Contacting Program Officers

Reaching out to Program Officers (POs) may seem like a simple thing to do, but as we've seen many researchers and scholars are hesitant. Robert Porter in his article, "Can we talk? Contacting Grant Program Officers," suggests that this hesitancy lies in academics being more used to the lack of relationships they have with journal editors.  It would, of course, be inappropriate to contact an editor to see what you could do to get your article published.

For these reasons, researchers sometimes think that it is cheating to reach out to agencies and their POs. Yet, in a poll of former NSF POs at CU, all responding POs emphasized the importance of PIs reaching out to make sure the grants they are developing are in line with the agency's priorities.

Given this importance, below are some tips from POs and research development professionals on initially reaching out to POs.

Start early
POs are busy people, but they get even busier as they approach grant deadlines or as we approach the end of the fiscal year, so make sure that you are preparing early and reaching out at a time when a PO isn't up to his or her ears in questions, requests, and grants.

Do your homework
Before you reach out to an agency in any form, make sure you know about that agency. Be familiar with their website, their mission, how they are organized, and who you should contact.  If you are responding to a program announcement (PA), make sure that you've read it several times.  Nothing makes you look unprepared as asking a question that is answered in a PA or the website.

Send an email
When you're ready, send an email to who you think is the appropriate PO.  Make the email short. Introduce yourself (are you an early career investigator? have you received an award from the agency previously?) and give a quick description of your project (3-5 sentences). Use your subject line to describe why you're reaching out and keep it short.  Something like "Scheduling phone call?" or "Request for feedback" let's the PO quickly know why you're contacting them. Lastly, make sure that there is a call-to-action in your email. This is usually a request for a brief phone call to discuss your project.

Send a one-pager
Some POs at some agencies are ready for you to send a one-pager in your first email, but if you're unsure about it, you can send the email outlined above, but you want to have that project description in your back pocket. One PI told us about her reaching out to a PO and discussing her project only for the PO to ask her to send along her one-pager. The PI spent the rest of the afternoon and night putting together a project description (she hadn't written it yet).

Schedule a call
Usually, when first emailing, you're trying to schedule a call. But, in doing that, you want to remember that although you are busy, the PO is also busy and you are the one that needs to be flexible. You're asking for their time after all.  Give them some times/days and ask if anything would work for a call.


Follow-up
If a week goes by and you haven't heard anything, send another brief email "checking in" on your last note. Be polite and friendly, refer to your previous message, and ask again to schedule a call. Even if a PO is slow to respond to your outreach, do not be slow to respond to them. When they ask for a one-pager, send it within 24 hours, and in your follow-ups, always thank them for their time and note next steps. Anything discussed or agreed to by phone, briefly restate via email. For instance, if the PO said they would put you in touch with another PO, in your follow-up email, say something to the effect of "Thank you so much for reaching out to Dr. X on my behalf; I look forward to following up with her."

I want to leave you with a caveat: there are no hard and fast rules to reaching out to PO's. You must adjust all of the advice above based on the agency you're reaching out to. When doing your homework on the agency, it's a good idea to find someone at your university who has worked with that agency before to give you some insight on their preferences. But, don't let the unknown keep you from reaching out.


Resources
Inside the mind of your Program Officer - Inside Philanthropy
What to say-and not say- to Program Officers - Chronicle of Higher Education