Constituent Services

Grants Guide




Using Your Congressional Office Effectively

General Suggestions
Steps To Take When An Application Is Unsuccessful
Helpful Hints From Congressional Experience
Agency Contact Information

General Suggestions

  • Contact the congressional office in writing requesting a letter of support for your application/proposal.
     
  • Address the letter to the member and not staff.
     
  • Contact the congressional office early.
     
  • Remember to ask the agency if the letter of support has to accompany the proposal or needs to be sent directly to them. Specify to the congressional office where you want the letter to go.
     
  • Send with your cover letter to the member an executive summary/abstract and the Standard Form 424. It is not necessary to send your entire proposal.
     
  • Inform each congressional office of the contacts you've made with the other congressional offices so that joint letters can be written to the agencies. They are not necessary but can be done at your request. Separate letters can also be sent by each congressional office.
     
  • State offices can be contacted for your convenience. Feel free to call them or give them your proposal or letter which will be forwarded to the Washington office.
     
  • When the congressional office responds to your request, a letter of support is written to the agency and another letter to the constituent informing them that a letter was written on their behalf. Normally, copies of the letters to the agencies are not sent back to the constituent.
     
  • Normally, the agency will inform the congressional office of the timetable for a decision. Since a letter has already been written to the agency, the congressional office will make phone calls to further check on the status of the applications. Other congressional letters may be written depending on the circumstances.
     
  • Once an agency has made its decision on awards, they will call the congressional office to let them know who has received an award, and the amount. The congressional office will then contact the other congressional offices involved and the recipient is notified; sometimes a press release is written.

Steps To Take When An Application Is Unsuccessful

  • As soon as you receive a letter from the agency stating that your application was not successful, immediately request the reviewer's remarks. (You should always request the reviewer's remarks whether it is successful or not.)
     
  • Read remarks thoroughly and if you would like to dispute the results and request reconsideration of your application, your must contact the agency in writing requesting an appeal of the decision.
     
  • Then, contact your congressional office, in writing, requesting that the member contact the agency on your behalf. The member will write and ask that your request is given every appropriate consideration within federal guidelines.
     
  • Usually, you will receive a response or a phone call from the congressional office letting you know that the agency has been contacted.
     
  • At that point, depending on the circumstances of the rejection of the application, a meeting may be requested by the applicant between the applicant and appropriate agency personnel.
     
  • Should you wish to have such a meeting, you may contact your congressional office, preferably in writing, requesting a meeting between you, the applicant, the agency and also a congressional representative.
     
  • At the meeting, the agency will then decide whether or not to re-read the proposal depending on the circumstances of the dispute.
     
  • Please understand that it is not standard procedure for an agency to re-read a proposal each time it is requested. They usually make that decision based on the rebuttal provided by the applicant.
     
  • The agency will notify the congressional office of their final decision.
     
  • At that time, the congressional office will notify the applicant immediately by phone of the agency's decision.

Helpful Hints from Congressional Experience

  • In many of our meetings with various federal agencies, we have been told to encourage all schools to apply for federal funds and even reapply if not funded in the past.
     
  • Before you locate and pay for a consultant, contact local colleges/universities when assistance is needed in writing a proposal. As you may know, a consultant may be writing the same proposal for more than one client. The agency personnel can easily detect a proposal that has been written by the same consultant because they are usually so similar--only the names change.
     
  • If you would like to see a successful application for a program you are interested in, you may request, in writing to the agency, a copy of a previously awarded grant proposal that is similar to your project and demographics. Please do not try to duplicate the proposal. It is only given to you for review and to give you ideas for your project.
     
  • Whenever you have questions about the application, feel free to call the agency at any time. They offer technical assistance for procedural questions.
     
  • Read the guidelines of the application thoroughly. Make absolutely sure that you have completed each step as requested.
     
  • Also, we encourage you to apply to an agency to become a grant reader at some point in the process. This gives you a unique perspective of proposal writing.