Volume 11, number 3: September 2, 2004

FUNDING TIPS

New to UNC-Chapel Hill? Move Your COS Faculty Expertise Profile Too

If you are a new faculty member or researcher who came from another Community of Science-member university, you can quickly transfer your existing expertise profile to UNC-Chapel Hill’s COS faculty expertise database. All you need to do is to log into your COS Workbench and edit your “current position” to indicate your new appointment and update your previous appointment to include the date that it ended. Once the position changes have been saved, your profile will display your new affiliation to this university. Welcome to Carolina!

If you need assistance in updating your Faculty Expertise Profile, please contact the GrantSource Library for an individual consultation or plan to attend one of our workshops for faculty.

Getting Started in Your Funding Search

Whether you are a senior faculty member seeking a research grant, a junior faculty member seeking a transitional award, or a postdoctoral scholar looking for a fellowship, the place to start your search is at Carolina's GrantSource Library, part of the Office of Information and Communications. You can use electronic tools such as the Community of Science (COS), Sponsored Programs Information Network (SPIN), and other funding opportunities databases, which are linked from the GrantSource library's web site. Print directories, guides to proposal writing, and files on federal and private sponsors are available in 307 Bynum Hall.

One of the library's most heavily used resources is the COS "Funding Alert," a customized funding alert service that notifies subscribers about relevant new funding from federal and other sponsors. Other resources include the NSF E-Bulletin, the NIH Guide Table of Contents, the Foundation Center Directory, and various discipline-specific funding and awards databases.

The library staff is available for consultation and instruction in the best use of these tools. Faculty members and research staff interested in learning more about the library's services and resources can schedule an individual consultation in your office. We are also happy to visit your school, department, center, or institute to conduct demonstrations for groups of interested faculty, staff, and/or graduate students. To schedule an appointment, call the GrantSource Library at 962-3463 or e-mail gs@unc.edu.

Proposal Writing Assistance

Once you've identified a potential source of funding, your next step is to develop and submit your proposal. The GrantSource Library web site gathers information about resources available at Carolina to assist you in planning and developing your proposal. These include
offices that provide proposal assistance;
reference and proposal writing guides in the library; and
online proposal writing guides and tutorials.
For more information see the GrantSource Library web site.

One Stop Searching for Internal Funding at Carolina

Internal funding sources can play an important part of your total funding picture, especially if you are looking for money for a scholarly leave, publication, or a seed or planning grant. The Carolina Internal Funding Database provides access to information about university administered sources of funding for UNC-Chapel Hill faculty, staff, postdoctoral scholars, and students. You can find funding opportunities for research, travel, awards, prizes, fellowships, and other scholarly or professional activities.

For example, faculty can apply this fall for the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost’s Competitive Research and Scholarly Leaves program. Information about these awards for tenured and awards for non-tenured faculty can be found in the Carolina Internal Funding Database.

The Carolina Internal Funding Opportunities Database also provides a way to publicize funding opportunities administered by your department, office, center, or institute. To publicize your award in the database, send an email with information about your funding opportunity, including a contact’s name, department, email, and phone number to gs@unc.edu.

Contact: GrantSource Library
Phone: 962-3463

Join the Research Support Newsletter Mailing List

All Carolina faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and research administrators are invited to subscribe to the Research Support online newsletter. You will receive brief messages twice a month to announce new issues and updates of Research Support, the online newsletter for sponsored research news, funding tips and opportunities, and timely information from all of the offices supporting research at Carolina.
Click here to subscribe.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

In an effort to ensure that all awarded grants meet the foundation’s performance goals in strategic areas, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has adjusted its grant criteria to be more stringent than in the past. If you are considering submitting a proposal to the foundation, keep in mind that nearly 25 percent of the foundation’s giving goes to unsolicited proposals, and 75 percent to applications coming in response to an RFP.

Also look at the size of your award. The limit is generally $400,000 for approval for an individual, although a team award amount can be larger. Grant priorities for the coming year are considered by the board in January, so check with the foundation for new guidelines and goals at the beginning of the year before submitting a proposal.

Fannie Mae

The Fannie Mae Foundation has been revising its grant process to ensure that all approved proposals meet one of five goals: creating wealth, increasing community capital, increasing affordable housing supply, sharing knowledge, and improving the quality of life in the Washington, D.C. area.

As evident in the last of these goals, Fannie Mae’s geographical priorities are focused on Washington, D.C., which can be a hurdle for North Carolina-based projects. Although 25 percent of Fannie Mae’s giving is restricted to the D.C. area, however, there are still opportunities in the foundation’s other four objectives for those interested in submitting proposals.

Also remember that quality matters. The number of proposals that did not meet the foundation’s criteria has fallen by 50 percent, so competition for the foundation’s grants is increasing. Funding history is important too, as Fannie Mae shows a preference for those who have been successful in the past.

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