Some tips from PIs who’ve walked the path of industry and foundation funding, as well as a member of a university medical center development office.
Industry
If you want to get whatever awesome thing you’ve discovered into the clinic, especially if it’s a drug, you’ll eventually need to form a business or partner with an existing business to do it. Finding a business to partner with early on can provide financial and logistical support.
This generally means a small business. Big pharmaceutical businesses will throw R01-scale funding at you if they’re really interested, but the study will be about their target, with their intellectual property (drug).
Small business can’t give you that kind of money, but they can make the drug, provide analytic services, and provide smaller infusions of cash. You can also partner with a small business to go after NIH’s SBIR/STTR grants. These grants get funding decisions in three months, have a fairly high funding rate, and Phase II grants have R01-sized budgets.
If a small business for your drug doesn’t exist, you may need to create it yourself. Your data can attract venture capital to support such a business. To make it easier, use existing infrastructure where you can. Colleagues who have done this before are great; sometimes you can tag onto their existing small business or share a CEO. Your institution’s tech transfer office can also help.
If you want to keep ownership of your intellectual property, it’s important to file patents before you publish or speak about it. At Vanderbilt, the tech transfer office will do this for you. Their arrangement is that Vanderbilt owns the patent, but will license it back to you for a small percentage of the profits (perhaps 5%). Much of this licensing fee comes back to you in some way, either directly or via the institution.
More things are patentable than you think. Talk to colleagues or your tech transfer office. About ten years ago, the US moved from a “first to invent” to a “first to file” patent system, so being the first to put the idea/process/drug/whatever in writing for the government really matters now.
Foundations and Professional Societies
Foundation/society funding is often small, but can make a big difference in your research program. There are lots of these around, and many fly under the radar. You can learn more about them by engaging with visiting speakers, colleagues, and professional societies. One way to do this: If a speaker is coming to your place, look up their funding, and see if you can get a meeting with them while they’re here to talk about whatever foundation they’ve received funding from.
Each of these non-federal funders is different, and processes can be opaque. As the saying goes, if you’ve worked with one foundation, you’ve worked with one foundation. But in general:
Professional societies sometimes offer grants, often disease- or process-specific. Larger ones, like the American Heart Association and American Cancer Association, offer career development awards and R01-level funding. Some have NIH-like funding deadlines and cycles, but not all. It’s important to read the RFA or guidelines to make sure your work fits what they’re looking for. Many require a letter of intent before you apply.
Most disease-specific foundations (e.g., Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation) have research funding, often for pilot/feasibility work. If your work doesn’t immediately look like it might fit with a foundation, consider how tweaking it or partnering with someone else might make it fit better. One of our PI presenters had an opportunity to apply for a foundation grant for her disease of interest that wanted the PIs to use single-cell sequencing, which she didn’t do, but a colleague did; they went in on the grant together.
Large, non-disease or non-medical related philanthropic foundations may not have specific funding announcements. They may reach out to institutions or investigators directly to submit an application. (So keep your online presence up to date!) Once you’ve gotten some funding from these foundations, it’s often easier to get more from them because you’re a known quantity. This funding is often less restrictive than NIH and can still cover salary, but has smaller indirect costs (generally 10-20%, while many institutions receive 40-75% from NIH).
Be aware that some foundations have a lay board structure and may not even have a scientific advisory board. They often have a less formal grant structure and care more about the impact on society or patients than on the technical part of your science, and the lay summary is particularly important. Learn how to make your writing more readable for different audiences. [Link to One Minute Writing Tuneup: Readability] Often, a review committee for these foundations has both scientists and laypeople on it, and the laypeople have the same amount of voting power as the scientists. Your lay summary won’t get you the grant, but if it’s not readable and doesn’t emphasize the impact of your work, it can lose the grant.
(Of note, the Department of Defense also really looks for patient impact. One of the three reviewers for each grant is always a patient or patient advocate.)
Since the application and review process for each foundation is so different, look up prior grantees and ask them what it was like, even if you don’t know them. (For example, here are American Heart Association grant recipients. Your foundation of interest probably has a page like this on their website.) You can often find other PIs at your institution who have served on review boards for different foundations or otherwise have insider knowledge, as well.
Working with your Development Office
Development offices cultivate relationships with philanthropists, foundations, alumni, companies and other potential donors. They are well-versed in the trends, preferences, quirks and exceptions of individual foundations. A foundation may state on their website, for example, that they fund nationally, but a closer look would reveal that in practice, they usually fund a more limited geographic area, like the coasts. Sometimes foundations decide to pause funding for a while to take time to do strategic vision work. Or, perhaps investigators have pitched a particular project or approach to the foundation in the past, but with no luck. Your Development office may have knowledge about this background and historical information that can help you be more strategic in your approach. Information in this section comes from the Foundation Relations team in VUMC Development, but yours likely does similar things. Tips from our Senior Director of Foundation Relations:
If you’re interested in applying for a private foundation grant, speak to the foundation relations officer in the Development office. They can provide an analysis of their past grants and offer other insights they’ve gleaned from past interactions. This may help you better frame your proposal. Your foundation relations officer may have ideas for how to cultivate relationships with foundations – a special communication or an invitation to campus. Particularly with family or other non-scientific foundations, your foundation relations officer can advise on how to craft more lay-friendly proposals.
If you know of a foundation for your disease but they don’t have a website or RFAs, the Development office can identify ways to try to get them engaged. and use other relationship-building techniques so you can approach the foundation with confidence.
Keep your division chief/department chair informed about your research, especially new research directions. They are in touch with the Development office and can put your name forward as someone who would be a good match for a specific foundation. Most foundation relations officers are also happy to meet with you individually to learn more about your work to look for potential funders.
A quick word about gifts: Be sure to contact the Development office first. If you know someone who gives large gifts to medical research and think they might want to support your lab, the Development office can shepherd that conversation and maximize the potential gift. VUMC Development staff are specially trained to help navigate conversations with individuals or grateful patients who may be interested in supporting a lab or area of research.
In addition to your chair and staff in the Development office, you can get your name and work out in other ways, such as through social media and lab websites. More so than federal agencies, getting funding from foundations, industry, and individuals hinges on relationships. Tell people what you do for a living! (One of our PI presenters got a $100,000 gift just from talking to a stranger in an airport bar about his work.)
Even if you’re an introvert, there are people on your campus who can help you build these relationships. Whether it’s your institution’s Development office or a supportive faculty leader, don’t be afraid to seek their help to see if charitable/foundation giving is a fit for you.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center Giving: Foundation Relations
