[dlavery]

I will not comment on any one particular application and why it did or did not receive a grant. However, I do want to make a few observations about the evaluation and selection process, and offer a few “lessons learned” that might be useful to those who apply for NASA grants in the future.

Having been through the evaluation and selection process several times now, I can tell you that the decisions are not easy, and some very tough choices have to be made about which subset of the submitted applications can be selected and awarded. The processes for advertising, evaluating, selecting and awarding grants and other sponsorships are all run by real people. They put a lot of time and effort into making the best selections possible given the various constraints and requirements that are in place. Some aspects of the evaluation process have to be subjective, and are based on the reviewers ability to extract pertinent information from the application provided by the teams. In many cases, teams can improve their probability of being selected for an award by focusing on a few specific areas of the application. Here are few suggestions:

-- READ THE INSTRUCTIONS COMPLETELY AND THOROUGHLY! This one would seem intuitively obvious, but it was amazing to see the significant number of applications that were submitted were it was obvious that the submission instructions were not followed. As a result, the information provided was incomplete, incorrect, or redundant, and the application had to be declined.

-- There are different types of grants available (e.g. “Challenge Grants” and “Growth Grants”). Each type has specific requirements and limitations on who can receive them. Make sure you read and understand those requirements. Many proposals had to be declined because the team was not eligible for the type of grant for which they applied. For example, no rookie grants were available for the Las Vegas regional for 2008 (as documented in the application instructions). Yet we received several rookie grant applications for this event, which then all had to be turned down.

-- If you have received a NASA grant, make sure you complete all your obligations before requesting another one. For example, when you receive a NASA grant, you agree to provide NASA with a copy of your Chairman’s Award submission and complete the entry/exit survey so we can track the effectiveness of the program. More than six months after the end of the 2007 competition season, many teams still have not fulfilled this requirement. Because they had not complied with the requirements of the 2007 grant, despite several request from NASA to do so, many second-year teams had to be declined that could have otherwise been funded.

-- Make sure that you collect and assemble ALL of the required information before you hit the “submit” button. Many applications had incomplete submissions. The most common omission is the letter from the principal (or other authorized official) documenting institutional support for the team. On average, one application in four did not include this item.

-- Put some honest effort into the narrative answers. The purpose of the narratives is twofold: to encourage the teams to really think through all the preparations they will need to maximize the probability that they will have a successful season, and to provide NASA with information about your team so they can do a comparative evaluation. Remember, when you submit an application for a grant, you are competing with other teams for the grant funds. This year, NASA received more than twice as many applications than could be awarded with the available funds. As a result, the evaluation process looked closely at the quality of the grant application. Teams that provided full, complete, well thought out responses to the narrative questions tended to fair much better than those that gave quick perfunctory answers that really did not support the contention that they were prepared for the 2008 season. When NASA only has enough money to fund a limited number of applications, and some show great care and thought in their preparation and others do not, making the choice between them is easy.

-- Make sure your team is actually registered with FIRST! Submitting an application for a NASA grant does NOT automatically register your team – you need to complete that step separately. There were several teams that had to be tracked down and encouraged to register with FIRST, thinking that an application submission was all they had to do. By the time of the evaluations, some of them still had not registered with FIRST, so we had to decline their applications because they were not an official (FIRST-recognized) team.

-- If you are applying for a Challenge Grant, make sure you are registered for the event for which you are seeking a grant. Challenge Grants are tied to specific regional competitions, and if your team is not registered for the event, it does you no good to apply for a grant for that event. Several applications had to be denied for this reason (again, this gets back to the "read all the instructions" part – this was covered in the submission instructions).

Hopefully, this list will offer a little insight into why some of the applications were not selected for award, and how they can be improved in the future to increase your probability of success.

On one final note, if you do receive sponsorship (from NASA or anyone else), say "thank you." This is not an absolute requirement. You are not under any obligation to do so. You will still be able to get a grant if you don’t do this. But it is an appropriate acknowledgement of the sponsorship being provided, it is both a gracious and a professional thing to do, and it is simple good manners.

I am reminded of a team from a few years ago. As the season started, the team went to great lengths to thank a company that had donated $120 worth of safety goggles to the team for their support. They wrote two thank-you letters, sent a team picture, gave a full written account of the successes of their season, and prominently featured the logo of the company on their robot. All of that was very good and appropriate. But the organization that provided them with $12,000 in direct sponsorship never heard anything from the team. And when the head of the organization (who was familiar with the team) asked "were they happy that we are sponsoring them? Do they want us to continue? Can we be there to cheer for them at the competition?" he was dismayed to hear "we don’t know – they have never spoken to us again after taking the cheque" in response.

The team still got the sponsorship for that year and the next. But the people involved with the sponsoring organization never forgot about the lack of a simple "thank you." And to this day, they still remember who was on that team (both mentors and students), and how they had to make excuses for the behavior of the team to the head of the organization. It is likely that they will be slightly less enthusiastic about doing business with any of those former team members again should the occasion ever arise. The moral of the story: You can build bridges, or you can burn them. The choice is yours.

-dave