The two research data librarians at an R1 university were asked to participate in the application process for an NIEHS Superfund grant as co-PIs on the Data Management and Analysis Core (DMAC). At this institution, librarians do not have faculty status and are members of a different professional union that has boundaries for weekly hours and additional compensation. These librarians also have a split role as subject specialists and research data services and are not full-time data librarians. The library does not have a history of librarians participating in grants in this capacity, and the application process raised many questions about how this process is administered for university staff versus faculty. Assumptions about the librarians' availability and compensation were made by grant PIs (Principal Investigator), and a realistic picture of what the library could offer was presented in response. The librarians were also asked to assist in writing a grant proposal for services not currently in place and that might include services in areas where we they do not have either experience or skills, or are outside of their job description and scope. This lightning talk will discuss how the librarians handled conversations on time and compensation, how they wrote their portion of the grant for inclusion of current services along with potential services that do not yet exist, and how they used their current knowledge and skills to provide a solid foundation on funder mandates, campus resources, and data management practices in the grant application. This grant has not been awarded yet, and may not be before the 2022 RDAP Summit, so this talk will only discuss the application process. Click here<https://uconncalendar.lib.uconn.edu/appointments/jennifer> to schedule a virtual meeting with me.