SBIR Proposal Writing Basics: Maintain Your Balance

Gail & Jim Greenwood, Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.

Copyright © 2000 by Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.

Is your SBIR proposal "out of balance?" Many are. The tendency is to put too much background and tangential information into the early parts of the proposal (usually in the section titled something like "Identification and Significance of the Problem or Opportunity"), and then skimp on key parts of the proposal including the objectives, work plan, and commercialization discussion. Sometimes it looks like the author put his or her heart and soul into the background discussion, and then dropped to their knees, exhausted from the effort, with just enough energy left to type out a few quick pages to cover all of the rest of the proposal sections. This is too bad, since "the rest of the proposal" represents the core information that the reviewer needs to adequately assess the merits of your project.

To avoid imbalance in your proposal, we suggest that you develop an allocation, before you ever start writing, of the number of pages you will devote to each proposal section. While it is impossible to give hard and fast rules about the length of each section (due to variations in projects and in the agencies’ requirements for sections to be include in the proposal), we’d like to offer the following guidelines. For contrast, we’ve also shown what an imbalanced proposal might include.

PROPOSAL SECTION GOOD BALANCE IMBALANCE

Cover, abstract 2 pages 2 pages

Significance, background 3 6

Objectives, work plan 6 2

Qualifications of team 6 8

Commercialization 3 1

Budget 2 3

Attachments 2 3

Totals 24 pages 25 pages

For clarification, the longer "Qualifications of the Team" section in the imbalanced proposal reflects the tendency to include lengthy resumes and publications lists that are irrelevant to the proposed project.

Good balance makes you a better gymnast or dancer. It also will make you a better SBIR proposal writer.