6 Proven Tips to Find the Best Federal Grant Opportunities

Grant Writing & Funding · Ep.240: 6 Proven Tips to Find the Best Federal Grant Opportunities

Federal grant funding can make a huge difference for your nonprofit organization, government agency, or business!

Federal grant opportunities are out there but to find the best fit programs can be a head scratch.

Where, which ones, and how to apply are all questions I get when folks are looking for federal grant opportunities.

So I’ve broken down a simple 6-Step process for you to find the best-fit federal grant opportunities. For more information, and to get a heap of videos and instructions on federal grant research and grant funding, check out the Bestselling On-Demand Grant Writing Master Course.

Watch Holly Explain Where to Find the Best Federal Grants!

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Step #1 – Visit the Federal Grant Opportunity Website

The United States federal government posts all of its grant opportunities on Grants.gov.

This website hosts all the published funding opportunity announcements (FOA), which are basically the federal grant directions.

Once you are there, make sure you subscribe to their email notifications and select which types of grants you want to be notified about.

Step #2 – Find Federal Funding Opportunity Announcements

Once you are in Grants.gov, go ahead and put in the type of program that you are seeking funding for.

Once you do that, a number of FOAs will pop up and you can see what types of federal funding programs are available. Find some that interest you.

Step #3 – Check Eligibility in the Federal Grant Announcement

Make sure that you are eligible for the grant opportunity. Is the grant:

available to your type of organization (i.e. 501(c)3 nonprofit, government agency, etc.)
in the area that you are located (state, territory, etc.)
funding the type of program you have
enough money to cover your program or part of it
have matching or no matching
a discretionary grant (for nonprofits)
and other types of funding

Step #4 – Visit the Federal Agency Website

If everything looks good after your initial read-through of the FOA, and your organization is eligible, now it’s time to get off Grants.gov and jump over the actual federal agency website.

For example, if it is a grant opportunity from the Department of Education, then go to that federal agency website.

For a list of federal agency websites, check out this page.

Step #5 – Read through Funded Grants

On the federal agency website, look for past or current grant awards for the program you want to apply to.

Read through these grant awards to get a feel for what types of projects that the federal agency is funding.

Sometimes you might even find full grant submissions that were funded, or at the very least abstracts!

This is huge!

Step #6 – Reach out to the Federal Program Officer

Now that everything is a go, return to the FOA and find the contact information for the program officer at the federal agency. Tip: You find this usually at the end of the FOA.

Ask the Federal Program Officer for any clarification about the grant. You can even tell them about your grant program and ask them if it’s a good fit for the grant program.