General Tips and Advice
Be prepared to spend a lot of time on your proposal.
Writing a successful grant proposal requires almost as much time and thought as writing a publishable article. A final version which is a revision of a revision of a first draft is much more likely to convince reviewers of the worthiness of your project than a hastily-prepared submission.
Read the Guidelines carefully.
It is important to note the goals of the program and any special instructions about format, mailing, etc.
Follow all directions.
Grant proposals have been denied because applicants did not do what was asked. So, include the right forms, provide requested information, answer all the questions, and adhere to requirements about length and format.
Address all review criteria.
The successful grant proposals will be those that answer all the questions above and that best fit the mission of the grant program (as defined by the review criteria). If the criteria aren't spelled out you can usually discern what is important from other language in the guidelines or program description.
Use language comprehensible across disciplinary boundaries.
The reviewers who read your proposal will not necessarily be experts in your specific field and, therefore, may not understand technical jargon and discipline-specific abbreviations and symbols. This piece of advice is not generally applicable to proposals in the sciences.
Strive for a balance between conciseness and detail.
The more specific you are about what you plan and what you have already done, the more impressive your proposal will be. But if this leads to many pages of repetitious rambling, you'll put your readers to sleep. Adhere strictly to page limits specified in the guidelines.
Before you submit a proposal to a granting agency, have a draft "critiqued" by:
(a) someone familiar with your topic, (b) a colleague outside your field, and, if possible, (c) someone with experience in judging proposals. These people may raise questions, the answers to which can be incorporated into a revised draft. Reviewers of proposals will never call to find out what you mean by a particular statement; they will simply set aside your proposal in favor of another which is more clearly presented.
All proposals must convince the reviewers of four things:
(a) that your project is of sufficient importance and significance to merit research support, (b) that you've done a thorough review of literature in the field and have a well-designed plan of study, (c) that the project is of manageable size and can be carried out within the time frame of the proposal, and (d) that you are competent to complete the project successfully.
Send out only perfect copy.
First impressions are important -- there should be no typos, no errors, no sloppy formatting, etc. Application forms should be typed.