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Your Complete Guide to Government Grants - Free Online Edition

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Introduction to the government grants seekeing process...

Let's get started!

First off, God bless you for finding our site! You may not yet know it, but by spending the extra time to find our free site you have saved yourself a whole lot of hurt by not buying a grant guide from an unscroupulous internet marketer. A lot of these internet grant sites make you assume you are getting an ebook for a one time fee, only they rebill you month after month. Again, thank you for taking the time to find us, we hope you enjoy your stay, and don't forget to bookmark us!

The first thing to know is what your options are. When searching for grants, scholarships, and loans, you have two main sources. You have the federal (and state) government as well as a huge variety of private sources which include private foundation, individual grant makers, businesses, and organizations to name a few.

As for government (versus private) grants, there are a lot of indirect grant programs available, meaning that they are designed to benefit you, the individual, however the money does not go directly to you. Do not get discouraged by this process, for you are still benefiting even though you do not see the money upfront. For example, lets say you are interested in free business consultation. Anyone who knows about business consultation knows that it can be very expensive. Using our free online grants guide, you will learn how to find the government grant programs offering money for these free services, how to find out what consultants are getting the money, then you can contact that party to take advantage of the free program. A lot of people believe that all government grant programs work by providing the money to the individual up front, then having them spend it. If this were the case, there would be rampant abuse of the government grant system.

As you can see from the example above, there are a lot of third parties which receive the money, then provide the services for free. These third parties are the applicants of the grant program, meaning they are the ones that can legally apply, whereas you are the beneficiary, meaning the grant program was designed to benefit you. These applicants can include schools, colleges, business investment companies, and non-profits just to name a few. Our online grant guide connects you to the actual federal government grant program so you can find and contact the third party and take advantage of what they have to offer. This will all make more sense to you very shortly!

The last source of funding is the private sector. This consists of mainly private foundations, non-profits, charities, venture capital firms, angel investor networks, corporations, and individual grant makers. Their reasons for providing such funds varies from a variety of reasons ranging from ethical, moral, and financial purposes. Some people want to lower their taxes, and some want to give back to their community. The point is there is a lot of financial aid out there, and the only way to find out what is available for you is by doing your own research. The people that provide these funds do not spend a lot of time advertising their offers.

Table of Contents (add this to the top of the page)

Additional financial aid information:

GSA Grant Guide - Online Version

Federal Government Grant Programs

One the first of every October the U.S. government releases the new federal budget detailing where the government is going to spend its money for the year. The United States is fast approaching an anual budget of $4 trillion. By using the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance or CFDA, you can locate where all of this money goes, and see what money was appropriated to benefit you.

Make sure you learn how to navigate this "sea of information" before diving into the CFDA "pool." The steps are outlines below.

Step one.

Alright, so first off you will want to visit the CFDA website or download their offline guide. Start off by searching their list of programs by beneficiary, or however you feel comfortable. As you can see, their information is broken up so you can search for a grant, loan, or scholarship program via a variety of ways.

Step two:

Pay attention to the eligibility requirements for applicants and beneficiaries. The applicant is the third party that can legally apply for this funding. They are the third party which you will need to identify in order to contact them to take advantage of the financial aid program. The beneficiary is you, the person who the financial aid program was designed for.

There will be times when you, the beneficiary, will find a program you are interested in, but have no idea who the third party or applicant is. This is what you should do. Do contact the federal agency offering the assistance. Do not however ask them for an application. Do ask them who the applicant is in your area, and ask for a phone number, and website address. These people hate getting calls from people asking stupid questions like, "How can I get a grant?" Make sure they know that you know the grant seeking process and are not there to waste their time. Once you have the applicants information, you can then contact the applicant to apply with them.

Step three:

Next, you will want to make sure that the financial aid program has not passed its application deadline. If you do find a program you are interested in, but you see that it is past its deadline, no big deal. You have a few options. First, contact the agency and ask them if they know whether or not more funding will be provided next fiscal year. Chances are you can start the application process now. You also have the option of finding other related programs. At the bottom of ever CFDA program listing, there is a section titled "related programs" which contain the program numbers of those which may be of interest to you.

Step four:

Use the section titled "contact information" located within the program description to find the address, phone number, and email address of each agency. Remember, this is the contact information for the actual funding agency, not the third party. When contacting the federal agency be sure to ask only specific questions as described above.

For businesses and organizations seeking assistance, be sure to check the program section titled "pre application coordination" to see if funding is eligible for coverage under EO 12372 Intergovernmental Review of Federal Programs. This is not a required step for individuals, only organizations. If the program is eligible for this coverage then you will need to contact your SPOC or Single Point of Contact located within your state. Your local SPOC will coordinate all federal and state grants for you. These people can help answer all your questions. If you cannot find your local SPOC be sure to contact the federal agency offering the funding and ask them who your local SPOC is.

Step five:

Next, contact the federal agency to make sure that this is a program you can participate in. Double check with them to make sure the program is still active and that funding has not run out for the year. If it has run out you should check and see if you can apply now for next years funding.

Step six:

The last step is to actually apply for the funding. Depending on what type of funding program this is (direct or indirect) will determine what you need to do next. If you are applying directly with the federal agency for direct funding, see our "writing proposals" to get started. Otherwise, if you are an individual seeking indirect assistance you will need to contact the applicant or third party which is responsible for redirecting this funding to you.