How to Determine Eligibility for Federal Funding Opportunities

Determining your eligibility for federal grants is an important first step in the federal grant application process.

Funding opportunity eligibility requirements are defined by legislation and federal agency policies. To receive a grant, you must meet an opportunity’s eligibility requirements.

Here are some tips for finding federal funding opportunities for which you may be eligible:

What Is a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA)?

Editor’s Note: This blog post was first published in 2017 and updated on August 18, 2020.

A Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is the document all federal agencies use to announce the availability of grant funds to the public.

What Is the Difference Between Grants.gov and Benefits.gov?

This blog post was first published in 2017 and updated on April 1, 2020.

Grants.gov regularly receives a significant amount of queries from users hoping to apply for personal financial assistance from the federal government. These individuals might be looking for home repair grants or forms of disability assistance.

Others are unfortunately driven to Grants.gov by scam artists posing as agents of Grants.gov (or some made-up variant) who promise “free government grants” in exchange for monthly fees or gift cards.

What Is a Subaward and a Subrecipient?

Note: This blog post was originally published in 2017 and updated on March 18, 2020.

To understand the definitions of “subaward” and “subrecipient”, it helps to think in terms of a grant that has just been won. (If you are not sure what an “award” is, start with the What Is an Award? post, then come back.)

Rather than the grantor (i.e., the grant-making agency) entrusting just one entity with carrying out a federal program, sometimes multiple awardees will shoulder the responsibilities.

In such cases, one entity – the one who submitted the grant application – will serve as a pass-through to the partnering entities, which are called subrecipients.

What Is a Federal Award?

This post was originally published in 2017 and updated on January 2, 2020.

When you hear the word “award,” do you envision the federal government conferring funding to you to implement a public-serving project? Some of you grant professionals did, but it is understandable if you thought of this year’s Best Film, the league MVP debate, or your child’s T-ball participation trophy.

 

OMB Issues Version 1 of the Standard Grants Management Data Elements

The Office of Management and Budget recently issued Version 1.0 of the Standard Grants Management Data Elements. The data elements had previously been made available for public comment from November 2018 to February 2019.

As part of the announcement, OMB, on behalf of the Cross-Agency Priority Goal: Results-Oriented Accountability for Grants Executive Steering Committee (ESC), also published an infosheet explaining how the  Standard Grants Management Data Elements fits within the broader federal government goal of “maximizing the value of grant funding by applying a risk-based, data-driven framework that balances compliance requirements with demonstrating successful results for the American taxpayer.”

What Is a Government Contract? And How Does a Contract Differ from a Grant?

This post was originally published on May 9, 2018 and updated on August 28, 2019.

We expect to hit some turbulence in this blog post, so we have turned on the proverbial fasten seat belt light.

The seemingly simple question, “What is a government contract?”, requires a complex answer. We have divided this blog post into four sections: (1) basic definitions, (2) five differences between grants and contracts, (3) examples of a grant and contract to illustrate these differences, and (4) resources for more information.

 

Spotlight: Recent Federal Funding Opportunities Open to State Governments

This edition of Federal Funding Spotlight features a list of recent opportunities open to state government applicants. The programs discussed below aim to:

• Expand public understanding of the connections between music and wellness;
• Make research contributions in the area of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias;
• Address the problems fish and wildlife will face in the future;
• Help communities and regions devise and implement long-term economic recovery strategies.

Federal Funding Spotlight: Twitter Edition

In this edition of Federal Funding Spotlight, we are highlighting recent Grants.gov tweets about open funding opportunities from the National Endowment for the Arts, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and more.

Click the link below each tweet for a full list of the agency’s current open funding opportunities on Grants.gov.

Federal Funding 🔦 Spotlight: New Opportunities Supporting Public Health

This week’s edition of Federal Funding Spotlight 🔦 focuses on new opportunities from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) supporting:

• National public health laboratories internationally
• Research into Alzheimer’s-Disease-Related Dementias
• Outstanding graduate students recognized for a strong interest in pursuing careers as independent cancer researchers, and more.