...or general advice on developing successful grant proposals

http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/FIPSE/howtoget.html

When you consider submitting a FIPSE proposal, it is important to go into it with your eyes open. The process is laborious, and the funding ratio quite low. It takes months, sometimes years, of reflection and consultation to bring a project to the degree of ripeness that FIPSE expects of its most competitive proposals. That is why it is important to make sure that your project is something you really want to do. If the proposal, besides having potential as a national model, is intrinsically worthwhile for your institution, it will exhibit the clarity and coherence that we associate with fundability.