Photos: Louis Reed and (insert) Windows, on Unsplash
This area of the site was written for very experienced trust fundraisers.
Medical research
Introduction
Medical research fundraising from grant makers is a fascinating area. It can seem daunting at first. However, once you become comfortable with the scientific language you can weave a powerful case for support which can have a far-reaching impact.
In order to find interventions that will stop a disease from progressing, or replace an ailing organ, scientists require three things: the right equipment; a deep and thorough understanding of the disease progression; and potential treatment targets. Projects are varied and address different parts of the research process. They can range from using sophisticated imaging technology to map Alzheimer’s disease progressing in the brain, to understanding the biological pathway that leads to the disease, and then to creating the right surgical tools to operate or a drug discovery project to investigate repurposing existing drugs.
Even the very basic science projects which focus on a single enzyme or protein have potentially huge benefits to scientific understanding and medicine, and can be of interest to grant funders. Researchers have to start somewhere!
Some organisations offer PhD Studentships funding. These are usually discrete, three-year grants towards the career development and research interests of a promising graduate. They help attract skilled and dedicated medical researchers to a specific research area, building the knowledge base and team, and making a lasting contribution to progress in that area.
All the above projects can be presented to donors. Most projects are for three years. You can apply for funds towards a specific project at any stage, or for grants to fund your medical research funding programme as a whole. Each three-year project will almost certainly lead to more questions and the charity might be able to secure funding towards the next step in its researchers’ investigations. You may be presenting a funder with the opportunity to continue their grant funding for a particular area. They could be able to follow over many years the progress of the research project that they are helping to make possible.
By the time a potential treatment is identified, usually the drug companies will come in and invest. This is because as the costs at this stage can run into millions.
Tips for writing a clear and compelling medical research funding proposal
Grant fundraiser-led or researcher-led bid?
To an extent it will depend on your organisation and the skills level in the team. However, there are grant programmes that need a very high degree of scientific detail, such as the grant programmes offered by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and for these, the funders should be applied to directly by your research team or the scientists themselves. You may still be required to support these bids with information you have to hand – such as the organisation aims and objectives, Trustee biographies, policies on medical research funding etc.
Grant funders who support medical research will usually have scientific experts on their Trustee Board. However, the staff at the funder and all Trustees need to be able to understand the project and those applications should sit with a fundraiser. As a lay person, a fundraiser is in an ideal position to translate the science into language that can be readily understood.
Understand the work
Writing a grant proposal for a medical research project is not unlike writing project proposals for services. Firstly, you need to have a strong grasp of the project. Medical research terminology and processes can be tricky to understand. Most third sector funding organisations require medical researchers to apply for funds from them and will require a lay summary section on the application form. In this section, the researchers are required to detail why the project is needed, what idea they are testing, how will they test it and what the ultimate impact will be. Help understanding the project and the detail of it can be sought from your organisations’ medical research officer or team if you are lucky enough to have them, or direct from the researchers themselves.
Use a clear structure
The structure of a medical research proposal should roughly be:
- Project need
- Why is this research problem is a priority? For example: there might be rising numbers of people/children affected by a condition; it could be an opportunity because of what research has already found; or it could be that new technology has opened up promising new avenues for research…
- The researchers themselves will usually have covered this in their lay summary. Some wider research on the internet from trusted sources (for example universities) and advice from your in-house medical research team and/or the researchers will help you clearly define the gap in knowledge and why this project is best placed to fill it
- Hypothesis/the question the research team are seeking to answer
- For example: is a particular protein key in the progression of a condition? (If the research finds that, yes, it is, that protein could then become a target for an intervention to stop the progression)
- Timeline/milestones for the project
- The methods they will use and why they have chosen them
- Who the research team are, their experience and how their experience is relevant to the project
- The potential impact of the project
It is worth including a line about the fact you have an ethics policy and who ratified it and when, especially if the project involves testing on animals or insects.
Use scientific language – but use it skillfully
Don’t shy away from going into detail about the processes and methodology involved in the project. Just explain what they are clearly and simply. For instance:
“Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in the UK and affects over 600,000 people. However, there is limited treatment available for those with the condition and researchers are yet to find a cure. We know that the build-up of drusen (waste deposits) behind the retinal pigment epithelium at the back of the eye causes the macula to degenerate and sight loss to occur. However, we do not fully understand how and why drusen occur. There appears to be a link between certain genes, such as complement factor h, and AMD but their precise role behind the mechanism by which AMD develops is not yet known.”
Ensure somebody with no scientific background reads your proposal and points out anything that isn’t clear.
Communicating the project’s impact
Your project could be trying to identify potential ways a treatment could be developed, or it could be testing whether a treatment is safe and effective. Bring the impact such a treatment or cure will have on individuals and society to the fore. Will it save or enhance lives? In the UK or globally? Tailor your language to echo the impact the funder is looking to achieve.
The results of one research project are not conclusive, they need to be confirmed and corroborated by further research and papers require peer review. However, donors deserve to know what the potential impact of the project is. So, whilst mentioning that further research is required, refer to what the research findings could lead to in the future. Bring it back to how it could transform the lives of people, because behind every research question is the issue: how it can benefit the human race?
Reporting
Once the grants start flooding in, look at the reporting schedule that your organisation has in place with the researchers who are working on the project and try and plan your reports to the funder around it, where you can. This saves time for you and the researchers.
Photos and diagrams can be extremely useful in illuminating the progress on the project. You may be able to find these in reports from the research team, or you can seek them directly from the team. In the later stages of the research project, posters for research symposiums are often created which clearly communicate the progress and findings to date. The entire poster can sometimes be too complex to share, but you may still be able to take pictures and infographics from them to highlight achievements of the project. These are useful ways of sharing progress with grant makers and building relationships with them.
Scientific papers written by the research project team and published in respected journals, presentations at conferences and posters exhibited are other ways of measuring the success of a project. They should be included in donor reports.
On occasion the research may not be proving the hypothesis but there is value in this too. The project is still contributing to the knowledge base on the topic, and will help researchers in the future to focus their investigations.
It is rare that a project does not run for the planned time. However, the researchers may actually change the focus of the research, in agreement with your organisation, if it becomes clear early on that a particular avenue of research is unpromising or there is another that is potentially much more productive to pursue.
The most common issue with research projects is research staff leaving and recruiting difficulties. (Other webpages on this site cover: how to handle changes to a project; how to develop problem solving skills; and some generic advice on handling problems, both internally with your staff and organization on the one hand, and what you do with the funder on the other.)
Building relationships with your funders
You would manage the relationship as you would your donor relationships in other charitable areas. For technical questions that you cannot answer, involve your research experts. They can attend meetings with you or provide follow up information if required.
However, besides traditional stewardship, research projects also offer unique opportunities for donor engagement. For instance, visits to meet the researchers and see the research underway in the lab are particularly fascinating opportunities to bring the work to life. Medical researchers are often skilled at presenting their work at conferences. Donor engagement events where several of your organisation’s funded researchers present can be effective for engaging both current and new supporters.