The advice to “always send a letter of intent for grants” just stopped being true in the place it mattered most. On December 3, 2025, the National Institutes of Health issued Notice NOT-OD-26-019, announcing that it will “no longer request or accept Letters of Intent (LOIs) as part of the application process,” effective immediately. The country’s largest funder of biomedical research deleted a step that grant guides have told applicants to complete for years. If you are working from older instructions, you may be preparing a document that no longer has anywhere to go.

What NIH Actually Changed in December 2025

NIH used to ask applicants to file a short letter of intent inside Section IV of a Notice of Funding Opportunity. It listed the project title, the principal investigator, participating institutions, and a brief abstract, and it was typically due about 30 days before the application deadline. Crucially, it was never binding and was never seen by peer reviewers. Its only job was to help institute staff estimate review workload and recruit the right reviewers.

That job disappeared. NIH explained in NOT-OD-26-019 that because peer review has been centralized at the Center for Scientific Review, the LOI “is no longer serving the same purpose,” so the agency removed it to cut applicant burden. The notice is blunt about the consequences: letters of intent that have already been submitted “will not be acknowledged nor reviewed.” University research offices moved fast to spread the word, with Northeastern’s research enterprise office and others publishing alerts within 48 hours. The same notice also scrapped the old requirement that applicants requesting $500,000 or more in direct costs contact a program officer before submitting.

One narrow exception matters: this change applies only to the LOI that NIH itself requested in a funding notice. It does not touch letters of intent tied to subrecipient or consortium commitments, which are a separate document used to document a partner’s participation in your budget. If a collaborator’s institution asks for a commitment letter, that is unaffected.

Two Documents, One Name: Letter of Intent vs. Letter of Inquiry

Most of the confusion around a letter of intent for grants comes from a naming collision. The federal “letter of intent” and the foundation “letter of inquiry” are both abbreviated LOI, but they do almost opposite work, and treating them as one document is the most common mistake writers make.

The federal letter of intent was an administrative courtesy. It carried no weight in the decision, you did not need a response to proceed, and skipping it never disqualified anyone. The foundation letter of inquiry is the opposite: it is a genuine pre-application screen. A program officer reads it and decides whether to invite a full proposal. If your inquiry does not earn an invitation, you usually cannot apply to that funder in that cycle at all. One was a formality you could almost ignore; the other is a gate that can end your application before it starts.

This distinction now drives everything. If you are applying for federal research dollars through programs like the SBIR and STTR awards covered in our SBIR and STTR funding hub, the federal LOI question is increasingly moot at NIH and worth verifying at other agencies. If you are approaching private philanthropy, the inquiry letter is very much alive and deserves the same care as a full proposal.

When a Federal Letter of Intent Still Exists

NIH is one agency, not the whole federal government. Other agencies and specific programs may still request a letter of intent, a pre-application, or a concept paper, and the rules vary by notice. The Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and various Department of Energy programs have all used preliminary submissions to manage applicant volume. The safe rule has not changed: read the funding announcement front to back, find the application and submission section, and do exactly what that specific notice says rather than relying on general advice.

Where a federal preliminary document is still required, the format is predictable. It runs one to two pages, names the funding opportunity number and title, identifies the lead applicant and any partner institutions, and includes a short project abstract. It does not include CVs, letters of support, or attachments unless the notice explicitly asks for them. Because these documents are administrative rather than competitive, the goal is accuracy and completeness, not persuasion. You can browse open federal programs and their requirements through the OpenGrants funding database and our federal grants hub before you commit time to any preliminary filing.

The Foundation Letter of Inquiry Is the One That Can Sink You

If the federal LOI was a low-stakes formality, the foundation letter of inquiry is the high-stakes one, and it is not going anywhere. According to Candid’s 2025 Foundation Giving Forecast Survey, 55% of the 522 foundations surveyed said they accept unsolicited proposals, and many of those route first contact through exactly this kind of inquiry letter. For a large share of private funders, the inquiry is the front door, and a weak one keeps you outside.

The mechanics are unforgiving. A grants administrator skims each inquiry, scores it against the foundation’s priorities, and forwards only the strongest to staff or the board. Some funders are explicit about the funnel: one family foundation profiled by the National Center for Family Philanthropy reported inviting full proposals from roughly 10% of the inquiries it received. The letter is short by design, which makes every sentence count.

What a strong inquiry letter includes

Guidance from grantmaking-software firm Foundant Technologies recommends keeping the inquiry to a recommended three-page limit with budget details as a separate attachment. A strong inquiry states the problem with one or two hard data points, describes your solution in concrete terms (how many people, what activities, over what timeframe), explains why your organization is the right one to do the work, and names a specific amount tied to specific outputs. Length and format requirements vary by funder. The W.T. Grant Foundation’s 2026 research grant guide, for example, opens every application with a five-page letter of inquiry and caps indirect costs at 15% of total direct costs. Follow the funder’s stated format exactly; if they ask for two pages, do not send three. Nonprofits researching private funders can start with our nonprofit grants hub to identify which foundations gate on an inquiry.

Should You Write One? A Quick Decision Guide

The question is no longer “how do I write a letter of intent for grants” but “do I need one, and which kind.” Work through it in this order. First, identify the funder type. If it is NIH, you do not file an LOI at all anymore. If it is another federal agency, open the funding notice and check the submission section for any required pre-application, letter of intent, or concept paper. If it is a private foundation, assume an inquiry step may stand between you and the application, and confirm on the funder’s site.

Second, match the effort to the stakes. A required federal preliminary document deserves careful accuracy but not days of polishing, because it is not scored. A foundation inquiry deserves real strategy, because it is the decision point. Third, never submit an optional document just because a generic guide told you to. With NIH, an unsolicited LOI is now ignored outright. The single most reliable move is to treat the specific funding announcement as the source of truth and to disregard advice, including older articles, that predates the December 2025 changes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does NIH still accept letters of intent?

No. As of December 3, 2025, NIH no longer requests or accepts letters of intent as part of the application process under Notice NOT-OD-26-019. Any LOI you submit will not be acknowledged or reviewed. The change does not affect separate commitment letters from subrecipients or consortium partners, which document a collaborator’s role in your budget.

What is the difference between a letter of intent and a letter of inquiry?

A federal letter of intent was an administrative, non-binding heads-up that reviewers never saw. A foundation letter of inquiry is a competitive screening document that a funder uses to decide whether to invite a full proposal. They share the abbreviation LOI but do opposite work, and the inquiry version carries far higher stakes.

Do foundations still require a letter of inquiry?

Many do. Candid’s 2025 survey found that 55% of foundations accept unsolicited proposals, and a large share of those use an inquiry letter as the first step. The requirement is funder-specific, so check each foundation’s guidelines, where they will state the page limit, deadline, and required contents.

How long should a letter of inquiry be?

Most run one to three pages, though research funders sometimes ask for more. Foundant recommends a three-page limit with budget details attached separately, while the W.T. Grant Foundation requests a five-page letter of inquiry. Always follow the specific funder’s stated length; exceeding it signals that you did not read the guidelines.

Should I send a letter of intent if it is optional?

Generally no, especially at NIH, where optional and unsolicited LOIs are now ignored. For other funders, an optional preliminary contact can occasionally introduce your project to a program officer, but it is rarely decisive. Spend that time strengthening the application or, for foundations, the inquiry letter that actually controls access.

Bottom Line and Next Steps

The headline is simple: the federal letter of intent that dominated grant advice is largely gone, NIH having retired it outright, while the foundation letter of inquiry it was so often confused with remains a live gatekeeper. The practical takeaway is to stop asking whether to write “a letter of intent for grants” as if it were one task, and instead identify the funder, read the current notice, and put your effort where a document is actually scored.

If you have determined that you do need to write an inquiry letter or a still-required federal preliminary, our gallery of sample letter of intent and inquiry templates gives you proven formats to adapt for federal and foundation funders alike. And if the stakes are high enough that you want the inquiry written and positioned by people who do this for a living, the team behind OpenGrants’ managed grant writing services can build the document around the specific funder you are targeting, so you spend your effort on the gate that decides whether you get to apply at all.