I wrote my #SciFund Challenge preproposal back in March and I thought I’d share my proposal (again) with everyone and explained the thought process behind the writing.

Why am I doing this?

Well for one I’ve signed up to read some Round 3 preprosals, so if you want in you may have to go through me to get it done and I’d like to ensure that you can have a fun crowdfunding and #SciFund experience. The other reason is because I believe sharing is caring and the next round of #SciFund can be better if you build on the successes and learn from the failures of the second round. Yea for open science!

Below is the preproposal for your reading pleasure:
The first major challenge when writing the preproposal was deciding if I even wanted to participate. I didn’t know it at the time, but the #SciFund campaign is pretty time consuming. You have to advertise yourself every day and you can’t ever quit. But with that said it requires maybe an hour or two of dedication every day, unless you are requesting a high amount of funds (>$10,000) which would require you to have an even more robust marketing strategy. I was up to the challenge so I went ahead and signed up.

When you sign up, there are some real basic requirements that you should include in your proposal to show the readers that you are serious and capable regarding the project you wish to be crowdfunded:

1. You must be addressing a scientific question or questions that can be answered with scientific methods. So, for example, you can’t propose research to prove or disprove the presence of divine beings.
2. Your research must fit within the bounds of reality set by your scientific discipline (so no perpetual motion machines, for example).
3. Your research must not be fraudulent.
4. You must briefly show that you have the capacity and experience to carry out your research. We are just looking for very basic evidence here. For example, if you are planning an organic chemistry research project, stating that you were a graduate student in an organic chemistry lab would be good enough for us.
5. Your fundraising target must be reasonable for what you are attempting to fund. For example, you seek to raise two thousand dollars, because that is the cost of 1) the scientific equipment you need, 2) a flight to South Africa where your ecological field site is located, or 3) anything else that can actually be accomplished with the money. Here is an example that would not pass muster: you seek eight thousand dollars, with which you will build your very own version of the Large Hadron Collider.

And the trick is that you have to do all that in 150 words! But fret not, it isn’t that difficult. Remember we are looking to convince the readers you aren’t a crazy and coherent English goes a long way in proving that! Once you demonstrate you can write coherent and logical sentences you just simply need to show that you are honest and have plans that are just as logical as your sentences. Let’s look at what I did (SciFund requirements in italics, my writing in bold:

1. You must be addressing a scientific question or questions that can be answered with scientific methods. 
   • I plan to study the effects of DDW on E. coli and S. cerevisiae…
     
2. Your research must fit within the bounds of reality set by your scientific discipline.
   • …by analyzing phenotype differences when exposed to varying amounts of deuterium.
3. Your research must not be fraudulent.
   • …all experimental data will be available online through my open notebook.
4. You must briefly show that you have the capacity and experience to carry out your research.
   • I am a PhD student in a biophysics lab at UNM…
5. Your fundraising target must be reasonable for what you are attempting to fund.
   • Funding will primarily go towards the purchase of D2O and DDW as well as other basic lab supplies that will be used in the project.

And to prove that I wasn’t just some kook who wanted to drown things in water, I wrote a brief introduction that explained the history of my project:

Immediately after heavy water (D2O) was purified in the early 1930’s, it was discovered that most organisms cannot survive in pure heavy water. Deuterium (D) is the isotope of hydrogen containing 1 neutron and it exists in natural water at about a 15mM concentration. Because of this, some organisms may have evolved essential uses for deuterium and these processes may be studied by using deuterium-depleted water (DDW).

So now that you’ve seen my preproposal broken down, how can you ensure you are admitted to the #SciFund Challenge Rd 3?Time for another list!!!

• Don’t over think it. Don’t spend hours slaving over this preproposal, but please spend more than 5 minutes.
• Explain your project as simply as possible. I’m only an expert in Open Notebook Science and heavy water interactions with yeast and tobacco seeds. That means if you are studying the Galapogos turtle migration patterns I won’t understand a word you say! I want to work with you to get your project funded so don’t give me or any of the other readers any reason to not admit you.
• Don’t ask for $1,000,000 and then say you want to buy popsicles, or conversely ask for $500 and say you can build a full sized replica of the moon. Common sense is all we’re looking for.
• Don’t worry too much about how much money you’re asking for. I don’t remember how much I initially asked for, and I most definitely changed that number when it came time to launch my campaign. A ball park figure is all you’ll need, but remember don’t over do it.
• Have fun with it! #SciFunders love what they do and want to interact with the world. Show us your love and your education!

When I first signed up for #Scifund, I was under the impression that the preproposal would be highly scrutinized and highly competitive. In the end I learned that the #SciFund community is super inclusive and they want people to fund raise because the spirit of the program is to educate scientists to interact with the public regarding science. Crowdfunding is just the mechanism to achieve this!