Case Study 2 — A Solo Teacher Runs the Whole Process
Composite, for teaching. Mr. Reyes and the funder are illustrative.
The Situation
Mr. Reyes teaches middle-school science and wants \$10,000 for hands-on STEM equipment from a regional education foundation. The window is six weeks. He has no grants office, no co-authors, no evaluator, and twenty-five students to teach every day. His first thought is that "the process stuff" in this chapter is for big universities and does not apply to him. That thought is exactly the danger.
Applying the Chapter
He realizes the roles don't disappear — he plays them all. There is no grants office, so he must read the funder's rules, build the budget, confirm eligibility, and check for any approval step. There are no collaborators, so he recruits the two roles he most lacks: a critical reader (a teacher friend at another school) and a source of the required leadership letter and approval (his principal). He asks both three weeks out, so the letter is thoughtful and the read is unrushed.
He finds the hidden routing step. Assuming "no institution" meant "no routing," he almost submitted directly. But on reading the funder's rules and asking his principal, he learns the school district must approve the application before it goes out — a sign-off that takes about a week. Had he discovered this two days before the deadline, it would have been fatal. Because he asked early, it is a scheduled step, not a disaster.
He backward-plans the six weeks. Submission target: four days early. District approval: one week before that. Final draft and budget: a week before that. Critical-reader feedback: a week before that. Concept and fit question to the funder: week one. Letter requested: week two. The compressed timeline still has the same shape as Hernandez's nine-month one — concept, alignment, draft, feedback, approval, submit — just telescoped.
The Process Made Visible
Notice that nothing in the eight-stage process was skipped; it was simply carried entirely by one person and compressed into six weeks. The concept paper became a Sunday afternoon's work and a one-line email to the funder. "Team assembly" became two asks. "Internal routing" became a district sign-off he nearly missed. "Full proposal development" became two evenings and a weekend, improved by one outside critique. Mr. Reyes's \$10,000 proposal and Dr. Hernandez's multi-year R01 are governed by the same process — the scale differs, the structure does not.
What If He'd Believed the Process Didn't Apply?
Had Mr. Reyes treated this as "just writing," he would likely have written a decent proposal alone, gotten no critical feedback, discovered the district approval requirement too late, and either missed the deadline or submitted without sign-off (which can invalidate the application). His equipment grant would have failed for reasons that had nothing to do with the quality of his teaching or his idea — the classic, avoidable process failure.
Discussion Questions
- Mr. Reyes nearly skipped the district-approval step because he assumed solo meant no routing. What is the general lesson about hidden approval steps, and how do you uncover them?
- Compare the shape of Mr. Reyes's six-week timeline to Dr. Hernandez's nine-month one (Case Study 1). What stays constant, and what compresses?
- Of the two roles Mr. Reyes recruited (critical reader, approval/letter source), which do you think added more to the quality of his proposal, and why?