Research administrator interest in large research proposal development and submission support is high, arguably in response to the bleak funding landscape for research and federal agency trends toward making more frequent larger awards. In response, a team from Penn State University and Huron Consulting Group initiated a baseline study to determine how research-intensive academic institutions are structured to provide large proposal support, with the aim of identifying support factors that are impactful on proposal success as defined by funding being awarded. The first step in this process was the development, administration and analysis of a survey on large proposal support and success rates. This first survey of large proposal support structures, support services, and associated metrics was completed by 20 of the top 100 research institutions as determined by rankings from the 2013 Higher Education Research Development Survey (HERD) as reported by the National Science Foundation. Conclusive findings are: 1) A decentralized College/Department/ Center model is the most commonly used large proposal support model; 2) Different large proposal support models have similar criteria in selecting proposals to be supported, the most common of which is awards equaling or exceeding $1M; and 3) Institutional setting is a factor in success rates for larger proposals more than smaller proposals as evidenced by greater variability in these rates.