Government tenders offer opportunities that provide organizations with a continuous source of revenue. Undertaking contracts often involve a huge cost, therefore having a strong financial backup is one of the important elements of participating in government tenders.
Often do organization do not undertake to tender owing to the entire project cost that organization will have to bear in order to participate. In such situation, federal and government including the state and local government offer grants to these businesses in order to help them participate.
Grants are non-profit funding opportunities that provide financial assistance towards achievement of specific project objectives. Grants are in the forms of fund awarded to the organization to participate in the project. And to win one, you have to successfully apply for grants.
To start with, you need to learn more about the organizations that offer grants to participate in tenders. These agencies or organization have eligibility criteria for the businesses to which they offer the grant. Read the criteria carefully to understand which agency can help you with the funds. There are plentiful funding agencies that offer grants but an application of grants from each agency is different and can be a little tedious job.
So here we discuss few guiding essentials that might be helpful to you while you apply for grants from these agencies.
- Selecting the Right Funding Agencies: Applying for grants you are not eligible for can have a negative impact on your business along with wastage of your time. It is very much obvious to get distracted by the amount of the grant and we might want to apply. But that can be of no use unless we are eligible as the process involves huge documentation and efforts.
Moreover, applying to the grants you are eligible for can not only increase your chances of applying successfully but also help you in quick participation. Therefore, look beyond the grant award and select the right funding agency with right specifications.
- Investigate the Funding Agency: Try to gather as much information as possible about the funding agency. What kind of projects do they fund? What are the core elements of this project? What is the awarding criterion? And other important information. Conducting a research on the funding agency and understanding their goal will help you to convince them how you can help them in achieving their goals. Often the winning applicants are those who promise to provide best of the solutions.
- Strengthen your Application: As there are 1000 government grant programs but you may qualify only for some handful. Identify the requirements of the application. Some grants are open to an organization that has been in business for a certain period of time. Strengthen your documents with the reports of Audits, financial status, standardized reports and other shreds of evidence mentioned in the application.
Avoid use of certain terms and words which the funding agency does not support. For instance, if the funding agency does not support technology initiatives avoid using such words in your answers.
- Use a Grant Writing Agency: Like tender proposal writing, writing a grant proposal is a complex task and needs the practice to make it perfect. So, if you don’t have that expertise in-house don’t shy from using the services of the grant writing agencies. These agencies are long-time players and have had helped many businesses like yours to submit the grant application.
- Ask for help: Chances of getting funded by the government agencies are very low. Therefore, if this is your first time to apply for the grant, we suggest you take help. Reach out to those who have had applied and won the grant you are seeking for. It is easy to find this information as often these agencies publish the names of the winners of the grant. Reach out to them to learn what did they do to win the grant. As this will be a helpful guide for your organization to apply while writing the Grant application.
Grants are one of the ideal sources of funding when you are running short of funds. The only problem is they are not very easy to win, you really have to write a great grant application for the agencies to consider your proposal. As you look for the organizations that provide you grant don’t forget to look for government tender opportunities as they are also a lucrative source for business expansion.
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