Scheduled System Maintenance May 30 - 31

Grants.gov will be unavailable Saturday and Sunday, May 30-31, 2009 for system maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Over 200,000 Submissions Received!

Grants.gov has reached a new milestone, exceeding the number of submissions in FY 08 before the end of FY 09, as a result of the Recovery Act grant opportunities. On May 18, 2009, Grants.gov processed a total of 205,591 applications, surpassing the 202,133 applications processed in FY 08 with more than four months remaining in FY09.

The unprecedented number of applications processed so early in the fiscal year illustrates the success of the initiative. Grants.gov supports electronic applications that can be downloaded to any computer and provides online user support tools and personalized assistance from a dedicated customer support team. The result is a simplified and effective environment for the grant community to find and apply for grants.

Adobe Reader versions 8.1.5 and 9.1.1 released and compatible with Grants.gov

Adobe has released Adobe Reader versions 8.1.5 and 9.1.1. Grants.gov has tested both these versions and they are compatible. We are in the process of updating the website to reflect these new versions. The update will include adding these versions to the existing compatible version table: http://www07.grants.gov/help/download_software.jsp#adobe811

Check Your Grants.gov Registration Status

To check your registration status, login to Grants.gov with the username and password you created during step three of the registration process. Once logged in, click “Manage Applicant Profile”, if your registration is complete and approved you will see the message “AOR Status: Approved”.

About Registration
Grants.gov registration is a one time process. However, there is one step that requires yearly renewal (step two – CCR, please see Organization Registration page for details) if your organization doesn’t renew their CCR registration this will cause delays when attempting to submit a grant application package.

Registration is required in order to submit grant application packages. If you belong to an organization, you must be designated an Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) in order to submit grants on behalf of your organization. The E-Business Point of Contact (E-Biz POC) within your organization must approve your registration by logging into Grants.gov. You should receive an email once your registration is approved by your organization’s grant administrator (E-Biz POC).

The Grants.gov team is pleased to announce that the backlog of applications waiting to be validated by Grants.gov has been cleared. We expect that validations will be able to keep up with submissions going forward.

Grants.gov has focused significant attention and resources over the last several weeks toward being able to successfully receive a record number of applications leading up to a major grant closing on April 27. Grants.gov successfully received 30,000 applications over an 8-day period from April 20 – 27, nearly as many applications as we received in all of March. In focusing on receipts, however, we realized that we would then be in a position where Grants.gov would be able to receive applications much faster than it could validate them. We felt it was less disruptive to have slower validations of applications than for applicants to have problems submitting applications in the first place.

As a result of the record number of applications received, the backlog of applications to be validated rapidly increased, especially for those submitted directly to Grants.gov rather than through system-to-system submissions. This past week, many applications have taken five days or more to clear validations and be ready for agency download and further evaluation. Our target service level is to validate applications within 48 hours of receipt.

Grants.gov implemented a system change on Friday, May 1, that has allowed us to clear the backlog of applications awaiting validation. Equally important, we expect this change to minimize future backlogs of application validations as we achieve a better balance between receipt and validation processing speeds.

We understand the inconvenience and concern that the slower-than-normal application validations have caused, whether to grantor review processes or to applicants who have been looking in vain for their validation messages. We appreciate your patience as we have worked literally night and day to meet the challenges of unprecedented processing volumes.

The Grants.gov team continues to implement its "boost" intiative and other changes to ensure stable operations at continued high volumes and to improve the user experience for both grantor agencies and grant applicants. We look forward to continued and improved dialogue with users to ensure that Grants.gov fulfills expectations as the Federal Government's primary resource for finding and applying for grant opportunities.