One of the best ways to learn how to prepare an effective grant proposal is to serve on a review committee. Reviewing proposals gives you practice in reading and thinking about the instructions and information requested in a Request for Proposal, or RFP. This lesson is a simulation that will give you some practice in reviewing grant proposals.

You can choose to review the brief proposals independently or work in a group to evaluate proposals. If you work in a group, each member should review and score the proposals first. After each person has read all the proposals, conduct a group discussion about each proposal, then decide as a group which proposal(s) you would fund.

Try to be consistent in the way you review each proposal. You can use different methods for making consistent judgments. You could start at 0 and award points from there. You could start at 30 and deduct points for missing elements. You could divide the points into elements of the proposal (e.g., 10 points for materials, 5 points for scientific evidence that the materials are effective, etc.). Some requests for proposals tell you how many points each section is worth.