Yesterday, I hosted a webinar on edweek.org featuring three winners from last year’s $650 million Investing in Innovation grant competition talking about their projects and the challenges and successes they’ve already experienced.

To those out there planning to apply for this year’s second round of i3, in which $150 million is up for grabs, take note: they also dished advice on how to win—or at least what they thought were keys to their winning applications.

You can watch the hour-long webinar here, which featured Beaverton School District’s Arts for Learning program in Oregon, Baltimore-based Success for All, and the eMINTS National Center at the University of Missouri. A few tidbits of advice included: Make sure you understand and can clearly demonstrate that your proposal meets the evidence requirements, emphasize the role of the school principal in your application, and play up strong partnerships you have with the community or other organizations.

To further help folks sort out the complicated evidence requirements, on Thursday the Education Department and the Institute of Education Sciences is hosting a webinar.

August 2 is the deadline for submitting your second-round i3 application.

If history is any guide, the competition this year will be stiff. Last year just 49 districts, schools, and nonprofits walked away with a grant, out of 1,700-plus applicants.