From 100 Revisions to One Shift. Stefanie’s Journal Part I

I’ve written a lot of grants.

Some of them have been funded on the first try. Others took a second submission. But my last proposal? That one went through 100 iterations of the specific aims page across three submission rounds — and still didn’t get funded.

That’s not something I’m proud of. But it’s the truth.

And honestly? By the third rejection, I wasn’t just frustrated. I was exhausted. I’d been applying the same framework I’d used successfully for years. I knew my science. I knew my reviewer community. I’d worked with Morgan Giddings back in 2012 to learn a strategic approach to grant writing, and it had served me well throughout my career.

But something wasn’t working anymore.

So when I had the chance to go through the Grant Foundry Accelerator (GFA) — this time as a participant, not a coach — I said yes. Not because I thought it would be easy. But I needed to try something different.

This is the first entry in my journal as I move through the program. I’m sharing it because I think a lot of researchers are in the same place I was: working hard, following a process, and still not getting the results they need.

If that’s you, I hope this helps.

I’ll be honest: I wasn’t sure what to expect.

I’d worked with Morgan before. I knew her approach made you a better scientist — not just a better grant writer. But I also knew this version of the program was different. It was more structured. It used AI agents. It broke the process into four distinct phases: Preparation, Play, Planning, and Performance.

And I’ll admit, part of me wondered: Is this really going to be that different from what I’ve already been doing?

The answer is yes. But not in the way I expected.

The first phase is called Preparation. The goal is to define the boundaries of your proposal before you start writing anything.

You work through a structured mind map that asks you to think about four key elements:

- Sandbox: What’s the scope of the project?
- Strategy: Who’s your reviewer community, and what do they care about?
- Timing: Why now? What’s changed that makes this the right moment?
- Magic Powers: What are you uniquely good at?

It took me about 10 hours to complete the mind map. But I didn’t do it all at once. I’d sit down for 30-45 minutes, answer a few prompts, and then walk away. And here’s what I noticed: my brain kept working on it even when I wasn’t actively writing.

The biggest shift for me happened around Strategy.

For years, I’d been sending my proposals to the same NIH study section. I knew those reviewers well. I understood their preferences. And in some ways, that felt like the easier path — I didn’t have to do the work of researching a new reviewer community.

But after three rejections, I had a growing sense that this particular project just wasn’t aligned with what that study section wanted. They kept pushing me in a direction I didn’t want to go. And rather than bending my science to fit their expectations, I needed to find reviewers who were already excited about the problem I was trying to solve.

The Preparation phase gave me the structure — and the permission — to make that shift.

By the end of it, I had clarity: I was going to send this proposal to a different study section. One that was better aligned with the bigger problem my work addresses.

That decision felt both obvious and terrifying. But the process made it clear that it was the right move.

After Preparation comes Play.

The whole point of this phase is to explore your ideas before you start worrying about how reviewers will react. You’re not writing yet. You’re not linearizing information. You’re just thinking.

The two main pieces of work in Play are:

1. The Big Idea: What’s the big promise your work makes, and what’s the unique mechanism or approach that makes it possible?
2. The Model: What’s the specific framework or system you’re using to test your hypothesis?

I’ll be honest: this was harder than I expected.

Not because the prompts were complicated. But I had to resist the urge to jump ahead into planning mode. After years of grant writing, my default is to think about how the reviewer will receive something. And in Play, you’re explicitly told not to do that.

It felt strange at first. Almost uncomfortable.

But here’s what I realized: when you’re constantly thinking about reviewers, you limit your thinking. You start editing before you’ve even fully explored the idea. And that’s exhausting.

In Play, I gave myself permission to think bigger. To connect our biological findings in traumatic brain injury to clinical pathology in humans — something I’d been hesitant to do before because I wasn’t sure how reviewers would react.

And you know what? It made the model stronger.

One thing I want to be clear about: the AI agents in GFA are not magic pills.

You still have to do the thinking. You still have to feed the system with good input. But what the AI does is take all that structured thinking and help you organize it in ways that would normally take hours — or weeks.

I like to compare it to riding an e-bike. You’re still pedaling. You’re still steering. But it takes way less effort to get where you’re going.

By the end of Preparation, the AI generated a summary of my reviewer community, my strategic positioning, and the project scope that I could actually use. It wasn’t something I had to spend hours refining. It was a solid starting point.

And in Play, the AI helped me see patterns in my thinking that I might have missed on my own.

This isn’t about outsourcing the work. It’s about making the work more efficient so you can focus on what actually matters: the science.

If I had to summarize the biggest difference between this approach and what I’ve done before, it’s this:

I’m not rushing.

In the past, I would sit down with the goal of cranking out two pages of my grant in a day. I’d try to linearize everything at once. And it was exhausting.

Now, I’m working in smaller chunks. I’m letting my brain process things between sessions. And honestly? Sometimes I catch myself thinking, Shouldn’t I be working harder on this?

But then I remind myself: we have a plan. We have it under control. It doesn’t have to feel like so much effort.

That’s a strange realization for someone who’s spent years grinding through grant writing. But it’s also a relief.

I’m still in Play phase right now, iterating on my model. After that, I’ll move into Planning— where I’ll start thinking about how to structure the narrative and address reviewer concerns. And then Performance, where I’ll actually write the thing.

I’ll share more as I go. But for now, here’s what I want you to know:

If you’ve been writing grants the same way for years and it’s not working anymore, that doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. It might just mean the process needs to evolve.

This approach isn’t easier in the sense that it requires less thinking. But it is more strategic. More structured. And honestly? More human.

I’ll check back in after Planning and Performance. Until then, take care of yourselves.

— Stefanie Roble