How To Complete a Government Grant Application

The United States government provides generous grants to eligible taxpayers who have secured their application before the deadline. Whether your application is to fund your non-profit organization or to increase your investments, knowing the proper way to complete your government grant application is the only way your request lands on the right desk.

There are many different types of grants that are available for you depending on your needs and eligibility. Among the general categories listed in the Grants.gov website are:

• Agriculture
• Arts
• Business and Commerce
• Consumer Protection
• Community Development
• Disaster Prevention
• Education
• Employment
• Labor
• Training
• Energy
• Environment
• Food and Nutrition
• Health
• Housing
• Humanities
• Income Security and Social Services
• Information and Statistics
• Law and Justice
• Natural Resources
• Recovery Act
• Regional Development
• Science and Technology
• Transportation

After reading more about your chosen grants to apply for, these are the simple steps to do complete your grants application:

1. On your computer, register over at grants.gov and download the Grants Application Package. When doing this part, make sure your Adobe Acrobat is of the latest version to be able to download and read the file for offline completion. After downloading the package, read the instructions carefully to save you a lot of valuable time. Carefully look for any agency-specific requirements prior to going to the next pages to start filling it out.
2. If you’re completing the form online, please remember that you cannot save the form until all required fields have been filled out. This is important as some people think there’s something wrong with the online form whereas they just missed a single field to fill out. Since the online form does not save on its own, make sure to manually save the changes to the form prior to submitting it.
3. When everything on the form is filled out and you’re sure about your application, just click on the “Save and Submit” button at the bottom of the web browser so your application form gets automatically uploaded to grants.gov for filing.
4. Record the tracking number that will be flashed after the upload has finished. Take time to take note of the date and time of the submission for later use.
5. When you’re planning to check on the status of your grants application, you may simply log back on the site and look up your application status either by the tracking number or your Competition ID. The advantage of sending your grant application online is that mainly because of the tracking number provided after successful submission. This keeps you updated on the status of your application as sending it via mail would not provide you one.

Essentially your grants application goes through a strenuous process of filing the application, confirmation of your submission, notifications, submission receipt email, grantor agency retrieval email and the agency assigned tracking number. This tracking number is what you use to check online if your application has been considered or rejected.