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What are federal grants? How can you apply for one?

We often hear of federal grants and how they could assist in making our lives better. Well, they actually do make our lives better. But instead of assisting our personal financial necessities such as personal debts and rent payments, federal grants desire to make our lives more desirable by innovating solutions to the problems in the community and the society.

In most cases, federal grants are made to state governments, educational and research institutions, hospitals, non-profit organizations, and the public, all in the hopes of providing an array of services, such as jobs, education and training, health care and nutrition, housing, transportation, and scientific research.

Let's say you're a representative of a local or state government, or an educational research institution, and you've already skimmed through hundreds of web pages searching for the funding opportunity that perfectly fits your institution's needs and abilities, but you're stuck with a problem: You don't know how to apply for this grant.

In this article, we will provide you with a detailed instruction of how you can perfectly and effectively make an application for your preferred funding opportunity.

Without further a do, listed below are the things that you need to do if you are interested in obtaining a federal grant:

1) Go to the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance website (for first time grant applicants) - The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance website could provide you with a general introduction to the grants for which you might be eligible for. Moreover, the website may also provide you with the basic grant description, grant objectives, uses and restrictions, eligibility requirements, as well as other essential related information.

2) Look at the Grants website at Grants.gov (for more experienced grant applicants) - More experience grant seeks often times have a more definite idea of the sort of grant they require and they might prefer to go right to the Grants website and use the "Find Grant Opportunities" feature, which gives them additional control over their search.

3) Prepare to fill out an application - The government has highlighted repeatedly that submitting an application for a grant should not cost you even a penny. The government will not charge any application fees but will require you to acquire the following information:

a) Obtain a DUNS number - The federal government policy stipulates that anybody who is doing business with the federal government should obtain a DUNS number from the Dun & Bradstreet website at http://www.dnb.com.

b) Register with Central Contractor Registration - The government policy also stipulates that anyone who is doing business with the federal government should obtain a CCR number from the Central Contractor Registration website at http://www.ccr.gov.

4) Procure the necessary documents - The federal policy requires grant seekers to submit documents such as a Statement of Intent, List of References, and List of Accomplishments. All of these documents should not come from a personal friend of the applicant but should come from a professional who can attest to a person's qualifications.

Iola Bonggay is an editor of TopGovernmentGrants. She maintains Websites providing resources on small business grants and artist grants.

By Iola Bonggay
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