How to Find Grants for Nonprofits: A Strategic Research Guide

Why Most Nonprofits Struggle to Find the Right Grants

Finding grants is not the hard part. Finding the right grants, the ones your organization is genuinely competitive for, is where most nonprofits fall short. Too many organizations waste weeks writing proposals for funders whose priorities do not align with their work, whose eligibility requirements exclude them, or whose average award size does not justify the effort. Strategic grant research is a skill, and nonprofits that invest in learning it consistently outperform those that rely on scattered Google searches and word-of-mouth tips.

This guide walks through the most effective tools and techniques for identifying grant opportunities that match your mission, capacity, and competitive position. If you are new to the grant landscape, our overview of the grant ecosystem, ethics, and foundations provides essential context for understanding how different funders operate.

Start with Federal Databases: Grants.gov and SAM.gov

For nonprofits seeking government funding, Grants.gov is the primary portal for federal grant opportunities. It aggregates funding announcements from more than two dozen federal agencies. To use it effectively, you need to go beyond basic keyword searches:

• Set up saved searches and email alerts for CFDA numbers relevant to your program areas. This ensures you learn about new opportunities the day they are posted rather than stumbling across them weeks later.
• Filter by eligibility type. Federal grants specify whether nonprofits, government entities, tribal organizations, or individuals are eligible. Applying to grants you are not eligible for wastes everyone's time.
• Read the full Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) before deciding to apply. The synopsis on Grants.gov is a summary. The NOFO contains the actual requirements, priorities, and scoring criteria that determine whether your organization is a strong fit.

Remember that Grants.gov registration through SAM.gov can take two to four weeks. If your organization is not yet registered, start that process immediately rather than waiting until you find a specific opportunity. Our detailed guide on navigating federal grants and the SF-424 covers the registration process step by step.

Foundation Directory Online and Other Prospecting Databases

Private foundations distribute billions of dollars annually, and Foundation Directory Online (FDO), now part of Candid, is the most comprehensive database for researching them. FDO allows you to search by geographic focus, subject area, type of support, and grant size. The key strategies for using it effectively include:

• Analyze giving patterns, not just stated interests. A foundation may list "education" as an interest area but primarily fund STEM programs for rural youth. The grants list tells you what they actually fund.
• Examine past grant amounts. If a foundation typically awards grants between $5,000 and $25,000, submitting a request for $200,000 signals that you have not done your research.
• Identify program officers and trustees. Understanding who makes funding decisions helps you determine whether a personal introduction or letter of inquiry would be appropriate.

Beyond FDO, state-level databases, community foundation portals, and corporate giving programs all represent searchable funding pools. Many states maintain their own grant clearinghouses that aggregate both government and private funding opportunities specific to that region.

IRS 990 Analysis: The Overlooked Research Goldmine

Every private foundation in the United States is required to file an IRS Form 990-PF, which is publicly available. These filings contain a complete list of every grant the foundation made during that fiscal year, including the recipient organization, the amount, and a brief description of the purpose. This is arguably the most valuable and most underused grant research tool available.

To conduct a 990 analysis:

• Identify foundations that fund organizations similar to yours. Search for peer organizations in your field and see which foundations support them.
• Track funding trends over time. Download multiple years of 990s to see whether a foundation is increasing or decreasing its giving in your area.
• Verify alignment before applying. If a foundation has never funded an organization like yours, a cold application is unlikely to succeed regardless of how strong your proposal is.

Tools like ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer and Candid's 990 Finder make it straightforward to access these filings without charge.

Keyword Triangulation: A Smarter Search Strategy

One of the most effective advanced techniques is keyword triangulation, which involves searching for grant opportunities using three different categories of terms simultaneously:

• Mission keywords: Terms that describe your work, such as "youth development," "food insecurity," or "workforce training."
• Methodology keywords: Terms that describe how you deliver services, such as "mentoring," "case management," or "community health workers."
• Population keywords: Terms that describe whom you serve, such as "rural communities," "formerly incarcerated individuals," or "first-generation college students."

By combining one term from each category in your searches, you dramatically narrow results to opportunities that genuinely match your organization's profile. This approach is far more efficient than single-keyword searches that return hundreds of irrelevant results. For more on systematic prospecting methods, including how to build and maintain a funder pipeline, see our article on strategic grant research and prospecting.

Building a Sustainable Prospecting Pipeline

Effective grant research is not a one-time activity. It is an ongoing process that feeds a pipeline of opportunities at various stages of readiness. Maintain a tracking spreadsheet or CRM that records each funder, their deadlines, your assessment of fit, the status of any relationship-building activities, and your decision about whether to apply. Review and update this pipeline monthly. Organizations that maintain an active pipeline of 20 to 30 prospective funders at any given time are far more likely to sustain consistent grant revenue than those that search reactively when budgets get tight.

Key Takeaway

Finding grants for nonprofits is a research discipline, not a guessing game. The organizations that win the most funding are not necessarily the ones with the most compelling missions. They are the ones that invest in systematic research, use the right tools, and pursue only the opportunities where they have a genuine competitive advantage. Strategic prospecting saves time, improves success rates, and builds a predictable funding pipeline.

Ready to master grant research alongside every other stage of the proposal process? The Complete Grant Architect course teaches you how to build a comprehensive prospecting system, evaluate funder fit, and move from research to funded proposals with confidence.