In the way the US government provides services, a large portion of it cannot be advertised either because it a) wastes taxpayer dollars, b) simply isn’t in the budget or c) is prohibited from being advertised.
One such service that isn’t advertised (not by the government anyway) is government grant money. Thankfully there is a central web site for finding out just about anything you’d want to know about it, that being Grants.gov.
Did you know this web site has been around since 2002? It’s true.
Grants.gov is operated by the US Department of Health and Human Services (better known as simply HHS).
What is the best way to navigate Grants.gov when looking for a grant?
The best place to start is by agency. While it’s true you could start by category, searching by agency will usually bring you better results. For example, I get many more listings just by clicking on what’s available for the Department of Defense or Department of the Interior rather than weeding thru the categories.
How do you apply for a grant?
See section Apply for Grants. There’s even a narrated tutorial on how to do it (note: the tutorial does take a while to load – be patient).
Other things you can do
Track your Application. We didn’t have this years ago. You’ll get the info on where your app went, so it’s not just "send it and hope it gets there" kind of thing.
Register yourself. You have to do this to apply for any grant. If you get confused when you see the "funding opportunity number" part, you have to search grants first to see those. For example, the DoD link above lists the "funding number" next to each grant that’s available, so this information is not difficult to locate.
What types of grant opportunities will you find?
Here’s a very short list as there are many:
Restoration/Recovery projects. Maybe you’ll help reconstruct a neighborhood, install some wiring, beautify a park with some landscaping services to give the local community something nice to see, and that sort of thing. One such example is any grant labeled as an RFA (Rural Fire Assistance), which is "Disaster Prevention and Relief". Tough assignment, but totally worth it.
Research. This is divided into several subcategories, but more of the research grants concentrate on environment and biological sciences. For the environment, you’ll find things like endangered species research and water control. For biological science, you’ll find things like breast cancer research.
Education. Grants of these types have many flavors. Too many to list here.
Is there any type of grant that will let me sit on my butt all day and mess around on the internet?
No. It’s an unfortunate truth that too many people see grants as "free money". It’s not free, and you will be expected to produce results should you get approved for whatever you apply for. Any grant money you receive is a privilege and you should treat it as such.
The best mode of thinking when it comes to government grants is to see it as a temporary job. You apply for it, have to be approved ("hired"), the project ("the job") has a specified time limit, you’re expected to produce results.
See it as another means of acquiring gainful employment, just in a different way.
Okay, maybe getting a grant isn’t my thing. How can I find local state jobs?
See www.jobbankinfo.org. Click your state, find your locality and go from there.
For those wondering where "America’s Job Bank" went, this ended operations in 2007, and was probably due to the fact states themselves do a much better job at listing opportunities as it eliminates a lot of red tape. JobBankInfo.org is more or less a pointer site, but it gets you where you need to go.
