• Read the request for proposals thoroughly and carefully, and respond precisely to its requirements or preferences, no matter how trivial.  Bear in mind that each one is different, and even within a single agency requirements can vary from one RFP to the next.
• Confirm if MSU is an eligible recipient of funds from this program.  If you need or want collaborators in order to submit a viable proposal, start with team-building well before you start writing a proposal.
• Review the relevant sections of any accompanying "proposal guidelines" (e.g. NSF, NIH, USDA and US Dept of Education).
•  Become familiar with the requirements, recommendations or forms for each proposal element.
• Examine and list out what you’ll need to produce and in what format, and start planning for that.  A Proposal Checklist Template may help.
•  To “speak” to your intended audience (reviewers), describe your project using the same terms, concepts and frameworks the funder uses in the RFP and accompanying literature.
• Help reviewers by using the narrative structure or evaluation criteria from the RFP as an outline for your narrative.  Use the sub-headers the RFP provides, or infer them from the RFP text.
• Remember that reviewers will have a lot of proposals to review, and will be looking for reasons to write you off.  The easier it it to reject some, the fewer they have to read carefully.  Therefore, write clearly and succinctly with proper English, and follow every rule or guidepost the RFP provides.  Use the RFP's description of what they want in each proposal section as your outline for that section.