Finding And Applying For Government Grants
According to a U.S. government website, there are $400 billion
in grants currently available in over 1000 different programs.
Naturally with such a huge amount finding a program that you or
your company might qualify for is a huge task.
This article will present some resources and strategies to
locate and apply for grant programs that you may be qualified
for.
The single best source for finding grant opportunities is the
government site at www.grants.gov . There are four
ways to search for grants on this website. The first way is a
basic search. This enables you to search by a keyword, funding
opportunity number, or CFDA number. The CFDA stands for Catalog
of Federal Domestic Assistance. This number and the funding
opportunity number are used for specific grants. Once you have
found a grant program, write these numbers down so that you will
be able to return to the details of that grant quickly using one
of these numbers.
The second type of search is by category. There are 21 different
categories that you can search by including arts, employment,
environment, health, and others. The third way to search is by
government agency. There are at least 40 agencies offering
grants.
The last way is the advanced search which allows you to search
by keyword plus the days since posted, agency, category,
eligibility and more. You can also be emailed automatically when
grants in a particular opportunity number category are posted.
Once you have the Funding Opportunity and/or CFDA number of the
grant for which you want to apply, you need it to download a
grant application and apply for a grant. Be sure to follow the
instructions exactly and review the application several times
for completeness.
You must register to create a Grants.gov account and receive
approval from your organization to submit applications. This
also provides you with the ability to track your application
status. When you are ready to submit the completed application,
you will then need to log into Grants.gov using the username and
password you entered when you registered with.
Once you have submitted an application, you can check the status
of your application submission. You can identify your
application by CFDA Number, Funding Opportunity Number,
Competition ID, and/or Grants.gov Tracking Number.
There are many other resources for locating government grants at
www.us-government-gra
nts.info