Category Archives: grants.gov

Grants.gov Trouble

If you have been trying to upload a grant to grants.gov within the last several days, you have been frustrated. As many of us predicted, the grants.gov servers went down when over 27,000 agencies tried to upload applications at the same time.

Overall, grants.gov activity of all kinds has doubled in the past several months, straining the already glitchy system to a breaking point.

The grants.gov blog says that everything is fixed now, but please be aware that the warnings to start early with your uploads (not waiting until the last day) are more important than ever.

Also, you should know that several federal agencies have reverted to their old electronic grants submittal formats, stepping away from grants.gov for now, until they can be sure the glitches are all worked out.

What does this mean for YOU? You may need to register all over again on a new system that you haven’t used recently. Here are our tips for success in this interesting period of many opportunities and much competition:

  • Read the directions very carefully on any grant you are considering. Pay attention to submittal instructions.
  • If a new or different electronic submittal process is included in the RFP, register early.
  • Set your own deadline of about 3 days before the actual grant deadline so you can be sure you resolve any submittal issues with plenty of time to spare.
  • Most importantly, don’t let this unprecedented windfall of special grant opportunities pass you by! Don’t just search grants.gov my agency for opportunities. Look at all of the available FY 09 Recovery Act grants. You will probably find one or more that is a perfect fit for your community in an unexpected category.

Grants.gov Trouble

If you have been trying to upload a grant to grants.gov within the last several days, you have been frustrated. As many of us predicted, the grants.gov servers went down when over 27,000 agencies tried to upload applications at the same time.

Overall, grants.gov activity of all kinds has doubled in the past several months, straining the already glitchy system to a breaking point.

The grants.gov blog says that everything is fixed now, but please be aware that the warnings to start early with your uploads (not waiting until the last day) are more important than ever.

Also, you should know that several federal agencies have reverted to their old electronic grants submittal formats, stepping away from grants.gov for now, until they can be sure the glitches are all worked out.

What does this mean for YOU? You may need to register all over again on a new system that you haven’t used recently. Here are our tips for success in this interesting period of many opportunities and much competition:

  • Read the directions very carefully on any grant you are considering. Pay attention to submittal instructions.
  • If a new or different electronic submittal process is included in the RFP, register early.
  • Set your own deadline of about 3 days before the actual grant deadline so you can be sure you resolve any submittal issues with plenty of time to spare.
  • Most importantly, don’t let this unprecedented windfall of special grant opportunities pass you by! Don’t just search grants.gov my agency for opportunities. Look at all of the available FY 09 Recovery Act grants. You will probably find one or more that is a perfect fit for your community in an unexpected category.
Published by Creative Resources & Research http://grantgoddess.com

What You Need To Know About Grants.Gov

O.k., I’ll admit it. I was not very fond of http://www.grants.gov/ when it first came out. It was glitchy. It was cumbersome. It cramped my creative style.

Things have changed. Not only have major improvements been made to the whole grants.gov system, but I have adjusted to change…and now I embrace it. It helps that I have no choice.

What is grants.gov? It is the online source for finding and applying for federal grants. Most, although not quite all, federal grants must now be submitted through the grants.gov website.

Here are some important things for you to know about grants.gov:

  • Your organization must be registered on grants.gov prior to submitting a federal grant through the system. Registration is not too difficult, but it is a multi-step process that can take up to a week to complete. If you think you might want to consider submitting a federal grant this year, I highly recommend that you register now. Waiting until the wee before your grant is due is a bad idea.
  • If you were registered in the past, you may need to update your registration. Log on to the system and make sure that your registration is still valid. Update any authorized users and email addresses that need to be updated.
  • Grants.gov has a new blog now with some nifty information. It is definitely worth checking out. For example, today I learned that there are 165 different grants closing on September 30/October 1 (63 for HHS and 101 for EPA). The system is going to be really busy (translation = expect long upload times and glitches), so we should all plan on submitting our applications early.
  • You can sign up on the website to have notifications of all new grant announcements sent to you via email. You have to wade through announcements for pesticide grants and loads of medical research grants, but it also gives you access to the announcements you want as soon as they come out.
  • The website now has an RSS feed so you can subscribe to find out about any updates to the website as they happen.

If you are even remotely thinking about applying for federal grants, you should check out grants.gov. Accept it. You’ll be happier.

What You Need To Know About Grants.Gov

O.k., I’ll admit it. I was not very fond of http://www.grants.gov/ when it first came out. It was glitchy. It was cumbersome. It cramped my creative style.

Things have changed. Not only have major improvements been made to the whole grants.gov system, but I have adjusted to change…and now I embrace it. It helps that I have no choice.

What is grants.gov? It is the online source for finding and applying for federal grants. Most, although not quite all, federal grants must now be submitted through the grants.gov website.

Here are some important things for you to know about grants.gov:

  • Your organization must be registered on grants.gov prior to submitting a federal grant through the system. Registration is not too difficult, but it is a multi-step process that can take up to a week to complete. If you think you might want to consider submitting a federal grant this year, I highly recommend that you register now. Waiting until the wee before your grant is due is a bad idea.
  • If you were registered in the past, you may need to update your registration. Log on to the system and make sure that your registration is still valid. Update any authorized users and email addresses that need to be updated.
  • Grants.gov has a new blog now with some nifty information. It is definitely worth checking out. For example, today I learned that there are 165 different grants closing on September 30/October 1 (63 for HHS and 101 for EPA). The system is going to be really busy (translation = expect long upload times and glitches), so we should all plan on submitting our applications early.
  • You can sign up on the website to have notifications of all new grant announcements sent to you via email. You have to wade through announcements for pesticide grants and loads of medical research grants, but it also gives you access to the announcements you want as soon as they come out.
  • The website now has an RSS feed so you can subscribe to find out about any updates to the website as they happen.

If you are even remotely thinking about applying for federal grants, you should check out grants.gov. Accept it. You’ll be happier.

Published by Creative Resources & Research http://grantgoddess.com