Highlighting Changes to the Grants.Gov Platform

For organizations seeking federal funding, grants.gov is one of the most essential tools in your toolbox.

The platform, which acts as a single point clearinghouse for federal grant programs, has gotten a much-needed facelift and system-wide enhancements to provide grant-seekers with a more user-friendly experience when navigating the site.  

So what has changed, and what can we expect?

CURRENT UPDATES:

In short, the entire Grants.gov platform is transferring over to a new content management system that aligns with the United States Web Design System (USWDS) standards. The initial update to the website has already unveiled a new and improved look, including added accessibility features for individuals with disabilities. This update will also impact smartphone and tablet users as the new design is aimed to be mobile-friendly for grant seekers on the go.  

The Project Management Office is working to provide users with an updated and improved search engine to make it easier to find relevant grant opportunities. There are also plans to integrate the application submission process into the site.  

Lastly, Grants.gov has released an improved version of its self-service chatbot, aptly named “Grant”, to provide responsive assistance to users. It will be able to answer the most frequently asked questions for Grants.gov users. It will also be continuously updated moving forward.   

PENDING UPDATES: 

Although much progress has been made with the release of the new platform, there are still a handful of pending functionality updates which will be released over the next few months. All of the post-login pages will soon be receiving the same updates to USWDS standards and the chatbot will be available for all sections of the website.  

There are also set number of known issues with the update that are listed as “priorities” for the Project Management Office to resolve. Some of the known issues include:  

• The inability to subscribe to individual grant opportunity forecast pages to receive automatic email notifications when an agency updates opportunity details;  

• The apply button on NOFO View Grant Opportunity page is always enabled, even when the opportunity has no open packages or even when the logged in user does not have privilege assigned by their organization to create workspace; 

• The chatbot is unavailable on the homepage;  

• Users are unable to export opportunity search results to Excel; 

• And search results using lowercase FON field returns no results.  

You can find the entire list of known issues, and their anticipated dates for resolution here.  

DID YOU KNOW?

Did you know that, on average, more than 80 grant opportunities are posted to Grants.gov each week? That number can be as high as 150 during peak times of the year!

Contact us today to learn about our grant identification and strategic positioning services to ensure you never miss an opportunity and are prepared before they are open.