Corporate and Foundation Relations

Our team can help you with submitting a grant to a private foundation. Please contact us as soon as you know you are going to submit a grant. We will coordinate with your department or division administrator to ensure you have the necessary documentation to route your grant through the Sponsored Projects Administration (SPA). These documents include:

• Proposal narrative
• Finalized budget and budget justification
• If a 501(c)(3) is required, documentation from the funder stating that requirement
• Documentation on F&A and indirect cost rate

SPA will review the submitted documentation and then release the application either to UMBF or UMB, depending on whether a 501(c)(3) is required to submit. At this point, minor changes to the proposal narrative can be made as long as those changes do not alter the budget. Once the route is complete, the faculty member may submit the application to the private foundation or corporate funder. The faculty member should send a copy of the submitted application to the SOM Corporate & Foundation Relations team.

While you are not required to work with our office, we highly recommend you do in order to bolster your chances of receiving private foundation and/or corporate funding. The SOM Corporate & Foundation Relations team can help you with find grant opportunities that are good fits for your research, help you organize your ideas into a strong, persuasive application, provide substantial copy and content edits, coordinate the routing and application submission process, and more. We also have contacts at many private foundations and corporations and can set up conversations between faculty and program officers.

Yes! We can absolutely help you find grant funding for your research project. Please contact the Corporate & Foundation Relations team to set up a 30-minute introductory meeting where our team will ask you for basic information about your research project. We will then complete a comprehensive funding search to generate a roadmap of potential grant opportunities tailored specifically to your funding needs.

Grants and gifts differ in many important ways, and classifying funds appropriately is vitally important to ensure proper accounting and compliance with governmental regulations and School of Medicine policies. The following are the distinguishing factors between grants and gifts:

Gift Characteristics:

• Irrevocable transfer of funds or other valuable articles
• Unrestricted use of funds
• No donor-imposed time limits
• No deliverables or benefits expected by the donor

Grant/Contract Characteristics:

• Revocable transfer in whole or in part (if entire funding amount is not used or terms are not met)
• Application solicited and submitted to sponsor, including budget, scope of work, etc.
• Specified or limited time period to perform tasks or achieve goals
• Specific sponsor requirements, such as terms and conditions stating a precise scope of work to be performed rather than general support for an area of research
• Required deliverables and/or technical and financial reports (beyond what is normally provided for good donor stewardship)
• Subsequent funding dependent on sponsor receiving final grant report
• Requires a 501(c)(3) or other nonprofit designation (I.e., UMB) as a condition of funding

Please note ALL GRANTS MUST ROUTE! If you have questions, please contact the SOM Corporate & Foundation Relations team.

While our team does not route grants, we can help coordinate the routing process with the faculty member, your department or division administrator, and the Sponsored Projects Administration (SPA). Please see our in-depth routing document for more information on the routing process.

You can increase your chances of getting a grant by working with our team! We have contacts at many private foundations and corporations and can facilitate conversations between program officers and faculty to discuss funding ideas and projects. We also are experienced medical writers and editors who can help make your applications are strong as possible. Our team places an emphasis on cultivating a strong relationship with funders. There are two main benefits to focusing on building relationships:

1. Understand and clearly articulate the impact of a faculty member’s work to the funder
2. Highlight how research is aligned with a funder’s mission and furthers their funding goals

By ensuring your work is a strong fit for a funder’s needs and by properly articulating the impact and importance of your work, a faculty member can greatly increase their chances of receiving a grant.

The best time to contact our office is as soon as you know that you will either need to pursue funding or when you have identified either a private foundation or corporation or an RFP that you would like to apply for. By contacting us earlier on, you will maximize the amount of time we have to prepare your application to be as strong as it possibly can be.

Also, all proposals must be routed through Kuali Coeus before they can be submitted. Proposals should ideally be submitted to route at least 7 business days before the submission application deadline.