The United States for Agency for International Development (USAID), in collaboration with other organizations, has launched a new request for the Applications for the third round of ‘Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development.’ If you did not submit application to the USAID before, you need to register on the grants.gov website at least two weeks before the submission deadline, because the registration may take up to two weeks to be ready.
There are two types of applications available: Seed Application and Transition Application. The Seed Application is a type that most of the applications will go with and its proposed time is up to two years; its format is 3 pages with 11-point font and one-inch margins (about 1,700 words when the font Arial chosen); and its submission deadline is March 28 for 2013. The Transition Application is more challenging and its proposed time is up to four years; its application has to be a 3 pages concept note which deadline is the same; and if accepted, a full application is required to be no more than 9 pages.
It is a challenge when we try to come up with a good idea for a proposal. When designing a proposal, several critical factors have to be kept in mind, such as the principles of funding of the USAID, what projects were funded in the past, and what projects are available but not submitted in your regions. Starting from answering these questions will help us to reach good ideas and thoughts of new projects to write about.
1. The current principles of the USAID grant are innovation and cost-effectiveness, which means only those proposals with newer ideas and advanced strategies, and with cost-effective plans will have the possibilities of funding, due to the higher flow of competitions and limited funds. The innovation has been defined as “the development and application of new tools, products, services or processes that address roadblocks to healthy pregnancies and births, and is clearly differentiated from existing approaches.” In order to come up with innovative and cost-effective ideas, it is necessary to learn about what types of projects have been funded by the USAID Saving Lives at Birth Program in the past years.
