HMSV3202 Grant Proposal Critique: Analysis of Reading Program Grant

This project is a critique of a grant proposal submitted by Orchard Middle School, aiming to secure funding for an expanded reading program. The analysis evaluates the proposal's clarity, logic, and defined objectives. It identifies strengths, such as the problem statement and implementation plan, while also pointing out weaknesses, including the timeline, budget justification, and lack of monitoring tools. The proposal is assessed for its potential to achieve stated objectives, and recommendations are made for improvement, such as revising the timeline, justifying the budget, and incorporating monitoring strategies. The project concludes with a recommendation to support the proposal, citing the project's potential positive impact on the community and the effectiveness of its evaluation methods. The analysis is supported by relevant academic references.

Running Head: GRANT PROPOSAL 1
Grant Proposal
Name of Student
Name of Professor
Institution Affiliation
Date

GRANT PROPOSAL 2
TEMPLATE FOR SUBMISSION
Student names/ID #’s:
Who is the target audience for this proposal? The ABC Foundation
What are the expectations of this grant? The grant proposal is prepared
by Orchard Middle School in
Orchard with the aim of seeking
a grant to expand the reading
program which targets students
who are in need. The project
expects to increase the reading
skills of students at risk of using
the same classrooms, textbooks
and other reading materials. The
program therefore seeks a grant
of $16,504 for use in training
staff and purchasing software
and hardware required by the
students.
Are the objectives well defined? Why or why not? NO. The proposal indicates
training of staff as one of the

GRANT PROPOSAL 3
expectations of the grant but the
same does not appear in the
objectives. The objectives of the
grant does not highlight how the
staff will be trained nor does it
justify the need for offering
additional training to staff. The
first objective is unrealistic.
Increasing the reading speed of
a student with reading disability
by two is very difficult given
the duration within which the
objective is to be accomplished.
Furthermore, the objective
number four is not well
described because it talks about
students staying in regular
classes with their peers.
Improving reading skills does
not mean the end of learning
disability. Therefore, if the
students join regular classes
they will continue facing same

GRANT PROPOSAL 4
challenges.
What are the strengths of the grant proposal? What makes
this proposal “good”?
One of the strengths of the
proposal grant is the statement
of the problem. The statement
of the problem clearly describes
the problems that the project is
attempting to solve (Treem et
al., 2018). The statement of the
problem is also short and
precise and hence a person
reading the report can
understand the need for the
project without going through
the entire report (Rothstein,
2019). The statement indicates
the number of students in the
school and describes the
challenges faced by these
students. The statement also
explains the possible
repercussion in case Orchard
Middle School is not able to
secure the required funding.

GRANT PROPOSAL 5
The statement also clearly
describes the population being
served by the Read Success
project (Santen et al., 2017).
Another strength of the
proposal is that it describes how
the project will be implemented.
The proposal explains that
students in the school will be
assisted to improve their
learning skills through utilizing
computers equipped with
scanners and software for
assisting students in reading. It
explains that students using the
technology will still be able to
utilize their reading materials
such as textbooks and hence
allowing them access to the
general curriculum. The
description is also specific since
it identifies the exact type of
software that will be used as

GRANT PROPOSAL 6
being Kurzweil 3000. The other
strength of the project is that
contains a timeline which
outlines the activities that
should take place over the
duration of the project. The
proposal also outlines the
people managing the
organization, their
qualifications and other basic
information. This is one
important characteristics of a
good grant proposal
Is the grant proposal clear and logical? Why or why not? Yes. The proposal is clear and
logical since it highlights that
the project was piloted for one
year and the small group of
students who were in the project
showed great improvement
since most students improved
their reading ability by one of
two grade levels. This therefore

GRANT PROPOSAL 7
shows that the project has the
potential to achieve more if its
accorded funding since it can
target more students and make a
huge difference in their learning
ability (Velarde, 2018).
Additionally, the project clearly
identifies the ways in which the
funds will be used and also
clearly explains the working of
Kurzweil 3000 technology
which is one of the core drivers
of this project. Additionally, the
project is clear since it describes
the target group of the project.
It also describes the evaluation
criteria which will be used to
test the success of the project.
What are the weaknesses of this proposal? Are there areas
of the proposal that require greater clarification?
One of the weaknesses of the
proposal is that in the time lines
section, the activities indicated
are from October 2002 to June
2003. This is the period during

GRANT PROPOSAL 8
which the proposal is written,
approved and starts. It accounts
for a duration of eight months
whereas in the description it is
indicated that the project will
run for a duration of one year.
The timeline should also have a
Gantt chart in order to make it
easy to interpret and understand
(Miner & Ball-Stahl, 2016).
The other weakness of the
proposal is that the budget does
not contain a justification and
description of the items
indicated therein. In the budget
of grant proposal, it is very
critical to include the
justification of the planned
expenditure indicated in the
budget (Campbell et al., 2016).
This is because the main aim of
the proposal is to seek funding
and hence the budget should

GRANT PROPOSAL 9
clearly explain the need for a
particular item and how the
amount was arrived at. Failure
to do this might result to
exaggerated figures in order to
get a lot of money which might
not be put into the right use.
The proposal does not include
the monitoring tools which will
be used during the duration of
the project. Monitoring of the
project is critical from time to
time since it helps in ensuring
that the actions and activities
taking place within the project
are in line with the
predetermined objectives. It
helps in identifying deviation
from the goals so that corrective
action can be taken to align the
activities of the objectives.
The other weakness of the
project is that it does not

GRANT PROPOSAL 10
contain preliminary information
to support the need of this
project. For example, the
project should have information
about the number of children in
Orchard who are need of the
project, the challenges of the
children are facing in the
learning, how the students have
been coping in the past and
what failure to implement the
project would mean for the
children. This would have been
put up a stronger argument on
why the project is crucial and
hence secure the required
funding.
How could this proposal be improved? This proposal can be improved
by altering the timeline of the
project to reflect the activities
that will take place during the
duration of one year that the
project is running. The grant

GRANT PROPOSAL 11
chart of the timeline should also
be included.
The proposal can also be
improved by providing a
justification of the budget. This
is critical since it will help to
clearly explain how the project
plans will use the money for the
grant it is seeking (Howlett &
Bourque, 2016).
The proposal can be improved
by including a monitoring
strategy. There should be a
monitoring committee made up
of staff members whose work
will be providing monthly
briefs on the progress of the
project and making
recommendations on where
improvements should be done
(Kinash, 2016).
Additionally, the project should
use some literature to back up

GRANT PROPOSAL 12
its justification on the need for
the project. This is critical in
providing evidence that the
project is indeed required and
hence convincing the financiers
to offer the grant (Cotos, 2019).
Based on your assessment of the grant proposal, would this
organization achieve its stated objectives? Why or why not?
Yes. Orchard Middle School
would achieve the stated
objectives because the
budgeting of the funds is made
in such a way that it focuses on
the core activities of the
organization. Training of staff
will enable the organization to
achieve the objective of
improving the reading and
learning skills since the staff
members will be better
equipped to transfer the
knowledge.
Acquisition of the Kurzweil
3000 technology will also help
the organization to achieve the

GRANT PROPOSAL 13
objectives since it will play a
great role in assisting learners to
gain knowledge and integrate to
the regular curriculum.
How will this proposal be measured/evaluated? Will this be
an effective method to evaluate/measure? Why or why not?
The proposal will be evaluated
by use of standard tests which
will be conducted at the
beginning and end of the school
year. This method is an
effective evaluation
technique .This is because, the
primary objective of the project
is to improve learning ability of
the students and hence the best
way to evaluate is to access
their improvement in reading
and learning skills by
comparing their ability when
they joined the project with
their ability at the end of their
program(Velarde, 2018).
Would your group recommend this proposal be supported?
Why or why not? (Provide resources/literature to support
Yes. This is because, the need
for the project is justified

GRANT PROPOSAL 14
your reasoning) (Rothstein, 2019). The project
exist with the main reason of
assisting students with learning
disabilities and who have
economic challenges and hence
are at a risk of dropping out of
school. Supporting this project
will have a massive positive
impact on the Orchard
community. The other reason
why the project should be
supported is because it was run
as a pilot basis and the it
showed significant
improvement in the learning of
the students (Robblee, 2016).
Furthermore, the evaluation
method of the project is
practical and will be effective in
evaluating whether the project
achieved its objectives or not.
References
Campbell, C., Glen, N. J., Savas, M., Scarsciotti, D., &

GRANT PROPOSAL 15
Zoino, M. (2016). Grant Writing: Insights for
Developing Winning Proposals.
Cotos, E. (2019). Articulating societal benefits in grant
proposals: Move analysis of Broader Impacts. English
for Specific Purposes, 54, 15-34.
Howlett, S., & Bourque, R. (2016). Getting Funded: The
Complete Guide to Writing Grant Proposals. Word &
Raby Publishing.
Kinash, S. (2016). Next step: Funding education technology
research: Tips for writing research grant proposals.
Education Technology Solutions, (71), 52.
Miner, J. T., & Ball-Stahl, K. C. (2016). Models of
Proposal Planning & amp; Writing. ABC-CLIO.
Robblee, S. K. (2016, September). Editing for effective
grant proposals: Results of coding editor comments. In
Proceedings of the 34th ACM International
Conference on the Design of Communication (pp. 1-7).
Rothstein, A. L. (2019). Creating Winning Grant
Proposals: A Step-by-Step Guide. Guilford
Publications.
Santen, R. J., Barrett, E. J., Siragy, H. M., Farhi, L. S.,
Fishbein, L., & Carey, R. M. (2017). The Jewel in the
crown: specific aims section of investigator-initiated

GRANT PROPOSAL 16
Grant proposals. Journal of the Endocrine Society,
1(9), 1194-1202.
Treem, J. W., Schneider, M., Zender, R. L., & Sorkin, D. H.
(2018). Exploring the potential role of community
engagement in evaluating clinical and translational
science grant proposals. Journal of clinical and
translational science, 2(3), 139-146.
Velarde, K. S. (2018). The way we ask for money… The
emergence and institutionalization of grant writing
practices in academia. Minerva, 56(1), 85-107.