Stacy Chin, who advises startups on federal grants, warns against seven habits that tank proposals: cramming text, overloading with figures, last-minute grammar edits, starting a week before the deadline, treating the budget as an afterthought, copying AI content, and requesting support letters late. Plan early and write with discipline.
Stop doing this in your federal grants and contracts. You're just making it worse. Stop cramming every inch of that page with garbled text. White space matters. Let your proposal breathe. Stop forcing a 10th figure when the page already has 9. This just adds noise, not clarity. Stop doing the 20th grammar pass 2 days before the deadline. Just submit it. Stop kicking off proposals 1 week before the deadline. It's not getting funded. Stop treating your budget like an afterthought. It's a critical piece, so start early. Stop copy and pasting from Claude or ChatGPT. Frankly, proposals is much more complicated than that. Stop asking collaborators for letters of support hours before a deadline. It's just uncalled for. I spent 10 years in federal grants and contracts and advised hundreds of startups, and I can't tell you how often I see these trends. So please, I beg you,
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