• Critical questions to be answered in Phase I// List all the questions you must answer to complete your proof-of-concept research. This list becomes your plan of work.
• Plan of work// This step-by-step outline of the research process reveals exactly how each step will be performed, the research methods to be used, how outcomes will be documented and how they will be analyzed to conclusively prove your concept. Each step will list the key person or people responsible for it and a timeline.
• Commercialization// Explain how you will take your product or technology to market, who will buy it, why, when and how.
• Risks and workarounds// What might stop your research in its tracks? Write it down and explain what you will do to work around the hurdle.
• Note// Briefly restate the purpose of your project in each section, because proposals often are split up and sent to multiple reviewers who may not see your summary.

Other Supporting Documents

• Research budget and budget justification// If you have a lump sum listed for supplies in your budget, your budget justification is the page where you break that number down and explain all expenses. Your grant guidelines will list eligible expenses.
• Facility// This page describes the facility and equipment.
• Biosketches of key participants// It should be obvious to reviewers that your principal investigator (who must be employed by the company at least 50 percent of the time) is the best person to conduct this research and, if not, he or she has assembled a team of key people who clearly have the technical knowledge, experience and expertise to carry out the work.
• Letters of commitment// Collect letters of commitment from any investigators who will perform work. If some work or beta testing is to be conducted at a university, hospital, charter school or other facility, get letters of commitment from administrators of those facilities. (This should be your first step in the grant-writing process, because getting responses takes time.)
• Letters of interest or support// Collect letters of support from experts in your field, potential purchasers of your technology and, if possible, from your city, state and federal legislators. (Again, do this first.)

Working With a Grant Writer
CEOs who discussed applying for SBIRs at the Dec. 14th Missouri Technology Corporation Summit in Kansas City said that it can take six months or more to gather the information needed to write a competitive proposal. Working with an experienced SBIR grant writer, teamed with a counselor from the Small Business Technology Development Center and UMKC Innovation Center in Kansas City, can increase your odds of success, especially if you do not have time to do the research, writing and learn the application process. A skilled grant writer can interview you, read your patents and documents and craft your raw data and research into a compelling narrative. Some grant writers also will help with initial registrations, rounding up letters of support and completing the online submission process. A list of SBIR grant writers can be found at www.missouribusiness.net/fast/grant_writers.asp.

If you do not yet have all the information you need to complete the building blocks listed above, particularly if you cannot knowledgeably state how your technology or technique differs from related research currently being done elsewhere in the field, you are not ready to submit an SBIR grant application. No harm, no foul. You now have a blueprint for gathering what you need and submitting a competitive SBIR application in an upcoming funding round.

Lisa Stewart is owner at Lisa D. Stewart Consulting and an experienced SBIR grant writer.
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