In 2009, the University of Michigan’s Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research developed a three-session K Writing workshop. Beginning in 2016, we implemented a non-attendance fee to encourage attendance across the three sessions. We examined whether this fee improved attendance, increased submission of an NIH K or R grant proposal, and improved success rates. Between 2012 and 2021, 373 participants attended the workshop. After the non-attendance fee was implemented, significantly more participants attended all three sessions of the workshop, and there was a statistical trend suggesting an increase in the success rate, while submission rates remained constant.

Institutional Development Award (IDeA) programs build research infrastructure in regions with historically low access to NIH funds. The Mentored Research Development Award (MRDA), a professional development program embedded in our IDeA-funded center, provides junior investigators with mentorship and effort offset to write a grant. We evaluated outcomes from the first eight years (2013–2021; N = 55) using administrative records, publicly available data, and a self-report survey (n = 46, 84% response rate). Fifteen MRDA recipients (27%) went on to receive NIH funding. Providing just-in-time grant-writing support may launch early career clinician-scientists in an IDeA state context.