| Course | PU615 Grant Writing for Health Promotion Projects |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Solicitation analysis |
| Length | About 880 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | Master of Public Health (MPH) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for PU615 Unit 2
Forty-One Pages Into a Two-Page Matrix: A Unit 2 Solicitation Analysis Turning a Composite Federal Rural Outreach Notice Into Every Must, May and Will Not, Before Any of the Proposal Exists
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
PU615: Grant Writing for Health Promotion Projects
Unit 2 Solicitation Analysis
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The notice and its page numbers are composite but follow the structure of federal program announcements; the requirements described and the research cited are real.
How the Matrix Is Organized
Five columns: the requirement as written, the page and paragraph, whether it is a must, a may or a prohibition, which application section answers it, and who on the team owns it. Three rows of the matrix are reproduced verbatim in the proposal's own compliance table, because a reviewer scoring threshold criteria looks for the applicant's own cross-reference.
Eligibility and Threshold Requirements, All Musts
1. Applicant must be a unit of local government, a tribal organization or a nonprofit serving a nonmetropolitan county, page 7. Answered by: face page and eligibility attachment. Owner: county administrator.
2. Project must serve a county designated nonmetropolitan under the current federal classification, page 7. Brackley County qualifies on the 2023 designation, and the attachment prints the designation rather than asserting it.
3. Registration in the federal award system must be active at submission, page 9. Owner: finance office, with a four-week lead time because renewal has taken three weeks twice.
4. Application must not exceed 20 narrative pages, single-sided, 12-point, one-inch margins, page 11. Attachments excluded from the count, budget narrative included in it, which is the trap in this notice.
5. Letters of commitment, not support, from each named partner, page 12. The distinction is stated in the notice and is a threshold item.
Scored Criteria, With Their Weights
1. Statement of need, 25 points, page 15. Must include county-level data and a comparison to state or national figures. For this project that means local overturn events beside the national picture of where overturn deaths occur (Myers & Hendricks, 2010) and the share of the national tractor fleet still without protective structures (Murphy et al., 2010).
2. Project approach, 30 points, page 16. Must include a timeline by quarter, staffing, and a description of how participants are reached.
3. Organizational capacity, 20 points, page 18. Must name prior projects of similar size and the person who will manage the award.
4. Evaluation plan, 15 points, page 19. Must specify measures, data sources and who collects them.
5. Budget appropriateness, 10 points, page 20. Must use federal object classes and justify each line.
Thirty points sit in the approach and ten in the budget, and the budget is where applicants spend their last night.
Prohibitions and Limits, the Will Nots
1. Funds may not supplant support the applicant already receives for the same activity, page 22. This clause is examined in the Unit 6 seminar reflection because the writer initially marked it not applicable.
2. No construction or land acquisition, page 22. Relevant here: a storage structure for the retrofit trailer is not allowable.
3. Equipment over 5,000 dollars per unit requires prior approval, page 23. The retrofit trailer at 11,400 dollars triggers it, and the proposal requests approval in the narrative rather than waiting.
4. Indirect costs capped at 10 percent of modified total direct costs, page 24, which is below the county's negotiated rate and reduces the request by about 9,200 dollars.
5. No incentive payments to participants above 50 dollars, page 24. The cost-share design has to live inside this.
Dates and Mechanics
1. Letter of intent due 30 days before the application, optional and recorded as a must by the team because it secures a reviewer assignment.
2. Application due at 11:59 p.m. eastern on the closing date, with the portal's known slowness on the final day noted and a 48-hour internal deadline set.
3. Period of performance 24 months, with no-cost extension available once.
4. Reporting quarterly on progress, annually on finances.
What the Notice Does Not Say, and How the Team Will Handle It
Three gaps. It does not state whether a cost-share is required, which the team resolves by reading the award ceiling and the allowable cost list rather than guessing. It does not define rural beyond the designation, so the proposal uses the designation and nothing else. And it does not say how many awards will be made, which matters for how ambitious the budget should be; the team emails the program contact and records the answer with the date, because an unrecorded phone answer cannot be relied on in a dispute.
Why the Matrix Pays for Itself
Two hours of work produced four decisions the proposal would otherwise have discovered late: the budget narrative counts against the page limit, the indirect rate is capped below the county's own, the trailer needs prior approval, and the partners' letters must commit rather than support. Each would have cost a rewrite in the final week. The project itself has strong published support, since incentive-based retrofit programs have been evaluated in the field and shown to move installation rates (Sorensen et al., 2011), and the proposal's job is to get that evidence past the threshold checks rather than to argue it against a panel.
References
Murphy, D. J., Myers, J., McKenzie, E. A., Cavaletto, R., May, J., & Sorensen, J. (2010). Tractors and rollover protection in the United States. Journal of Agromedicine, 15(3), 249-263. https://doi.org/10.1080/1059924X.2010.484309
Myers, J. R., & Hendricks, K. J. (2010). Agricultural tractor overturn deaths: Assessment of trends and risk factors. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 53(7), 662-672. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.20775
Sorensen, J. A., Jenkins, P. L., Emmelin, M., Stenlund, H., Weinehall, L., & Earle-Richardson, G. B. (2011). The social marketing of safety behaviors: A quasi-randomized controlled trial of tractor retrofitting incentives. American Journal of Public Health, 101(4), 678-684. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2010.200162
PU615 Unit 2 instructions, in plain terms
Unit 2 generally asks you to analyze one real or realistic funding announcement before you write anything for it. Identify eligibility conditions, threshold requirements, scored criteria with their weights, prohibitions, dates and formatting rules, and record where each sits in the notice. Most instructors want the result as a matrix, because a table can be checked line by line. Classify each item by force: what the applicant must do, what it may do, and what it may not do. Link every row to the part of the proposal that will satisfy it and name who is responsible. Then list what the notice leaves unsaid, such as cost sharing or the number of awards, and say how you will resolve each gap. A short closing passage on what the analysis changed about your plans usually earns the last points.
How this PU615 Unit 2 example is built
The sample opens by describing its five columns and explaining that three rows will reappear in the proposal's compliance table. Eligibility and threshold items come next, all musts, each with a page reference and an owner, including a four-week lead time for federal registration because renewal has run late twice. Scored criteria follow with their weights, and need is tied to tractor overturn and protective-structure research. A highlighted line notes that approach carries 30 points and budget 10, yet budgets absorb the final night. Five prohibitions are each paired with the project element they threaten: supplanting, construction, the equipment threshold, the indirect cap and the 50 dollar incentive limit. Dates, three gaps and a closing count of four decisions caught early complete the worksheet.
PU615 Unit 2 rubric: what earns full points
The PU 615 rubric for this unit rewards completeness first: a matrix that misses a threshold item loses more points than one with a clumsy layout, since a missed threshold can disqualify an application. Accurate classification of musts, mays and prohibitions is the next block of credit. Points also go to page references a reader can verify and to links between each requirement and a named proposal section. Instructors look for analysis beyond transcription, so pairing a prohibition with the specific budget line or activity it endangers scores well. The gaps section earns credit when each gap comes with a plan for resolving it. The leftover credit covers prose quality and APA references to the notice itself and to each supporting study, along with a matrix that stays readable at two pages.
PU615 Unit 2 help from the desk
The most frequent problem is copying the notice's headings into a table and calling it analysis. A matrix that does not say which proposal section answers each row, or who owns it, will not prevent a single mistake later. Another is treating the letter of intent or other optional steps as unimportant without checking what they secure. Students also read the page limit and miss what counts toward it, which is how budget narratives end up pushing applications over. Prohibitions get skimmed because they look like boilerplate; read each one against your own budget as well as your activities. Finally, record answers from program contacts in writing with the date. Send us the notice you have been given and we will build a matrix like this one around it.
Get a PU615 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Requirements hide in definitions and attachment lists, so paste the whole notice the PU615 Unit 2 prompt assigns rather than a summary of it. With the instructions and rubric attached, a free first custom sample tables every requirement, flags those that would stop review before scoring, and lists questions for the program officer, in 24-48 hours. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More PU615 papers and MPH samples
- PU615 Unit 1: Discussion Board Post
- PU615 Unit 3: Need Statement
- PU615 Unit 4: Goals and Objectives Section
- PU615 Unit 5: Methods Narrative
- PU615 Unit 6: Seminar Reflection
- PU615 Unit 7: Budget and Justification
- PU615 Unit 8: Evaluation Section
- PU615 Unit 9: Reviewer Critique
- PU615 Unit 10: Complete Grant Proposal
- PU605 Unit 2: Community Assessment
- PU580 Unit 2: Exposure Assessment Comparison
- PU570 Unit 2: Measure Interpretation Exercise
- PU565 Unit 2: Paradigm Comparison Memo
PU615 Unit 2 questions, answered
Does a solicitation analysis have to be a table?
Not always, but a matrix is the most checkable form, and instructors frequently expect one. Prose can explain what the funder is really buying; a table proves every requirement was found. Many strong papers use both, a short narrative on the funder's priorities followed by a matrix that a reader can hold against the notice line by line.
What counts as a requirement?
Anything the notice says an applicant must, shall or may not do, plus eligibility conditions hidden inside definitions and attachment lists. Preferences and funding priorities belong in the analysis too, labeled as scored rather than required. Where a sentence is ambiguous, the stronger papers record the ambiguity and the exact question they would send the program officer about it.
Can I analyze a private foundation's request instead of a federal notice?
Usually, if your prompt allows a choice. Foundation requests are shorter and less formal, so the analysis leans more on stated priorities, past grants and the foundation's reporting expectations, while federal notices carry fixed forms and registration rules. Either way, name the document, its date and where it was found so an instructor can check the requirements you list.
Where can I find a free PU615 Unit 2 sample paper?
The whole Unit 2 requirements matrix for the Rollbars for Brackley notice is open on this page, with its prohibitions, gaps and margin notes.
What is the difference between a commitment letter and a support letter?
A commitment letter states what a partner will actually provide, such as staff time or space, while a support letter only endorses the idea. Some notices treat the wrong kind as a threshold failure.