How to Find Grants for Nonprofits: A Practical Prospecting Guide

Most nonprofits that say they “can’t find grants” are actually searching only one of the four major grant sources, missing the other three, and concluding the well is dry. The well is not dry. The search method is wrong.

Finding grants is a research process that runs in parallel across federal, state and local, private foundation, and corporate channels. Each has its own tools, timelines, and proposal expectations. This guide covers each channel, the specific tools and steps that work for it, and how to combine them into a sustainable prospecting cadence.

The Four Grant Source Categories

Federal grants. Awarded by U.S. federal agencies (HHS, ED, HUD, DOJ, USDA, NSF, NIH, others). Larger awards, multi-year typical, heavy compliance under 2 CFR 200. Triggers single audit at $1,000,000 in federal expenditures for fiscal years ending September 30, 2025+ — see common single audit findings and federal grant reporting requirements.

State and local grants. State agency programs (some pass-through federal, some state-funded), county and city grants, regional council and metropolitan planning organization grants. Smaller than federal-direct, often less competitive.

Private foundation grants. Family foundations, community foundations, corporate foundations, independent foundations. 990-PF filings are public and searchable. Range from $500 small family awards to $1M+ from major foundations.

Corporate grants and in-kind. Corporate foundations, direct corporate giving programs, employee matching programs, sponsorships, and product donations. Often relationship-driven.

A balanced grants pipeline draws from all four. Concentrating in one creates fragility — federal-only nonprofits face risk in continuing resolution years; foundation-only nonprofits are exposed to foundation priority shifts.

Federal Grants: Where and How

Grants.gov. The centralized federal portal. Every federal agency posts Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) documents here. Free to search, free to subscribe to email alerts by agency or category.

Agency websites. Beyond grants.gov, many federal agencies publish opportunity calendars, technical assistance webinars, and grant-program-specific announcements on their own sites. NIH’s NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts is the canonical NIH source. HRSA, SAMHSA, ACF, and others maintain similar pages.

SAM.gov. Required registration system for any organization receiving federal funds. Free, but registration takes 7–10 business days for first-time applicants. Renewals are required annually. No SAM registration = no federal grant. Start before you find an opportunity.

Federal grant search workflow:

1. Register on SAM.gov if not already.
2. Identify three to five federal agencies whose missions align with your work (start with the parent department — HHS for human services, DOE for education, HUD for housing, etc.).
3. Subscribe to grants.gov saved searches by Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA / Assistance Listings) numbers and by agency.
4. Subscribe to agency-specific announcements (HRSA Grants Announcements, NIH Guide, Federal Register notices for the agency).
5. Read the most recent NOFO for any program you intend to apply to. Read it twice. NOFOs run 50–100 pages and reward careful reading.

Federal NOFOs typically have 30–90 day response windows. Successful federal applicants pre-position — they understand the program well before the NOFO drops, so they can spend the open window writing rather than learning.

State and Local Grants: Where and How

State and local grant searches require state-by-state work. There is no national centralized portal.

State grant portals. Many states have a centralized portal:

• California Grants Portal (grants.ca.gov)
• New York Grants Gateway
• Texas eGrants (state agency-specific)
• Pennsylvania DCED Single Application
• Illinois GATA portal
• Most other states have agency-specific pages without a single portal

Search “[state] grants portal” or “[state] grant opportunities” to find the closest equivalent.

State agency websites directly. State human services, education, justice, environment, agriculture, and health departments administer grants. Most pass through federal funds and add state requirements. Sign up for agency mailing lists.

City and county. City community development departments, public health departments, and human services departments administer pass-through federal funds (CDBG, ESG, CSBG, and others) and sometimes locally funded programs. Smaller competition pools, predictable cycles. Often overlooked.

Regional councils and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). Some federal transportation, environmental, and economic development funds flow through regional councils. Worth checking for nonprofits whose work has a regional dimension.

State nonprofit associations. State associations (e.g., the California Association of Nonprofits, Florida Nonprofit Alliance) often share grant alerts and host webinars on state opportunities. Membership pricing is usually modest.

Private Foundation Grants: Where and How

Foundation grants are the most heterogeneous category, ranging from $500 family foundations to multi-million-dollar national foundations. Discovery requires both database tools and direct 990 review.

Foundation Directory Online (Candid). The most comprehensive subscription database. Covers private, corporate, and community foundations. See our Foundation Directory Online guide for tier pricing and search techniques. Free access at participating Funding Information Network libraries.

Instrumentl. Active grant opportunity tracker. Subscription pricing similar to FDO. Stronger for forward-looking opportunities and deadline tracking; weaker for retrospective funder research.

GrantStation. Opportunity database with broader U.S. and international coverage. Subscription pricing similar.

ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. Free public 990 and 990-PF search. Best when you already know the funder name; weaker as a discovery tool.

IRS Tax-Exempt Organization Search. Free official IRS database. Confirms 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) status and lists available 990 filings.

Peer organization 990s. Pull 990 filings from three to five peer organizations doing similar work in similar geographies. Their schedule of contributors and grants received reveals the foundations actually funding your space. This is the highest-yield free prospect research method most nonprofits skip.

Community foundations. Every state has community foundations covering specific geographic regions. Most accept applications for both their own grant programs and donor-advised fund grant requests. Read community foundation grants guide for the full approach.

Foundation grant search workflow:

1. Pull the most recent 990s of three to five peer organizations.
2. Identify foundations giving to multiple peers — those are higher-probability prospects than single-grant funders.
3. Cross-reference each candidate foundation’s 990-PF: confirm grant range, geography, subject focus, and whether they accept unsolicited proposals.
4. Visit foundation websites for current priorities and application instructions.
5. Build a CRM record per foundation with cycle dates, contact, request range, and notes.
6. Cultivate the relationship before the application opens — most foundation grants are won upstream of submission.

Corporate Grants: Where and How

Corporate giving is fragmented and relationship-heavy.

Corporate foundations. Many major employers operate a corporate foundation that files 990-PF. Walmart Foundation, Bank of America Foundation, Wells Fargo Foundation, Target Foundation, Costco Wholesale Charitable Foundation, etc. Treat as private foundations for research purposes.

Direct corporate giving programs. Companies make charitable grants outside their foundation. These are reported on corporate websites under “Community Impact,” “Corporate Citizenship,” or “Sustainability.” Less data, more variability.

Employee matching gift programs. Many large employers match employee donations 1:1 or higher. Surface these via Double the Donation, HEPdata, or direct employer pages. Easiest “found money” most small nonprofits never collect.

Sponsorships. Local businesses sponsor events, programs, and sponsorships of named program elements. Different from grants but should be on the same prospecting list.

In-kind donations. Product, services, and pro bono support. Tech for Good (TechSoup) is the canonical resource for software donations. Pro bono legal services through organizations like Lawyers Alliance for New York, Pro Bono Partnership, and state bar associations.

Building a Prospecting Cadence

Random sporadic prospecting produces random sporadic results. A sustained cadence produces a pipeline.

Weekly:

• Review grants.gov saved-search alerts and agency announcements. Triage to the development director.
• Scan state portal updates and any state association alerts.
• Update CRM for any prospect movement (call notes, application status changes).

Monthly:

• Run prospect research session: pull two to three peer organization 990s, identify new foundation candidates, validate against 990-PF.
• Review foundation cycle calendar — what’s open, what’s closing, what’s coming.
• Refresh internal program documentation needed for proposal sections (logic models, evaluation data, key personnel CVs).

Quarterly:

• Audit pipeline coverage by funder type. Are you over-concentrated in any one channel?
• Review current grant portfolio for renewal opportunities. Most foundation grants are renewable; renewal proposals are higher-yield than new prospect cultivation.
• Plan ahead for the next federal NOFO cycle — many federal programs telegraph their NOFOs months in advance through technical assistance webinars.

Annually:

• Rebuild the prospect research foundation: refresh 501(c)(3) determination letter, update audited financials, refresh organizational capacity narrative, refresh evaluation data.
• Review prospect tools (FDO, Instrumentl, GrantStation) and decide on subscription renewal.

Common Prospecting Mistakes

1. Searching only one channel. Foundation-only or federal-only nonprofits leave money on the table.

2. Chasing keyword matches without validating. A keyword match in FDO is a hypothesis, not an opportunity. Validate against the funder’s recent 990-PF and current website.

3. Ignoring the local/regional layer. City, county, regional council, and MPO grants are persistent and underutilized.

4. Skipping peer 990 review. The single highest-yield free prospecting method, and the most often skipped. Pull peer 990s. Read them.

5. Going wide without going deep. A list of 100 foundations is less useful than 15 foundations you understand well and have relationships with. Cultivation beats discovery for steady-state pipeline.

6. Not tracking pipeline status. Without a CRM (or at minimum a spreadsheet) tracking every prospect, contact, deadline, and status, prospects fall through. See grant management best practices.

7. Assuming the proposal is the work. Most foundation grants are won before the proposal is submitted. The work is the cultivation. The proposal documents the conclusion.

A Realistic First-Year Pipeline

For a nonprofit starting from a thin grants pipeline:

• Months 1–2: Set up SAM.gov registration, establish grants.gov saved searches, identify three to five priority federal agencies, sign up for state portal alerts, pull peer 990s, build initial foundation prospect list of 30–50 candidates.
• Months 3–4: Validate every prospect, narrow to a serious list of 15–20, begin LOI submissions and program officer outreach for foundations with current open cycles.
• Months 5–6: Submit first batch of foundation proposals. Begin federal NOFO pre-positioning for the next cycle. Cultivate relationships with state agency program officers.
• Months 7–12: Receive first foundation decisions (most cycles are 4–6 months from submission to award). Begin federal submissions as NOFOs open. Refresh prospect research quarterly.

The first year is investment-heavy and award-light. By year two, the same effort produces a steadier flow of decisions, because the cultivation work compounds.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I find grants for a brand-new nonprofit? Most foundations require at least 1–2 years of operating history and audited financials. New nonprofits should focus on (1) fiscal sponsorship to access foundation funding through an established sponsor, (2) local government and community foundation grants that fund startup organizations, and (3) corporate sponsorships and in-kind support that have lower track-record requirements.

Are there grants for individual programs vs. operating support? Most grants are restricted to specific programs. Operating support grants — sometimes called general operating support (GOS) — are rarer and harder to win. Some foundations specialize in GOS (the Ford Foundation, MacArthur, Hewlett, and others have made commitments). Track these separately.

How do I find grants for specific causes (animals, arts, environment, etc.)? Filter foundation databases by NTEE classification or Candid taxonomy. Sector-specific funder networks exist (Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, Animal Grantmakers, Grantmakers in the Arts, etc.) and publish member lists.

Do I need to register with grants.gov to find grants there? Search is open without registration. Application submission requires SAM.gov and grants.gov registration.

How do I avoid “grant scams”? Legitimate grants are not solicited from individuals via cold email. Legitimate grants don’t require an application fee. If you’re being asked to pay to apply, it’s not a grant.