Where To Find Grants

As you understand from the earlier on site, there are grants available for businesses at the federal, state and local levels that can be used for a wide variety of purposes. Now we will take a more in-depth look at some of the places where you can begin your search for grants that will meet your specific needs.

The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance

This is the largest, and likely, the single-best reference on where to find grants at the federal and state levels of the grant pipeline.

This website is a portal to a database of all types of Federal programs that would benefit state and local governments, Indian tribes, public and private for-profit and non-profit groups, special groups and individuals. This database gives you information about specific grants, and then you can contact the specific office that is in charge of the grant to learn how to apply for it.

You can narrow your search by looking at their Assistance Programs listings page, or you can do a wide sweeping search of all the programs they have listed. Each topic, for example the Agricultural Research-Basic and Applied Research topic, has a corresponding program number that precedes it, which refers to the federal department that is in charge of the particular grant and the numerical order of grants. They will list the type of assistance offered, in this case project grants, and they will tell you how you can and cannot use the grant money. They will list the eligibility requirements, in this case a non-profit university or college or a non-profit research organization.

It can also give information about how to apply and what their evaluation procedure is for the applications and how they award the grant. You will also see what the deadlines are to apply, and how long it will take them to get back to you and let you know if you were awarded the grant or not.

Some grants also have requirements for after the time you have received a grant, which can include things like reports and audits. You can also learn how much money they usually award, and contacts to ask questions. They helpfully also might list related programs. These are other places where you will want to explore to see if your grant proposal will work for these other programs because they are similar to the one at which you are currently looking.

Grants.gov

This is another heavy-hitter grant website that offers over four hundred billion dollars each year in Federal grant money. It is a government requirement that all Federal competitive grants be listed on this website.

You can search for grants by using a keyword search, or a category or agency search, as well as the CFDA number. When you are ready to apply for a grant here, you will discover that it can be done by downloading an application package. Then you can work on it offline and take the time you need to complete it. It can then be submitted online when it is complete. You can also track your application online as well, to see where it is in the process of evaluation and acceptance.

If you choose to apply for a grant at this website, you will need to register with them as either an organization or an individual. Individuals registered as such are only allowed to apply for grants for individuals and not grants for organizations. If you are registering as an organization, you will need to select someone in your organization to be the authorized organization representative who will register with a credential provider.

There is also a helpful e-mail alert feature where they will send you an e-mail describing new grant postings on the site. Here you will find a glossary of the terms that you will see used at the website and a list of frequently asked questions. They also offer an indexed User Guide that takes you through the whole process of finding and applying for a grant at this site.

State and County Economic Development Offices

After you type the above descriptor into a search engine, you will receive a list of different offices. You will want to look for your state and select that one. Each of these sites will usually have a search feature, into which you will type "grants." You should then get a list of what is available in terms of grants. It might be listed as loans and grants. Many states also offer community service block grants which might provide you with the funding you require. Here you may also find energy efficiency grants, project grants and low-interest loans, job creation tax credits, job creation grants, grants supporting research and technology development, and manufacturing equipment grants.

You will also find links to various state agencies. This is a good place to look at agencies that have something to do with your new business, and see what kinds of assistance are available. Some of the state websites might offer a business gateway, and there you can look for grants as well.

Another related resource that will be useful in the grant-seeking process will be your local Small Business Development Center. This organization can help a new small business find funding sources.

The Foundation Center

If you find that there are few grant opportunities available for your proposed new business from the government, do not despair. There are also grant monies available from private foundations. Often these foundations are affiliated with a family, such as the Ford or Rockefeller Foundations. Some foundations provide grants for an area in which they have a specific interest. It might be health issues, or help to children, or women, or minorities, or any number of beneficiary types. There are a wide variety of grants available through foundations, including some that will cover building costs or start-up funds. In general, foundations tend to give money to non-profit organizations, so if you are an individual you might find more grant opportunities available if you become a non-profit entity or if you affiliate with an existing non-profit organization.

If you are looking into grant opportunities available from foundations, one of the best websites out there is for The Foundation Center. They have a complete database on U.S. foundations and the grants they offer. They have five regional library-learning centers and many cooperating collections where the public can access their useful publications and information. This is a great website for individuals who are seeking grants.

Unlike many of the other resources previously covered, the Foundation Center provides help for individual grant seekers. They offer training and tutorials about the basics of finding potential foundation resources that will be a good fit for you. They also offer training about finding a fiscal sponsor or affiliating with a non-profit organization. If you are a non-profit or affiliated with one, there is an Associates Program where there is a researcher on-call who can give answers from all the Foundation Center's databases. They host several message boards where you can post questions as well, and they provide a bulletin in which grant makers request your proposals for specific projects. At this website you can learn more about common grant application format. This allows you to fill out one grant proposal and submit it to several specific foundations, and is a real time saver.

Now that we have gone through some of the best resources for finding grants in more detail, you are probably realizing that you have a vast amount of material to read and process. Our next chapter deals with focusing your attention on the areas that will have the most benefit to your specific situation, and how to avoid some of the pitfalls that can sometimes come with grant seeking.