Tips for Nonprofits Seeking ARRA Grant Opportunities

Register

Register your organization at grants.gov. This is the ongoing source for federal grant announcements and registration is required for grantees. www.grants.gov

Subscribe

Subscribe to The Foraker Group mailing list to receive updates from the Anchorage Mayor’s Office and others on ARRA funding opportunities.  www.forakergroup.org

Be realistic

ARRA federal grant dollars for nonprofits will for the most part be through existing grant programs and will be geared towards nonprofits who have received federal grants in the past.

Projects included in the ARRA will also need to be “shovel ready” to qualify. Projects will need to have had a full development process, and not just be “good ideas.”

Search

To find out what opportunities exist for your area of work, use the “find” function in pdf documents [ctrl f] to search for key words. Use this technique to search the summary document from Senator Begich’s office or the Recovery Act itself.

Partner

If you have a “shovel ready” project that meets a compelling need that fits into the ARRA, but don’t have the capacity or readiness to take on the proposal, project, and grant management…you could partner with other agencies to do so. One of the partners would have to take the lead to be the fiscal agent. Realistically those partnerships and project development will already be mature in process.