How To Find Grants & Funders

If you are like many, you have already heard of grants.gov and probably search for grants there on a regular basis. This article list some other sources found in the book Demystifying Grant Seeking: What You REALLY Need to Do to Get Grants, these are very good resources to research and find information on corporate and foundation giving. You should bookmark this page for future reference.

A good place to start would be the Foundation Center, which maintains several hundred collections of grant-related reference books located in libraries around the United States. You should look up the location and hours of the closest Foundation Center Library  or cooperating collection. You can get this information by calling 1-800-424-9836 or you can visit them online at www.fdncenter.org

Foundation Center locations are often found in large university libraries or public libraries. Most libraries will likely have some references books to use for funder research. By going to the Foundation Center library or to a large library you should be able to develop a nice amount of grant funder leads. In this stage you simply want to identify a possible list of funders. Don't bog yourself down with doing detailed research on funders you find. That kind of research will come soon enough.

The Foundation Center has 2 printed volume books that are more beneficial to larger organizations, they are the Foundation Grants Index and the Foundation Directory. Smaller organizations really don't have a need to purchase these books. Unless you have a special situation or a national program, your first success in systematic grant seeking is likely to come from local sources. The computerized publications of the Foundation Center databases may be more helpful to you because they contain listings for a great number of funders and grants.

There are also locally published guides to funders. Local guides may be published by your United Way, public library, a government agency, or by a private publisher. There are guides to funders for many states and larger communities, for example the foundation Data Books published for Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and California can be found at www.foundationdatabook.com These guides can provide most of leads for your first several years of grant seeking. It will help you be aware of foundations based in your community or state rather than turn up the Rockefellers and Carnegies. If you can't find a local guide to grant resources at the library, contact your Charities Registrar which is located in the secretary of states office of the Department of Justice.

Another place to look is in Newspapers, Trade Periodicals, Foundation News & Commentary,  and Chronicles of Philanthropy, all of which may be found at the library.

In addition to the information in this article, below are several books ranging from grant writing to grant seeking that will definitely help you in your quest to obtain grants.

Also see our page on Grantwriting Help & Funding Sources