Finding
And Applying For Government Grants
By
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.
Where
To Find Grants
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.
Applying
For Grants
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.
Neal Brown
has an MBA in financial management. http://www.us-government-grants.info
has more resources to locate grants.
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