The OpenGrants Blog

Notes From The Grant Economy

Funding programs, eligibility, and the craft of winning — written from the data in the OpenGrants database.

1,271articles and counting
Tips And ResourcesInvitation Only Is Four Different DoorsEleven open records say applications are by invitation only. The useful question is not whether you are eligible, but what produces an invitation.Tips And ResourcesOn a Reimbursement Grant, You Are the BankEight open records where the award arrives only after you have already spent it — and the cash you need on hand is often double the grant.Funding ProfileThe Grant Ends Years Before the Obligation DoesSeven open listings where the money moves once and the duty runs on — a seven-year occupancy covenant, five years of reports, a three-year job promise.Tips And ResourcesEligibility Decided Years Before You AppliedSeven open records where the eligibility test is an administrative status a place already holds — and one where holding that status rules you out.Tips And ResourcesNo Deadline Does Not Mean No ClockSix open records list no fixed deadline, and each runs on a different clock: a federal pilot, a 150-application cap, a queue, a facility audit, your last grant.Funding FridayFunding Friday — September 4, 2026: Who the Program Will Take a Form FromFive open programs where eligibility, not subject matter, decides the application — a corps organization, a state agency, a first-time federal applicant.Tips And ResourcesSome Grants Are Sized by Your Donors, Not Your BudgetSix records where the award is a function of money other people give — a bank's staff, a company's employees, your own donors — not of what a project costs.Tips And ResourcesThe Grants You Must Join Before the Emergency StartsCDC merit-reviews applicants and then sends no money. Texas funds only prior partners. Six records where eligibility closed before the emergency began.Tips And ResourcesSome Grants Only Pay for What the Law Doesn't RequireOne program funds only the reductions regulation doesn't already demand. Another pays the full cost of complying. Six records read on both sides of that line.Funding ProfileFormula Grants That Shrink on a ScheduleSome awards are computed from your tax rolls, not your proposal — and several are built to shrink to zero. How six state programs actually pay out.Funding ProfilePrincipal Forgiveness Is a Grant Wearing a Loan's PaperworkNevada, Florida and Oregon run programs where the grant is a forgiven slice of a loan — and the forgiveness carries an eligibility test the loan does not.Funding ProfileThe Grants Where a Head Start Makes You IneligibleAn NIH R01 bans preliminary data, Caltrans won't pay for work begun before its notice to proceed, and Nebraska reimburses abatement only on an enrolled site.

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