In order to receive a grant you need to be well prepared. This means you need to have a good grant proposal. There are some basic things you need to know and do every time you apply for any kind of grant.
When there is an announcement about a grant program, there is always an official who is listed there. You have to contact him and find out all the information you need and ask some questions if you have any doubts. On grants.gov there is a special page named Applicant resources with many useful tools and documents about the process. If you are applying for the first time, you probably don’t know that you need to have a DUNS (Dun and Bradstreet Data Universal Numbering System) number. This is a nine-digit number for identification that differentiates business entities. It is very easy and very simple to get this DUNS number. Just go their website or call 1-866-705-5711. “Developing Competitive SAMHSA Grant Applications” Participant Manual is made for organizations which have skills to write a grant application.
Even though, the goal of this manual is to help organizations, it can also help people when they are applying for any kind of grant. Tips for Novice Grant Seekers is yet another type of manual with useful information on the process of applying. The Foundation Center offers training for organizations which need help, when going through the grant seeking process.
The US Government has another type of help for you, the grant seekers. It has workshops which teach new beginners and also experienced applicants the best tips and tricks on writing the perfect competitive grant proposal. Attendants claim that this has been the best part of their application process, and it has been very useful and helpful way for learning how to write the proposal. There are some other similar workshops but those can cost a pretty large sum of money. And, if you had the money, you wouldn’t be applying for a grant. Pretty logical but attendants agreed that this workshop is great, maybe even better than those that were more expensive. They were very helpful in giving information on all areas of the application.
Results have shown that almost all the applicants that have been denied did not fulfil the application requirements These workshops focus on teaching the best ways on how to write the perfect proposal. They want to help the applicants to have almost 90 % of the job done before even applying. Applicants attending these workshops learn how to create and write the best statements and that way show how their plan will affect the society in which they live.
Applying for a US government grant may take a while but if you follow these steps you will find it easier to have one accepted.