Paying For Grant Information

A lot of the emails that I receive mention the fact that the emailer could only find websites where they would have to pay to get the grant information. Although I find this surprising since I don't get the same results when I am researching for grant information I thought I'd address this kind of thing.

First you have to understand that when you are looking for information about grants it is sort of comparable to finding a needle in a haystack. This is especially true when you are looking for grant programs that you are specifically qualified to apply for. In your search and research for finding grant programs and information about grant programs you may find many grant programs but they won't be the ones that you specifically qualify to apply for. So what do you do? You dig deeper! I think almost everybody qualifies for at least one funding program that isn't one of those loan programs where you have to pay the money back. And it might make you angry to find out that lots of people with a bigger income have been the recipient of grant programs - Ross Perot and Donald Trump come immediately to mind.

Another thing that has been bothering me is the whinning and complaining about having to pay for the information. You really don't have to pay for the information if you find it yourself. Another option for not paying for grant information is for one to go to a social service agency. Part of their job is to know of programs to help other people including funding and grant programs. As far as government grant programs go that information has to made publically accessible to the public and it is via the government's website. Information about the government's grant programs is also available in the public libraries. I have even got information about government grant programs from my local newspaper and from listening to the radio.

Why shouldn't businesses and individuals charge you for finding this kind of information for you? I have some words on my grants page that addresses this. In short it says that once you start looking for this kind of information you will see the time and effort that is required and hopefully it will help you better appreciate the work that has to be done to get this kind of information. Now being taken or getting scammed from one of these companies or individuals is a different thing altogether! One of the warning signs is if you are "guarenteed" a grant. No one can guarentee you a grant. You have to apply for the grant and theoretically speaking the application that best fits the objectives of the entity awarding the grant will be the one that will be awarded the grant. So you have to apply for the grant just like everyone else. If you get scammed by one of these companies there are steps that you can take to report them. I have seen many articles of "grant companies" being investigated after so many complaints were received about them. You too can find out about these companies by doing a simple search online.

Grant research and grant writing require a lot of work and are very time consuming things to do. When you start looking for grant information you will find out how true that is.