Government Funding

Sending off a well-written, credible proposal is the first act in the drama. Now comes the mystery – someone, somewhere is going to read it, evaluate it and decide whether or not to fund it. Who are those guys? Who reads, votes, rejects or rewards your effort?

If your organization applies for Federal funding, you’ve gotten to know the commercial data firm Dun & Bradstreet—more specifically its unique numeric identifier called the DUNS number. Your organization probably has (or had) a DUNS number, along with 300 million others, so the Feds could tell exactly which agency or organization you are.

When it comes to applying for grants, most small to mid-sized nonprofits don’t have a lot of staff resources or a bountiful budget for consultants. The challenge is to decide what funding “suspects” are actually good prospects and to make choices about what to pursue. Often the decision is about whether to put more effort into public / government funding vs. private foundation grant-making.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has issued the 2020 version of the Compliance Supplement (CS) to the Uniform Guidance codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Like its predecessors, it is a massive 1,554-page tome. Here are some highlights to help you navigate.

Federal resources and systems for grantseekers have been changing. If your organization participates in the federal grants process or plans to, it’s imperative to stay on top of developments at Grants.gov, SAM.gov, and the federal agencies with which you are most involved.

Before you can manage government grants successfully, you’ve got to untangle a snarl of red tape.

The field of grant development is dynamic. The basic elements of a strong proposal don’t change, but the environment in which funding decisions are made is in constant flux. The trends below remain current. Although not new, they point towards grantseeking realities we’ll be contending with over the coming year.

Even nonprofits that don’t receive direct federal grants often benefit from money provided by state, county, city or other organizations that pass-through federal support. The far-reaching arm of the federal dollar means almost all nonprofits feel the hurricane-force drama pouring out of Washington, D.C.

If your organization has experienced financial difficulty in the past or received a less than perfect audit, you might still get federal grant funds but be designated by the government as a “high risk” grant recipient. If your organization is cash poor, a high-risk grantee designation will make things even harder because you’ll be placed on reimbursement funding status—a kind of funding purgatory. Reimbursement funding status means you must advance your own funds first and then get reimbursed when you submit documentation of spending.

 

Thousands of federal grant proposals are submitted each year. Around 80% will be rejected and around 20% on average will get funded. The required signatures on the federal Standard Form 424 face sheet and the companion “Standard Assurances” bind your organization to comply with each of the 23 assurances associated with receipt of federal funding.