I just need to vent for a minute and say that getting a grant approved by the NSF seems next to impossible. I originally built Pushshift from the ground up and met a lot of extremely talented developers that have helped the project get to where it is today. We have the
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capability of changing the game for researchers in numerous fields and we do it all on a very limited budget. For the life of me, I cannot understand why the NSF cannot understand the tremendous value that this project is for researchers in so many different areas of study. If
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the NSF even gave a grant of a quarter million dollars, we could expand the services we offer tenfold and move rapidly.
I'm not sure what I have to do to show the NSF that this is a project that is literally transformative in helping researchers better understand how social
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media affects our society. We will of course continue to apply for grants where available but I think the fundamental issue is that we just lack the understanding of how to put together a successful grant proposal.
/rant off
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Grantwriting is its own discipline. I'm coming to realise how important it that the proposal be a fashionable, incremental improvement, and not a transformative change. The best thing that you can do is reach out to the the NSF PMs and talk to them. They will help!
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Assuming you applied to an SBIR? Those are stacked against people who don't fill them out all the time (eg. small biz) and favors incumbents. Partnering with academia often helps a ton and gives more avenues for funding. DM if still interested (you might know all this already!)
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hey Jason.
DM me if you want to talk more about writing NSF proposals. It takes a lot of contextual knowledge about different programs, how their panels work and what they look for. Happy to share thoughts from doing this for 17 years....
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