Halloween Special: Tales of Horror from the Grant Writing Crypt
Based on a true story
The streets of downtown Washington, DC are quiet, an eerie hush settled over the city. The nonprofit office building is as quiet as the rest of the block it sat on, the hallways empty and dark, lit only by the faint glow from the dim security lights. All alone, in the far back of the office, a single light shines in an office. Three haggard-looking grant staff huddle in the office, speaking in hushed, urgent voices.
“That page and that page, switch them,” a young woman, looking frantic, points to two piles of pages to a sturdy young man, who watches the door intensely between shuffling papers, as if expecting doom at any moment.
A third woman reads from a complicated set of instructions on an old computer: “provide three original signed cost proposals, along with two copies, and four original signed technical proposals, packaged separately.”
The man looks up, and his voice rises. “Packaged separately? The cost separate from the technical, or the originals separate from the copies?”
The woman scrolls rapidly through the tome on her screen and shakes her head mournfully. “I don’t know. We didn’t submit that question.” The man shakes his head and looks at the first woman, who is now pacing.
“We’ll put the cost and the technicals in two separate envelopes, and bundle the originals and the copies together,” she announces, then looks at the clock on the wall. “Is that right? When is this due?”
The other woman nods and nearly whispers, “it’s right. We have to have everything to The Director to put in the mail by midnight.” Or we all fail, is the unspoken ominous threat attached to the deadline.
The lights in the hallway flicker, making the eerie office look even more foreboding. The man jumps a little, then shakes his head and kneels next to the piles of paper on the floor. “I’ll pass you each section of the technical to put together as you read them off,” he tells his colleagues. They nod. The next hour passes quickly, though the team members begin doubting what they see and hear, double and triple checking each pile of papers as it comes together.
Suddenly, an urgent Ping! sounds from the old computer. One of the women crawls to the desk, groping for the computer. She pulls up her email, scans, and gasps, before reading in a shaking voice: “The US Embassy in Country A hereby rescinds RFP 12345, due to unforeseen circumstances. Further guidance on additional deadlines may be issued via grants.gov.” She sits back on her heels, staring at the screen in abject despair. Behind her, the other two break into hysterical laughter. “It’s the RFP curse!” the man cried. “It finally got us!”
And sometimes, late at night, you can still hear the faint cries of, “the currrrseeee” wailing through the halls of the old office building.
