Okay, before we get started.
We are required to inform all attendees that this session is being recorded.
Webcams and microphones have been disabled for all participants
to protect your personally identifiable information.
With that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Margaret Allen
to get us started.
Margaret.
Thank you, Shannon.
Thank you all for being here today.
And welcome to the second in our series of webinar
for the applicants of the Climate Resilience Regional Challenge.
I'm Margaret Allen.
I am with the Office for Coastal Management.
I'll be serving as the moderator today.
Like I mentioned, this webinar is the second in a series of webinars
that we've designed for applicants
that were invited to submit a full proposal for the competition.
The first webinar was last week and was focused on the mechanics
of writing a full proposal for the Climate Resilience Regional Challenge.
That recording was just added to our technical assistance website,
which we'll share the link for at the end of this presentation.
So please, if you missed that, go check it out.
We're also currently updating the frequently asked questions
based on some of the questions that were received at that webinar.
So we expect to have those posted by the end of this week.
So please check back on the technical assistance website for those.
Also.
So today we're going to hear a bit more about actually writing
your grant proposal and some tips for making it more compelling.
You should have gotten an email reminder about this webinar
from Adam Stein, the competition manager this morning.
And one of the pieces of information attached to that email was a key points
handout that summarizes a lot of the main points that we're going
to hit on our webinar today.
So I wanted to point that out as a resource for either you to follow
along with today or reference after the webinar
for some of the reminders of the key points that were provided.
So as far as questions, we're going to hold all questions until the end,
but feel free to type questions into the chat throughout the presentation.
Today, we're really going to focus on questions specific
to the material that's being covered here today.
We'll answer as many as we can based on the time
we have available and if we're not able to get to your question.
Cathy Angel, who is our presenter today, can be reached via
our technical assistance form on the website
so you can submit questions to her that way.
Any questions that are regarding the competition
or specifics of the requirements of the proposal,
please send those to ResilienceChallenge@noaa.gov.
So to get us started, I'd like to introduce our speaker, Cathy Angel.
Cathy is the owner of Cathy Angel Communications, and she has taught
more than 3000 scientists, government officials and educators.
How to communicate more effectively.
Her trainings include science, communication to non-scientists
writing compelling grant proposals, facilitating effective online
meetings and giving dynamic conference presentations.
She was the former coordinator of Washington's Coastal Training program,
and that was considered to be one of the most successful
or is considered to be one of the most successful
training programs in the country for coastal managers.
Cathy is nationally known for her transformative methods and received
a communications award from NOAA, which is given out each year in her honor.
She lives in Bellingham, Washington, and I will hand it over to you, Cathy.
Thank you, Margaret. Hi, everybody.
I'd like to start with a land acknowledgment.
As Margaret said, I live in Bellingham, Washington, and I'm about 30 minutes
from the Canadian border.
So Bellingham is located
in on the ancestral homelands of the Coast Salish peoples
who have lived in the Salish Sea Basin from time immemorial.
And this specifically includes the Lummi and the Nooksack tribes
who live here and continue to steward the land.
So there are some different elements that are important to include.
When you are writing a grant proposal to make it compelling and complete,
and those include
including the problem and the solution,
the criteria,
you want to show that your team is credible,
that you have a well-rounded budget,
and that your team is a good investment.
So what do you do or what happens if you leave out
any of these aspects in your grant?
Well, you receive zero funding.
Now, that has certainly happened to me.
I don't know if it's happened to you or not, but how many of you.
I'd be curious if you go to little smiley face and do a thumbs up.
If you've ever spent hours, hours
on a grant proposal, Only to have it not be funded.
So take a second.
Go down to the smiley face. Yep. See a lot.
Yeah.
The crying is fine too on that.
Because you do want to cry when you've put so much time and energy
and effort into a grant proposal. Yep.
Looks like I am not alone in my experience of this.
Very good.
All right, so you may have taken grant trainings in the past.
I certainly had.
So I wanted to do something really different with this training
and this training.
And just so you know, this what I'm doing here today is just a
part of a longer two hour training that I offer.
But I pulled out the most important points out of that two hour training
to put into this more like 45 minute talk here for this webinar.
And so when I designed this training, I wanted it to be different.
I wanted to get inside the heads of the grant reviewers
and find out what was important to them, what frustrated them,
what do they look for in a grant that would impress them
and so I interviewed people from several agencies
granting agencies here in Washington State and learned some amazing things.
And there were a couple of people that I talked to that I was so impressed with.
I asked him if I could actually videotape them.
And I've now, which I did, and I've now interspersed
some of their words of wisdom throughout this training.
And these people were my our Marguerite Austin, who's a grant section manager
with the Recreation and Conservation Office here in Washington.
And then Jay Krenitz who is the former program manager
with the Washington State Department Official Wildlife.
Very much appreciated them being part of this.
I had two course objectives in this training.
Number one,
offer grant applicants deeper insight into what is important to grant reviewers.
And two, to make the process of reviewing proposals
way more enjoyable for the grant review teams.
There are four modules in this training
module one What the review team needs to see.
Module two How to earn their trust.
Module three Why you need to tell them a story
and module four is additional tips.
So let's get started with module one.
What the review team needs to see.
First of all, who is the review team?
Who makes up the review team?
Well, in this case it's
the reviewers or volunteers
from federal and state and local agencies
who are experts in climate and living shorelines.
And they may know a lot about your type of project
or they might may know very little about your type of projects.
So the important thing to remember is that these are real people.
They have different backgrounds and experiences.
They have positive and negative biases.
They have emotions and feelings,
and they can get confused
or bored or intrigued or they can get frustrated.
So how do we impress them instead of frustrate them?
Well, number
one is follow the directions of the funding guidance.
Now, this may seem pretty obvious, but every single person
of the grant reviewers and grant managers who I interviewed for this,
to put this training together all mention this.
So it sounds like it's very common.
And so that was just number one right out of the gate.
They all said, follow the directions.
Another one is to put your big idea right up front.
The big idea is your ultimate goal
for your project that you're proposing.
The thing that we can see and picture, it's
the thing that grant reviewers are actually funding you for.
This is what they're spending their money on.
And so the big idea is
something that succinctly sums up your project
and what you hope to achieve in just really succinct sentence.
And they,
they want it right up front because they don't want to have to wade through
your whole proposal to get to what it is you're actually asking them for.
So let's look at some examples of what a big idea might look like
developing Ancich
Park will give our residents water access for hand powered watercraft.
By training the professionals who interact with shoreline homeowners,
we can reduce the number of bulkheads on Washington's shorelines.
Removing the dikes on Leque Island
will help to restore critical marine habitat.
Creating a food forest on Sherrett Street
will help make Portland more food secure.
So you can see these get right to the point.
They paint a picture.
So in your written proposal, you would make sure that is front
and center of where you're going with your proposal.
Now, Jay has another take on the big idea,
so let's hear from him.
So we were talking a little bit about what's in your
in your class and how you want to have the students talk about their big idea.
Right.
But you also want to make sure and it's just as important to understand
what the big idea or a few big ideas are of the grant program, because
those grant programs are passionate about what they want to do as well.
And they want to do things
that change the world or improve our lives or improve something.
And so you really want to know what that is, what they care about.
And then it's not about trying to make your thing
artificially fit within them, but you want to find the thing
that is really good match so that you can articulate your big idea
and how that is, how that is a good match and make sure that it is a good match
as you go into that and then construct your story around that
because then you're speaking to what you care about and what they care about.
And that's a great that's a great thing to do.
So the recap on what Jay had to say is
how does your big idea fit the big idea
of the funding agency?
Now another best practice is
to show how your project fits the funding criteria.
Now, clearly you all have already done that to a certain extent
because your initial letters of intent have been accepted
and you've been invited back to submit a full proposal.
Let's just take a second and do a little festive reaction on that,
because congratulations on even getting to this point,
because as I recall, there were something like,
I don't know, 400, 800 initial proposals
that they chose about 80 finalists out of to invite to submit.
So I just wanted to give you a shout out,
because that just even to get to this point was great.
Now, you might actually have some,
still have some questions for NOAA.
Well, first of all,
you probably got
some feedback already from NOAA when they invited you to submit a full proposal.
So I just want to say be sure and really follow that feedback and
incorporate that into your full proposal, because that's really important.
And if you still have questions, you can go send an email
to ResilienceChallenge@noaa.gov for some.
If you have any programmatic or regional
perspective questions to ask about your grant
or about your grant proposal.
We asked them
For more Responses Into Our data System.
So having just completed a couple of those,
here's what evaluators say about that.
They say it's extremely important
that the applicant respond to the criteria.
Sometimes an applicant will look at the question
and then they get busy adding a lot of factual data.
And before you know it, they've used up their space
and they didn't even address the criteria.
The other one that frustrates an evaluator is when an applicant uses
a lot of additional words instead of being concise,
straightforward, and to the point that is a frustrating thing
or when an applicant uses a one sentence answer,
when they do something like that, oftentimes it feels like
it wasn't important to that community, they answered.
They didn't invest anything into their responses
and they didn't address the criteria.
All right.
So the recap from Marguerite is to leave room
to answer all the criteria and be succinct.
Here's some more tips for
written proposals from Jay.
So do you have any tips for people around
specifically the written proposal?
Yeah, try to be a good writer or get one to help you out.
Writing is so important.
A lot of times these review processes make for a lot of reading.
There's people that are going to sit down
with a lot of printed or digital material,
so a good writer, somebody who does have a good
voice, has a good narrative.
It's really important to make and to make sure your grammar is correct.
Your your spelling is correct.
Don't make errors in your writing because that could take your project right
there, that lowers your credibility and your ability to gain that
trust of the review team.
Do you have a preference about when you're reading a grant application?
Is it coming from I or we or something different?
You know, I struggle with I actually struggle with that a little bit.
My biggest kind of pet peeve or thing
that I don't like is in my fields.
There's, a lot of scientists and their voice is so passive
all the time data were collected things were done.
And I really want to encourage people to use an active voice
and talk about their role in that thing or what their project
is going to accomplish.
And so, you know, try to have those as an activist of a voice as possible,
but you want to maintain a professional tone.
And so the I’s and the we’s weeds that can be
it can be a little more impersonal.
So, yeah,
I don't always know exactly what's the right fit, but
like I said, I'd try to balance that.
I try to be professional but not overly stilted.
And don't be passive, be active.
All right.
So the takeaway there, make sure that your grant is well-written
and uses an active voice, not passive.
And some people say, Well, when we use an active voice,
would that be I or we or our team?
And I think you know, saying we did this
or our team plans to do this is a strong way to do that.
Now, if you're struggling, when you're into the proposal phase
and you're obviously in that process now and writing it, if you're struggling
and need to make sure that you're on the right track,
there's a technical
assistance form on the funding website that you may go to.
I know that some of you are already starting to go there and getting paired
up, and one of the really unique and innovative aspects of this grant
is that NOAA has lined up experts to support you in this process.
And some of these experts are actually from NOAA,
the subject matter experts who can give you some limited
assistance.
They just can't help you with the direct grant writing part of it.
But for more in-depth assistance that there are proposal development
subject matter experts who can go deeper with you
in different areas that you're needing help with.
And this is a really cool thing.
I mean, that you're going to be able to talk with people, show them your proposal.
And there are different experts,
all kinds of different experts that are really technical experts
in climate and shorelines and these different,
you know, living shorelines and projects and that sort of thing.
I'd like to see a thumbs up for any of you who have already filled out
that technical assistance form or who plan to.
All right, great.
Excellent.
That's great that you all are taking advantage of this because it really is.
I just want to give props to NOAA for setting their grant program up like this.
I mean, how wonderful to help people show up in the best possible way.
It just it helps everybody.
Number six is to
demonstrate that you understand the big picture.
So, for instance, if you are proposing a
restoration site, you would want to show
that you understand the bigger picture around it.
Like how does it affect certain natural areas nearby or how does it affect
or how will it affect homeowners who live nearby?
So grant reviewers want to know that you've looked
beyond your sort of small, narrow focus of your project
and considered how it's going to impact areas.
People around that project.
They also want to see
that you demonstrate that you understand the audience and their concerns.
Have you taken the time to speak to stakeholders about your project?
What are their concerns and how do you plan to address them?
So show that you've done some legwork here, which,
believe me, I know having been in this spot myself,
it takes a lot of time and effort to go out.
But gosh, does it strengthen your proposal to show
that you've talked to the end users, talk to the stakeholders and found out
what their questions are and how you might be addressing them.
You also
want to demonstrate how your project fits with your program's priorities.
You may be asking for, you know, hundreds of thousands,
if not possibly millions of dollars in this project.
And so it's really important to show that
or to reassure them that if they're going to invest, do a major investment of money
into your program, that your project idea fits with your overall
organization's strategic plan or management plan.
For instance, here's this is an example from the city of Gig Harbor,
and they say “It is the goal of the city of Gig Harbor
to preserve and enhance opportunities for physical and visual public access
to shorelines.” And so, for instance, someone working for Gig Harbor
wouldn't want to put a proposal in for like a community center
if the main goal of their management plan is to have access to shorelines.
Number nine.
Show evidence of past success.
And show how you'll build on that success and this is all about building
credibility with your proposal.
So if you've received previous grant funding
and you're asking NOAA for more funding or for additional funding
to take this up to a whole other level say, then really show
how you were able to wisely spend the money you had before.
What you accomplished and some data that came out of that project.
And so, for instance,
let's say that you had previous funding
to put in rain gardens, in local parks in your community.
Well, this would be an optimal time to talk about how much was invested.
Was it effective?
Say, did it reduce flooding in your community?
How much money did the community save?
What did they get out of it and that sort of thing.
This is kind of a subtle thing,
but they like to see.
Do you like each other and work well?
Does your team like each other and work well together?
And you can show this by referencing projects you worked on in the past,
or maybe that you share similar values and that sort of thing.
Again, it's one of those sort of subtle things, but
it gives you reassurance that you'll have a cohesive team.
So show how you are cohesive.
Number 11 is to visually
convey your project, because visuals, as I'm sure
you've experienced in your lives, they convey so much.
So much.
And especially when you're talking about a meaty scientific project
that might have lots of technical aspects to it.
Being able to show visuals that help make your project come alive
are so important and you'll have an opportunity
in your proposal to make attachments so you can do things
like attach maps
or showing
photographs that might indicate a threat
or say there's a project you'd like funding on
and you didn't have the funds to hire an architect
to draw a whole rendering that you could then put in your proposal.
Well, you could take a photograph from a similar project.
Let's say you want to put a flood wall in.
You could take another project from another town
and show a picture of that and say, We'd like to do something similar to this.
Number 12 is to show that you have others on your side.
For instance, go beyond the choir.
Maybe you should
have local farmers, tribal members,
state or local agency members,
and then show how they
have different relationships that you understand.
The relationships between these groups, say between
tribes and local government, for instance,
this just shows that you do have
more global support and that you have a deeper understanding.
And again, you're not just going to the same people,
the choir, to get feedback
and to get support.
So Module Two How to Earn Their Trust.
Well, I took away three things that I gathered...
and these were the top three that came out
from my interviews with these grant managers and reviewers.
Number one, present a strong project.
Clearly you've already done that and you can go further into that in your proposal.
Number two, show that the agency’s money will be invested well.
And number three, demonstrate how your team is credible.
Now, Jay says you don't have to be
a used car salesperson to sell your project.
What you really want to do is sell the project by demonstrating its merits.
And one way you demonstrate the program's merits is by showing measurable outcomes.
So, for example,
measurable outcomes could be,
number one, install ten dog waste stations throughout the park.
Number two, monitor the site for one year to document dog waste on the ground.
And three, develop an educational program
to present at least three community meetings.
Very clear, very measurable.
Be honest about uncertainties.
You don't have to know everything.
You don't have to have everything.
All figured out.
And Jay has some words to say about this.
I find that the most effective ones
are the ones that are really honest.
Right. That
they anticipate some of the some of the uncertainties
or some of the issues around what their project is.
And if you can anticipate that,
because the reviewers, often they're going to see that.
They're evaluating your projects and where you're coming from.
And you write as a credible person or team who's going to deliver that.
And so it's not that there are never going to be issues with the project or
there's never going to be uncertainties, because there always, always will.
It's really good when I see people
identify what those uncertainties are
or what those potential pitfalls are and talk about them
and address like that, they have a plan to address those things.
It's not that they're going to figure it all out.
They know that they've got a...
“it's not an issue.” You know, be honest, talk about the issues
and say that you're going to address them and convince the review team that you're
the ones who can address that issue and that you're the best ones to do that.
All right.
So show that you have a plan to address issues.
This is what builds credibility.
So now we go to module three,
why you need to tell them a story.
Well, first of all, when we tell stories
or present some of our information in the form of a story,
it drives that information deeper into people's
long term memories because it kind of sparks an emotion.
Nancy Duarte says stories help an audience
visualize what you do or what you believe.
They make others hearts more pliable.
And again, these review teams do have hearts.
They have feelings.
They may be, you know, looking very strategically
and logically at your proposal.
But at the end of the day, they all still are touched
by things that you might put in your proposal
in a good way or a bad way, depending on how it's written.
But again, we're going to do this right to help them
really understand the heart behind your proposal.
So I like to use, there
are different ways to tell stories, different set ups.
But the way I like to do them is just a real simple three step process.
So the three parts of a story are 1.
The Set-up, 2.
The Problem, 3.
The Solution. So let's break those down.
So number one, the set up this and this are true.
So you're basically just saying this is the status quo.
This is how things are right now.
So I've put together an example story
that I use in my training just to demonstrate these.
This is something I made up and put together.
So just so you know, this is an example only.
So here in the town of Russellville,
we have a park called Central Park, and it is really popular.
It has extensive trail system.
And we get so many people coming and walking through our park every year.
We estimate that we have about 600,000 visitors.
And of those visitors, 200,000 of them are dog owners.
And of those, about 25% or 50,000
do not pick up their dog waste.
Okay.
So that's the status quo.
The set up now.
Here's the exposition of the problem.
So this is where we go into here's the problem.
Now, dog waste doesn't just decompose and go away.
It actually adds bacteria and nutrients into our water bodies.
Now, Central Park's water bodies don't look this bad yet,
but if we don't do something about it soon,
they're on that trajectory to look just like this.
So we care about our water and having clean water in our community.
So our Parks department staff
took some initiative and we decided to interview people.
And so we interviewed about 500 people who came to our park who are dog owners.
And we asked them, what's the reason
you sometimes don't pick up after your pet?
And here are the top two things
they said.
They forgot their bags or there's no convenient place to dispose of the waste.
So we decide.
And so here we get to the solution.
Here's what can be done, and this is how we can do it.
So we came to the conclusion that dog waste stations
located throughout Central Park will improve water quality
and protect the health of our residents and wildlife.
So remember that big idea?
Here's their big idea right here.
This is the big idea that came out as part of your problem statement.
Okay.
So, again, the three steps to set up this and this are true.
The problem.
Here's what's wrong with the status quo.
And the solution. Here's what can be done.
And this is how we can do it.
So if you can show all these things in your proposal,
it makes your proposal very compelling.
And once you have your story figured out, then you can slice and dice it
and plug it in to the different criteria.
In the proposal.
Okay.
So module number four, we have a few additional tips.
One is to make your point
clear when sharing data, graphs and charts.
Because remember, people may or may not be familiar with your project,
with your jargon, with your terminology, with the way your graphs look.
So you want to make it just crystal clear for them.
And one way to do that is to, say
if you have a graph, put a full sentence across the top of your graph
and say what the main point of that graph is.
So in this case, non-native eelgrass is increasing faster than native eelgrass.
And you want to leave off anything on your graphs
that don't exactly support
the point you're wanting to make because that just creates clutter.
So sometimes it may be more if you're going to put an attachment,
it may be more than just copying a
page out of a report,
of a graph that has a whole bunch of other stuff in there that you don't need.
You might need to actually
recreate that graph with only the elements you want to show.
And then again, make it very crystal clear that what the point of your graph is.
You can see here that this scientist also added a line and,
you know, to show the trajectory of the 103% increase.
Here's another example again, really
clear sentence at the top and then something
that really helps again, make your point on your graph.
You also want to show diversity in your visuals.
And Marguerite has some great words of wisdom about this.
And we'll talk about diversity.
We're talking not just diversity in terms of different
ethnic groups or races, but it also includes
people with disabilities, people that are older adults.
Who are you trying to serve with but project.
And one crucial way to show diversity is when you're addressing community support.
So if you're trying to do something that's specifically designed
for your teenagers and your youth, well, did you have a...
or a public meeting or a design meeting?
Where you brought together the youth
to tell you what they want, or to design things out.
Take pictures so you can show them.
That helps people to understand the diversity of what you're trying to provide
and who you're trying to serve with whatever proposal you're bringing forward.
So the recap on that is include photos of the audience
you're trying to serve and show how you reached out to them.
Now, this is one you're
probably all familiar with watch, acronyms and jargon.
Now, do a thumbs up.
If you've ever been listening to a speaker or reading a report
that was full of acronyms and jargon and you just
it just made your brain work way too hard to understand it.
Alright I'm seeing lots of thumbs up here.
This is a universal issue, especially in
scientific communities and in government agencies.
I mean, really, any sector, any sector has their own language.
And that's the thing to remember. It's their own language.
And if someone is listening to
someone speak about their sector and they're using jargon
and acronyms, it's like you're listening to a foreign language.
And it it's very frustrating.
And so unless you are 100% sure
that the acronym you're using is so universally understood.
And in this case, I would say NOAA is probably a pretty good
bet that they're going to understand NOAA, but they aren't going to know that
the acronyms of other programs that maybe you've gotten funding from
before or people in your community or organizations that you're talking to.
And don't just say it once and then use the acronym the rest of the time.
It's too...
it makes their brains work too hard.
And one thing I teach in my classes is this concept of cognitive overload,
where cognitive overload
is how hard our brains have to work to learn something new.
So it applies to this too, that if you're making...
they're already reading this, you know, possibly pretty technical proposal
don't make it harder for them by throwing in lots of jargon or acronyms.
And then
the last one is to share your successes.
And this is where
you know, you're going to have, if you're grant proposal is accepted,
you'll be sharing your successes in reports along the way.
But this is even beyond that.
This is something that Jay really, really emphasized.
And he said it.
In fact, he waxed poetic about this person in Seattle
who had gotten a grant from his program a few years earlier.
The grant had already completed, but every once in a while
he would get an email from this person
with a photograph or a little blurb about, Hey, look, look at this program.
Look how it continues on.
Oh my gosh, Jay was so impressed with that.
And, remember, these are people
who have their passion in this project, Right?
And so it's great for them to see how the success continues on.
It also puts you in a really good light if your program is going to be applying
for future funding.
And it also gives that grant reviewers something to take to their legislature
or Congress to ask for more money, they can put it in their newsletter.
I mean, it's just, it just never hurts.
And so I like to really emphasize that.
And the last one is to go
back and circle back to your community.
Did you ask for your community for support?
Did you have a meeting with them?
This really hit home to me when I was interviewing
someone who had gotten millions of dollars over time for her organization
here in Washington.
And she said, you know,
we get these grants and then we fulfill the grant
and then we're on to the next grant.
And so rarely do we go back and circle back and let people know
about what we did.
And so she had actually taken my training as well.
And after the training, she said, I realized, you know,
we had this $2 million grant to put a new bridge and a culvert in.
And we asked the community for their support.
And I've never gone back to them.
And so this is just a reminder that even though it takes a little bit
of extra effort, it's, the right thing to do.
It's a respectful and honoring thing to do.
And also it's good strategy for the future.
If you ever have to go back and ask them for more money or support.
So that's a really good thing to know.
And so I'm going to end on this point and we'll go to questions.
And so
let's see, was there a question slide in here?
there we go.
Cathy Yeah, I was going to.
Just before we go into questions.
Thank you so much for all the information you provided.
That was wonderful info for folks as they get started on their proposals.
So I would love to hear from you guys about if this webinar was helpful.
So in the polls which is where the Triangle Square Circle is,
if you click on that in the bottom right hand corner of your Google Meet window
and then click on polls, you'll see a poll in there
to let us know if this was a good use of your time.
And before we go into questions, also, so that I don't lose anybody,
I just want to remind you of some of the webinars we have coming up.
As I mentioned, this is the second in our series of webinars that we have
for the applicants who are invited back to write a full proposal,
meaningful community engagement.
The first part of that is November 6th, from 3 to 4 p.m.
Eastern.
And then we
have other topics that we are working on finalizing dates for,
but there'll be a part two of meaningful community engagement.
There will be a webinar on monitoring and measuring performance and webinars
on diving into the Digital Coast, which is our online,
our web presence for the Office for Coastal Management, where data tools,
training and other resources are available for you all to use
as you develop your proposals and as you complete your projects.
And then I also wanted to remind you all about
some of the technical assistance available.
Cathy mentioned it many times and we mentioned it at the last webinar,
but there is a technical assistance
website, which I'll have Shannan, oh and Shannan just put in the chat.
That is the link where we are updating all the information on our webinars
as we get dates settled on and we get recordings for these webinars.
So please check back there
if you miss any of these webinars or if you're wondering when the next one is.
To request one on one tech assistance that Cathy also mentioned
during the application period, there is a form, a technical assistance
request form that Shannan will also share the link for.
And then if you have questions during the proposal period
for NOAA that are specific to the competition and requirements
of the proposal, potentially questions about the feedback you received.
You can always email NOAA at ResilienceChallenge@noaa.gov.
All those links should be in the chat and I'll start looking at some questions
if you have any for Cathy.
Please put them in the chat.
There was a question on whether or not we would continue
to offer technical assistance given a government shutdown.
Yes, we have every intention of continuing
both these types of support, both through the no email address
and through the request form,
if there are any changes to that that we don't foresee,
we will communicate that to through via the email distribution
list to all the applicants.
If there's any change in
any part of the competition process, we'll make sure to let you know.
But we will have staff able to continue to focus on this,
even if the government is shut down.
I see a question here about graphics.
Are graphics encouraged throughout the narrative or should they be
specifically included in the appendix?
And Cathy, do you have an idea of
a suggestion for that person?
Well, I feel like, again, I think you all are the final word on this.
So I if I was a reviewer, I would find it very interesting
to have visuals through the narrative.
But you all might have a different rule about that.
Margaret So I'm going to toss that one back to you.
I do not think that there's a rule
specifically that it needs to be included in either.
But I will follow up and we'll make sure
we get the correct info on that one.
I think that it could be either or.
But you gave some great advice on how to make visuals
more compelling and interesting throughout the proposals.
Thanks, Cathy.
Any other questions from folks?
Give you guys a minute.
So I'm not seeing any right now.
But like you mentioned, is one of our technical experts.
And like she also mentioned technical experts
who is able to be reached through the technical
assistance request form on the technical assistance site.
So if you have more questions for her, would like to follow up with her.
Please feel free to request that via that form.
And she would be happy to help you
as you get started on your proposal.
I see another question coming up.
So would it be worthwhile
for an applicant to ask NOAA what might be considered lingo?
Many times we do acronyms to reduce the space use.
Do you have an idea on that, Cathy?
I mean, it's a good point.
I would say
that's a toughie.
You know, I mean, it's if you're going to tell it,
I guess if it's in the same you know, paragraph or something like
that, you know, if you're going to say, for instance, you're referring
to another organization that you've gotten grant funding from,
always spell it out at least once and then, you know, that kind of thing.
You probably wouldn't be repeating how many times.
But I would say just if you can spell it out,
if you are needing to save room, then
you know, put it in
and then maybe use it in the same paragraph.
If you're going to be using that name though, like questions later
where people may have forgotten by that point, I would definitely put it in again.
Spell it out.
All right.
Great advice, Cathy.
I have seen it where it's defined in the first usage
and then parentheses, you see the acronym and then that's used throughout.
And so folks can revisit towards the beginning.
I think I see some other advice as long as the acronyms
are defined somewhere in the proposal, it should be fine.
So as long as there's one place where it's written out
longhand, it might be okay to use acronyms.
Cathy do you suggest that participants
include some sort of glossary in their applications?
You know, if you had a lot of lingo
that you couldn't put into plain English, you know, plain language,
that is not a bad idea.
Again, for a reference, you know, again, you don't...
in my opinion, it's like just the simpler you can make it for the reviewers
so they're not having to go back forth, back forth and,
you know, do make it as easy as possible.
But having a glossary is probably not a bad idea if you do have quite
a bit of lingo in your presentation.
But again, where you can try to either define it, spell it out,
or use plainer language.
Yeah that sounds great.
Thank you.
I see a couple other questions that aren't specifically geared towards you.
Cathy So if you all would send those to the ResilienceChallenge@noaa.gov,
you can get the direct answer from NOAA.
And I want to just say,
Margaret mentioned that I'm one of the subject matter experts
and my particular realm is basically around I can help
you figure out, you know, are you really crystal clear
with your big idea if you need help figuring out a compelling story?
Those are probably my strong suits in the writing.
Not so much, you know, the technical things about your project,
but these you know, did you talk to your, do you have good support
from your community?
Are you showing evidence of that and that sort of thing?
But thank you so much.
Margaret It looks like
I'll just pass it back to you, but thank you for inviting me to do this.
And good luck to everybody.
If you learned one thing today,
there are a couple of things you plan to apply to your grant proposal.
I'd love to see a thumbs up from you on that.
All right.
Lots of thumbs up. Great.
Wonderful.
Well, thank you so much, Cathy, for sharing your knowledge and for continuing
to share it with technical assistance to folks.
And with that, we'll wrap up.
Again, if you guys want to have further
technical assistance support, please visit our technical assistance
website to get all the links pertinent information.
Thank you.