Overview

Grants from the Government are awards of monetary help from a federal agency to a grant-seeker to perform a public purpose of support or stimulation set out by specific legislation. They are not provided for general, unspecified spending or, importantly, to provide assistance for existing projects. Grants are given for something new – definite, well-defined projects which respond to specific laws. So you should remember that if you plan to apply for a grant from the government you will in most cases need to plan something not in your current budget or projects.

Grants from the Government are given for multiple years and vary according to purpose. Award sizes may be just a few thousand dollars or many millions. Check specific articles for more about Pell Grants, Business Grants and Research Grants. To learn about newly announced grants, see the real-time information updated constantly at the bottom of each page on Win Government Grants.

Government Grant Funds Available

People and organizations really do receive money from the Federal Government in the form of grants! In fact, in 2009 over $700 billion was awarded by the top ten grant-providing Departments (in terms of dollars awarded). Actual numbers for 2009 for those departments (per usaspending.gov, an official web site of the U.S. government) are as follows - these figures updated in June of 2010):

• Department of Health and Human Services - $361.90 billion
• Department of Education - $114 billion
• Department of Transportation - $59.65 billion
• Department of Housing and Urban Development - $31.80 billion
• Department of Energy - $13.70 billion
• Department of Agriculture - $11.10 billion
• Department of Labor - $10.80 billion
• Department of Homeland Security - $10.80 billion
• Environmental Protection Agency - $9.90 billion
• Department of Labor - $10.80 billion
• National Science Foundation - $8.20 billion

As a result of the federal stimulus program (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009), agencies have new funds and incentive to make awards. The most comprehensive source of information is grants.gov.

Award Information

When grant announcements are made they generally include details about the estimated size of the award, , including: the expected number of awards to be made; projected size of award(s); and the time period covered by the award(s)

See Also: Pell Grants

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Federal Grants".