government grants

government grants

Maximizing the Impact: A Comprehensive Guide to Securing and Optimizing Government Grants

1. Introduction to Government Grants

The purpose of this handbook is to introduce non-profits to the background and features of various types of federal grants, as well as offering a step-by-step application guide to secure this money. If an organization is awarded a grant, there are additional steps needed to optimize the implementation plan to ensure the highest-impact results. This guide can serve as a starting place for organizations to more effectively and efficiently carry out grant implementation activities. Such information can help to ensure that funding is used in a way that has clear and meaningful social impact.

In response to pressing social and economic challenges, the U.S. federal government has provided assistance to states and local governments as well as private non-profit organizations for decades. Many different legislative acts provide funding for grants programs, and hundreds of billions of dollars in funding are allocated through these programs each year. The intent of these funds is to create efficient and long-lasting change using expertly-crafted, evidence-based activities, typically implemented in partnership with non-profit organizations.

Maximizing the Impact: A Comprehensive Guide to Securing and Optimizing Government Grants

2. Navigating the Grant Landscape

There are thousands of federal, state, and local grant programs. These grants are often not widely publicized, and many programs do not have standardized application requirements, making them complicated to find and apply for. Therefore, your first question will be, “How do I find these grants?” There are multiple methods to learn about grant programs: utilizing central databases and listing services, conducting an internal staff team meeting, as well as reaching out to the funding agency. While there are several commercial listing services that allow you to search for funding, these services require a subscription and can be quite expensive for non-profits and social service organizations, the organizations that need the funds the most. Nevertheless, some federal, state, and local databases are free to the public.

Federal, state, and local governments have numerous grant programs that make funds available to not just non-profits and social service agencies, but also to small businesses, healthcare providers, researchers, and others. These programs, often untapped sources for maximizing an organization’s financial impact, have missions that are not only wide-ranging; they are also flexible and malleable enough to accommodate different needs, scopes, and objectives. However, each grant program includes a specific application process, eligible administrative entities, submission dates, and funding parameters. Deciphering this complex landscape can often seem overwhelming, but having the appropriate knowledge and resources readily available, organizations will not only be able to navigate the grant landscape but also identify funds suitable for them and their clients.

3. Strategies for Successful Grant Applications

The Urban Beautification Program of the Housing and Home Finance Agency is a matching grants program designed to encourage local beautification programs by providing matching funds for architectural, horticultural, and design studies and plans. Grants are not available for the development phase of the plans. The Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 authorizes the expenditure of $10 million for the current fiscal year and $25 million for each of the fiscal years 1967, 1968, and 1969 to pay up to one-half of the costs of an on-the-job training program during the first year of operation.

The success of a federal grant application in most instances depends on the appropriateness of the grant program, requests that are well-justified, cooperative efforts to achieve the stated goals, and the making of sound business-like plans and estimates. Area offices of both federal and state government can assist in the preparation of applications. The payments of the federal contribution of any project are payable only as progress is made. Payments are all or none; the local government should know that it must not only continue the development of the project, but must be prepared to pay 100 percent of the costs until the entire project has been completed. Application for funds for on-the-job training is discussed followed by information on other government grants and technical assistance. Funds may be available from the Small Business Administration for the creation of industrial zones at which small plants can be located.

4. Managing and Reporting Grant Funds

The addition of program income to funds that are authorized to benefit the federal government or as a source for grantee share does not disenfranchise the federal government or other users of federal funds that were not used in the program producing the program income. Any interest incurred during the program’s period will usually be deducted from the program’s income, especially if it is more than $100. In some cases, interest assistance is permitted as part of the grant project and is not deducted from the calculation of funds, such as assistance from the Individual and Family Program. In some cases, the funds in the program will be in a special bank account or repayment fund until the capital replacement charge is involved. Amounts under $100 are remitted to and retained by the payee and are not subject to a refund of the administrative costs.

Title to federal funds passes to the grantee when the costs related to the federal award are incurred. Grantees, as well as their subrecipients, are responsible for program compliance and the proper accounting and reporting of these funds. Grantees are required to keep any interest earned on a federal grant in a non-interest-bearing account in order to maximize the total amount available to carry out grant activities.

The most important obligation that grantees have when receiving federal funds is compliance with federal regulations. If the grantee spends the federal money and cannot demonstrate compliance with federal regulations, the grantee has created a federal violation. It is critical that grantees establish adequate accounting records and maintain them on a current basis that will provide financial and performance reports. The grantee must grant unrestricted access to these records for at least three years following the completion of this award.

Properly Account

5. Case Studies and Best Practices

To respond, five guides – influencing evaluators, topics from application to termination, plug and play company ready, the head check, and working influences – detail an in-depth preparation recommended for immediately responding to any and all grant and related reward programs. They came from the influence diagram approach we used to focus, explore, and refine an ever-increasing pool of nano-focused company-supporting-activity influencing structures. For nine guiding principles, eleven case study documents, thirteen annexes, and seven influence diagrams tell the story of a release candidate for focus tebloblebot. The goal was to characterize the program so that the history of the participating companies showed a superior outcome in their selected market space. Four observations were formally captured with an influence diagram to take to the next nanotech company roughly along the same business plan. Homework from the example companies delivers the bedrock of whatever morphological analysis will serve for any company or program of interest.

Five case studies and a strategy guide provide a very complete description of an open process to evaluate and act upon US Army SBIR Commercialization Pilot Program grants, sometimes known as C3 or Phase II grants. At first, this may not appear to be widely applicable. Companies that are willing to think a bit about all government grants, however, find as part of their strategic plan that similar lessons apply when narrowing a portfolio of government programs down to the best fits and going for alignment. What follows provides a very complete description of the process we followed and how this might fit for many other companies, along with an influence diagram to guide the search for appropriate grants. When companies decide to submit applications for some of the selected and refined grant strategies, evaluator slips can offer pre-influence preparation ups. If internal assessment processes are unique for different programs, however, they are formalized, time to artifact internal readiness preparation is at least doubled. Two case studies on the National Cancer Institute / Small Business Innovation Research program were chosen and structured with an inverted triangle company development process, their selection provided an opportunity to explore the significant question of how to hedge execution risks on the way to proving potential treatment effectiveness. The nanotech-focused evaluations of this report arose from four simple root and route questions applying to a large pool of nanotech companies. The studies suggest their fill of awards represent fifty-nine percent, with considerable strength in some areas; thirteen point five percent of the awards were on annotation topic.

Overview: Private sector funds and government grants usually have much more stringent requirements and reporting expectations. Some can be strict enough to force firms into financial risk or reporting risk in order to utilize the funds. Public companies in any sector are highly incentivized, however, to maximize the impact of non-dilutive additional resources whenever possible. This case study breaks down the strategy many biotech companies use to fast-track development with government grants, especially in nanotech. It is an approach that can be a good fit for many companies, although it requires research and strategy work.