The Waiting Game

Picture this: You're sitting at your desk, maybe three weeks after submission. The proposal is out of your hands. The review process is happening somewhere, but you have no visibility into it.

Your partner — the one who spent hours on the phone with you working through activity design, the one who wrote a thoughtful letter of support, the one who seemed genuinely excited about what you'd build together — sends you a friendly email: "Any word yet?"

You respond: "Not yet. Should hear back in a few months. I'll keep you posted."

And then... nothing. For weeks. Maybe months.

Both of you are busy. Neither of you is doing anything wrong. But the thread that connected your work is getting thinner. The shared excitement that made the proposal feel possible is cooling. The relationship isn't over — but it's not being maintained either.

Then one of two things happens.

Either you get funded, and suddenly you need to activate a partnership that has been dormant for months with people whose priorities may have shifted.

Or you don't get funded, and now you have to decide: is this partnership worth maintaining for a future opportunity? Do you even have enough relationship left to make that decision together?

This is the waiting game. And most partnerships lose it without realizing they were playing.

Here's what's actually happening during the waiting period: the proposal was a forcing function, and now it's gone.

When you were writing the proposal, you had external pressure — a deadline, required elements, the need to coordinate. That pressure created structure. It gave you reasons to call your partner, to schedule meetings, to make decisions together.

The waiting period has no structure. No deadlines. No required elements. Just open time that gets filled with other priorities.

This wouldn't be a problem if partnership maintenance were automatic. But it isn't. Maintaining a partnership requires intentional effort, and without external pressure, that effort competes with everything else on everyone's plate.

The partnerships that survive the waiting period don't survive because the people involved are more committed. They survive because someone designed a structure for maintenance. Someone created the forcing functions that the proposal used to provide.

That's the shift: from waiting passively to maintaining actively.

The traditional approach to the waiting period looks like this: submit the proposal, send a thank-you note, wait for news, respond when news arrives.

The partnership sustainability approach looks different: submit the proposal, then immediately ask — what small activities can keep this partnership warm regardless of funding outcome?

This isn't about creating busy work. It's about recognizing that the partnership exists independently of any single grant. The grant was one expression of the partnership, not the partnership itself.

The question becomes: what's the minimum viable relationship maintenance that keeps this partnership alive?

Sometimes it's quarterly check-ins. Sometimes it's sharing relevant articles or opportunities. Sometimes it's involving partners in other activities that don't require the proposed funding. Sometimes it's simply being visible in their world — attending their events, commenting on their work, staying present in ways that don't require budget.

The partners who survive the waiting game treat the proposal as a milestone, not a terminus. The partnership continues to move, just at a different pace.

Let me tell you about a partnership that looked like a failure but actually demonstrated something important about the waiting period.

A board member at a research institution had an idea: partner with an organization on the other side of the country to create teacher professional development programs. The concept seemed perfect — researchers who could inspire teachers, teachers who needed current science exposure, a foundation willing to help fund it.

The implementation team at the research institution spent months developing the partnership. Conference calls, shared documents, drafts of what a proposal might look like. They reached out to state education agencies, curriculum specialists, potential implementation partners. Each outreach created implicit commitments — conversations that would need follow-up, relationships that would need maintenance.

But as the proposal deadline approached, something became clear: the partnership wasn't ready. The infrastructure on the research institution's side didn't align with the model that worked on the other coast. The relationships with local school districts weren't deep enough. The capacity didn't exist to deliver what the proposal would promise.

The team made a difficult decision. The organization on the East Coast would submit the proposal testing the model in their own context first. The research institution would continue developing the relationships and capacity that might someday support such a collaboration.

Here's what happened during the waiting period: instead of going dormant, the partnership evolved. The team didn't have proposal pressure, but they created other forcing functions. Monthly calls to share what each side was learning. Joint presentations at conferences about the model's development. Collaborative exploration of what a future partnership might look like once the infrastructure was stronger.

Two years later, when capacity had grown and relationships had deepened, a different kind of partnership emerged — one built on realistic foundations rather than optimistic projections.

The waiting period wasn't wasted time. It was relationship-building time. But only because someone chose to design it that way.

Before you move on, take five minutes to think about a partnership where you're currently in the waiting period (or will be soon).

1. Map the relationship threads.

Who are the actual people — not just the organizations — involved in this partnership? What do you know about their priorities right now? What pressures are they facing that might pull their attention away from this collaboration?

2. Identify one maintenance activity.

What's one thing you could do in the next two weeks that keeps this partnership visible without requiring budget or significant time? Could you share an article relevant to their work? Invite them to an event? Ask for their input on something unrelated to the pending proposal?

3. Schedule the next touchpoint.

Don't leave follow-up to chance. When specifically will you next reach out to this partner? Put it on your calendar now.

4. Plan for both outcomes.

What will you do if you're funded? What will you do if you're not? Having a plan for rejection is uncomfortable, but it prevents the paralysis that often follows a "we regret to inform you" email.

The Partnership Pause Protocol interactive tool can walk you through this process in more detail, helping you create a maintenance plan for each waiting-period partnership.

If you're working through this with a cohort or team:

Someone at your institution coordinates research development, pre-award services, or partnership support. Find them and ask:

The infrastructure for partnership maintenance often exists but isn't well publicized. A fifteen-minute conversation might surface resources you didn't know were available.

This is Issue 1 of Proposal to Reporting, a Team Guide about navigating the grant lifecycle while maintaining partnership health.

The waiting game is just the beginning. What comes next is often harder: translating proposal promises into realistic work plans, capturing stories while they're happening rather than scrambling at report time, communicating challenges to funders in ways that strengthen rather than weaken your position.

Issue 2 covers the post-award transition — the first 90 days after funding when momentum is highest and mistakes are most costly. It's the skill of converting proposal excitement into sustainable implementation, and it builds directly on what you've learned here about maintaining partnerships through transitions.

The full Team Guide is eight issues, each building on the last: from waiting period maintenance, through first-year implementation, to annual reporting, mid-project recalibration, and eventually legacy documentation. It includes interactive tools, downloadable templates, and frameworks for each phase of the grant lifecycle.

But the next step is post-award momentum. That's where intentions become reality.

If you remember nothing else from this issue:

The waiting period isn't dead time — it's design time. The partnerships that launch strong after funding are the ones that never stopped moving.

Some proposals get funded. Some don't. But either way, the work of maintaining partnerships during limbo is too important to approach as passive waiting.

Your partnership isn't on pause just because the proposal is under review. The question is whether you're choosing to maintain it — or whether you're hoping it will maintain itself.

Proposal to Reporting is part of the STEMsaic Team Guide Collection.

Your institution's research development office and sponsored programs professionals are essential partners in this work. The frameworks here come alive when applied with people who know your institutional context and funder relationships.

Next Issue: Post-Award Momentum

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Interactive: Partnership Pause Protocol

Download: Waiting Period Communication Templates

Slide Deck: The Waiting Game