Proposed Funding Priorities: Fill & Download for Free

Old political cliche: a program for the poor is a poor program.Social Security and Medicare are universal programs, in that virtually everyone qualifies for them eventually. But most assistance programs are means-tested in one form or another, meaning that their benefits are only available to a subset of the population, usually defined by income or assets tests.And once a program’s beneficiary population is delimited, it’s easy for those people excluded from it to agitate against it in favor of other funding priorities. “Yes, yes, we all want to help the poor, but how about we just increase SNAP funding 2% this year and then increase this other priority of mine by an extra percentage point?”Now, you’ve zeroed in on one framing that actually tends to help these types of programs: focusing on children! But I’d quibble slightly with the framing that SNAP and Medicaid “mainly” help children. Poverty knows no age limitation!Another factor is seniors’ voting patterns. The elderly turn out! And they also have the time to review and understand detailed proposals that might affect their benefits programs. (Minor example there: among the strongest supporters of Paul Ryan’s proposed long-term changes to Medicare and Social Security in the early ’10s were senior citizens because they understood that the proposals protected current beneficiaries and achieved major budgetary changes). And conversely, low-income voters, to my recollection, turn out at lower rates than many other segments of the population.

Venus is the most explored of the planets…as long as you properly define what you mean by “explored.”Be it a flyby as a quick study or for a gravity assist, or to enter orbit as the mission’s focus, Venus has had 28 missions make it to the planet. Only Mars has had more visitors (and far more victims).We have mapped it using radar, dropped a few probes into its atmosphere, studied it from orbit and even a few hardy Soviet landers have made to the surface to glean out some data for a few minutes before expiring. But there’s still much to learn. Among the unanswered questions include:How geologically active is the planet? We’ve mapped many volcanoes there. But are there active flows? What forces drive them? Is this activity slower than when it was younger?What’s the detailed surface composition? What minerals are found in the surface rocks and soil? Was there any indications of water before the Venusian geology caused the many transformations? The challenge to up-close study of the surface is that it has nearly 93 times the atmospheric pressure and is hot enough to melt lead. A Mars-type rover simply won’t last long.How about the Venusian weather? The areas around the poles look fascinating, and there’s much to study about the upper atmosphere and the deeper, hotter areas—if we can get spacecraft there and make them last long enough to gather data.Sadly, space agency budgets are tight. Funding priorities go to missions that give a big bang for the buck. No one wants to make or pay for a Venusian rover unless it can last for several days and give some really great data and photos for the enormous time and expense it will take to design something to be durable to handle 93 atmospheres and over 800 degrees F (426 C).Two missions have been proposed, respectively, by the Indian Space Research Organization and the Russian space agency Roscosmos, but they are only in the early planning or unfunded stages.

If you are conducting grant research, The Foundation Directory online is the industry standard. But - and it’s big one - it takes years to compile all the information in their database.By the time it becomes public, the foundations have changed their funding priorities, application process, board of directors, etc…You can use it as a general guide. Before you start sending out proposals, you need to contact the foundation, discuss your project, and cultivate their interest in your project. In this way, you stand a much better chance at receiving a grant.I would never prepare a “cold” proposal, or send out numerous scattershot proposals, without tailoring it carefully to the foundation’s interests.It’s a huge waste of time. It’s extremely competitive.These foundations are deluged by proposals every day; they are not required by law to abide by their published funding guidelines. The actual funding decisions are more political than procedural.You really need to cultivate an ally inside the foundation.The research is only the first step.