The Grant Dynamo

Research Grant accelerator

In 2002, Dr. Morgan Giddings joined the faculty of UNC Chapel Hill. Though she had written several successful proposals as a graduate student then postdoctoral researcher, she immediately started submitting for funding and racking up one rejection after the next.

Two years and more than six major grants rejected later - worried about running out of money to pay staff and postdocs - she decided something had to change. The trial-and-error approach wasn't working. Things were more competitive than ever, and her grant proposals weren't cutting it.

She found a mentor who kicked her butt. He redlined. She sweated. She cried. She swore. He redlined more. Working with this rare, very tough mentor over three years, she experienced a complete paradigm shift in grant writing. Nothing was the same about her proposals after it.

And it worked, seemingly miraculously. Her next four R01's submitted were all funded on the first round of submission. There were none of the prior rejections.

In 2009, with millions in funding she'd brought in, she took a look around and saw her colleagues making many of the same mistakes she had made early on. 

She decided to start consulting. She was quickly overwhelmed with the number of people who needed help, and decided to instead make a course that taught what she knew, so others could learn the strategies, methods, and most importantly, the way of thinking that had led to her successes. 

The original Grant Dynamo was born. A few years later, she left her faculty job for good to focus full-time on helping researchers with skills like Grant Writing.

Since then, based on working with 100's of clients at the world's top institutions, she has learned an additional thing or two. As a result, she has updated the course and is now at version 3, which has reached 100's of people, helping them to step-by-step write more persuasive, compelling proposals with less rejection and stress.

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I saw (and see) so much unnecessary struggle to get funding and have enjoyable, balanced research careers. I experienced those same issues early on in my career. As a third-generation scientist in my family, my mission is to make research careers easier and more sustainable for all.

After building a successful lab and achieving tenure at UNC Chapel Hill, I eventually decided that helping others with the struggles was more important than continuing my own research program. It was a very difficult decision to resign, but it has been tremendously rewarding to see the impact my team and I have made and are making on researchers around the globe.

I look forward to hearing from you about your challenges, and providing resources, training, and mentoring that can help.

Morgan Giddings, PhD

Author, Four Steps to Funding and Creator of Grant Dynamo, Grant Foundry, and Research Success Alliance

"The Grant Dynamo 3.0 online course knocked my socks off. I signed up. Amazing work. You've come a long way from what was already pretty amazing."

Allyson R

"I have found that Morgan's proposal writing information resonates with my 25+ years of proposal writing experience in private industry. Her approach to proposal writing is effective in the academic environment I now support and can help faculty get into the "marketing/selling" mindset that is critical for successful proposal writing" 

Conrad Monson

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