Finding And Applying For Government GrantsBy Neal Brown
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-grants.info.
