This is an interesting question – should you address your narrative to the RFA instructions or the scoring rubric (if one is provided for you)?

The best answer, of course, is both. But what if the instructions in the RFA (that’s Request for Applications) and the scoring rubric differ?

I participated in a grant competition this summer in which the funder put out the word that they knew the instructions and the scoring rubric did not match, and that even though the readers would be instructed to use the scoring rubric to make their decisions, they wanted the applicants to follow the instructions in the RFP. the scoring rubric was just provided for our information. Huh?

Here’s my advice (and what I did for that competition over the summer):

Follow the instructions. However, make sure you also address everything in the scoring rubric. Unless the scoring rubric and the instructions give you opposite instructions (usually, if they don’t match, it’s the case that one just leaves out criteria that are included in the other), you’ll have nothing to worry about if you write to both.