What this Document Is
This is a loose list of resources to find grant opportunities. It is worth noting that exhaustive lists of opportunities are hard to come by—and typically very expensive (grant agencies are careful about sharing their opportunities for the same reason you probably don’t put your personal phone number in public forums!). This list is compiled from my and student work in the past.
I will continue updating this resource as I encounter new and useful things.
List of Live Resources
National
Grants.gov Grants.gov is a standard starting point when looking for public funds for a project. It archives all live, upcoming and closed opportunities from every government agency that offers grant funding. Obviously, this means you will need to do some careful searching to find things that are applicable to your goals. Grants.gov is an index resource rather than a host for grant submissions, so all opportunities that you click on will follow a similar format. Each will give you information about the granting agency, grant limits, proposal qualifications and proposal submission. If you use this resource for class, you must do more research on the agency or organization behind the grant.
NIH Grants (https://grants.NIH.gov/funding) Like Grants.gov, the National Institutes of Health funding site is primarily an index. However, because grant types and organizations are more similar than on Grants.gov, you will find more detailed information on each grant opportunity. Do note that the NIH funds a wide variety of projects: you will find multimillion dollar support for researching AIDS and cancer treatment alongside $50,000 funds for small, local interventions. The structure of each resource is also little wonky. You will need to do quite a bit of scrolling down (or clicking through a series of links) before you find the full text of a grant.
NACCHO: The National Association of County and City Health Officials funds county- and city-level health administration efforts. This is separate from health intervention or outreach. NACCHO tends to be concerned with logistics and bureacratic efficiency. NACCHO grants do not require any kind of membership, but they are often very involved. If you look at a NACCHO grant for this class, let me know. Students typically identify a few faculty members or professional contacts (the Collaborators and Affiliates part of your Biosketch) that they would work with, then fill out specific parts of the NACCHO grant application.
NEA: The National Endowment for the Arts funds a variety of arts and culture projects. This includes fellowships for creative writing (if you’ve got a book you’re trying to finish) and community grants to make culture and history more accessible. In this set, the “Our Town” grant is one of the most accessible for a first-time grant writer, as it is designed to take advantage of existing partnerships you may have in a community and a creative/design ability you’ve been honing.
NEH: The National Endowment for the Humanities funds traditionally academic work. If you’ve got a journal article or book manuscript that you want to polish up, if you have some academic research you’d like to perform or if you’ve got anything that otherwise feels like a “school” project, only bigger, this is the right place to go.
State/Regional
Oregon Community Foundation The OCF supports a variety of public-facing projects in the state of Oregon. These range from business support to health and education, even to public parks development. Like the NIH site, this site can be a little overwhelming if you are just browsing. However, if you have even a loose idea for a thing you’d like to do for the public good in Oregon, this Foundation is an excellent option to look at. Professional Organizations One function of professional organizations is the funding and support of projects under their umbrella. I have worked on curriculum design and writing assessment projects funded by some of my own professional organizations—while the support is typically not very large (up to a few thousand dollars), it can help get a larger project off the ground.
Local
Klamath: Klamath County Economic Development Grant Program The KCEDGP is local to Klamath County and expects grantees to raise a significant amount of their own funds prior to applying. However, that said, if you are looking to start a project that benefits the local Klamath economy (including a small business), this resource is worth checking out. Even if you are not located in Klamath or if you aren’t looking for an economic development grant, this is a resource worth scrolling through to see the proposals of previous awardees.
Locally Judged and Awarded: Walmart Local Community Grants are typically small, but they can be used for a variety of local projects. In the past, students have written proposals for a Walmart grant with the intent of using it as either seed funding or proof-of-concept funding for a larger Oregon Community Foundation, NIH or other grant.
(Note: The Walmart Local Community Grant form and RFP are getting harder to access. This page will take you to a quick outline of what they expected in Spring 2020.)
Professional Society
- ASCE (the American Society for Civil Engineers) offers several types of grants for members of student ASCE chapters, such as the STAY grant to boost or retain membership in student ASCE chapters and Conference Activity Grants to support student ASCE chapters who want to develop activities or events aroung regional conferences.
- IEEE (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) offers a variety of funding opportunities for student members, including scholarships and project funding. However, you must be an IEEE student member to see these opportunities (which is why I have no other links here). If you aren’t already a member, please don’t join just for this class.
- RSNA (the Radiological Society of North America) has funding opportunities for both research and education. Depending on your student level, you might be interested in the research opportunities that support initial study development, or you might be interested in grants to improve radiological science education, particularly if you have some faculty to work with. RSNA does require one person on the grant application to be a dues-paying member.
- SDMS (the Society of Diagnostic Medical Sonography) offers grants for continuing or improving educational practices, scholarships, research and even grants to help pay for certification exams. You must be a dues-paying member of SDMS to apply for many of these.
- NCA (the National Communication Association), like many academic organizations, primarily funds research efforts and outreach associated with their discipline. If you are a student scholar looking for funding to do a large communication-oriented project (that will result in a presentation or publication), the NCA “Advancing the Discipline” grant may be appropriate for you.
