Send in the application via the Internet.  Have your answers ready and worded exactly the way you want them before filling out the electronic form.  Either print out a copy of the electronic form so you can practice filling out the answers and proof read them or save a copy electronically. 

It is always a good idea to work on your narrative offline before putting it into the online application. For example, you can type out your answers and narratives in a Word document.  Once you are satisfied that they say exactly what you want you can cut and paste them into the electronic form.  Keep in mind the spacing used between paragraphs in a word processing program such as Microsoft Word does not always hold up when you paste into the online form.

Last year many people ended up with one long paragraph when they pasted in their narrative. One thing that seemed to help was holding down the "SHIFT" key whenever you hit the "ENTER" key to put a space in your Word document.

       This advice from 2002 about working with your narrative online came from Robin Yonash with the Colfax Volunteer Fire Department:

“I used the following work-around in the Narrative section to force it to break the document into paragraphs:
Use shift-enter instead of enter. In an existing Word document, search for ^p and replace with ^l before copying into the online form. Use 5 spaces instead of tab to indent the first line of each paragraph. To replace tabs in Word, search for ^t and replace with 5 spaces.”

Being sloppy or failing to proof read is not good strategy.   Remember, contrary to what one application said last year, it is Fire Chief not Fire Chef.

Make sure that all applicable blanks are filled out.  Have someone who is not with the fire department read your narrative before you send it.  It is best that this person does not have any fire service experience. A schoolteacher or librarian is a good choice.  Make sure they can understand what you are trying to convey.  If they don’t fully understand, neither will the grant reviewers.

Be on time. Complete all parts of the form. Have the grant completed and submitted at the time it is required.  Failing to do so will be cause for rejection. If any part of the form is incomplete that can be cause for rejection.