5 Best Grants.gov Alternatives & Competitors

If you’re a grant professional, you probably know that navigating Grants.gov can feel like wandering a labyrinth for government funding opportunities. Trust me—as the CEO of the United State's largest dropout prevention organization, I can relate!

Here’s the good news: we’re here to help you explore alternatives that could revolutionize your workflow. In this article, we will take a deep dive into five Grants.gov alternatives, including Instrumentl.

We will review each of the five alternatives based on their:

• Main features
• Types of funders they list
• How user-friendly they are
• How popular they are
• Pricing

Get ready to trade in your frustration and transform your grant management processes. Goodbye inefficiency; hello streamlined fundraising!

There are three key areas where Grants.gov often falls short, prompting many grant professionals to seek alternatives.

1. Usability Issues

Grants.gov’s user interface has long been a source of frustration for grant seekers. The main pain points are:

• A Complex Navigation: Grants.gov’s user interface is a bit of a maze if you don’t have information like opportunity numbers or a CFDA on hand. This makes it challenging to find the right grants quickly.
• A Time-Consuming Process: Tracking your application statuses can be cumbersome and tedious. For example, users often need to navigate through various sections of the website, input specific information, and access different portals to check the status of their applications.

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2. Lack of Contextual Information

Grants.gov fails to provide valuable funder insights that grant professionals need to make informed decisions about whether a funding opportunity is a good match for their organization. These insights include things such as historical giving trends, past grantees, and geographic focus areas.

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This is problematic; without this context, it’s difficult to tailor your grant proposals effectively, ensuring that your applications are as competitive as possible.

Alternative platforms may offer more transparent information about agency goals, evaluation criteria, and past award patterns.

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3. Less Suitable for Small Organizations

While Grants.gov is a central hub for federal grants, it may not be the best fit for smaller nonprofit organizations.

The main reason for this is simply the overwhelming scale of opportunities.

Grants.gov aggregates grant opportunities from various federal agencies, resulting in an extensive database. This huge pool can be overwhelming for smaller nonprofits with limited resources. Alternative platforms focusing on specific sectors or grant types offer grant professionals a more targeted approach.

Here’s something to remember: Federal grants have complex application requirements and even more burdensome reporting and administrative requirements. Many small nonprofit organizations simply don’t have the internal capacity to apply for and manage these grants successfully. Make sure your nonprofit is grant-ready before you embark on a quest for federal funding.

And if you’re not ready, that’s okay! There are plenty of non-federal grant opportunities available that you can find using these free grant search engines.

It’s pretty clear—you might find yourself in the market for a Grants.gov alternative sooner rather than later.

Don’t fear! There is no shortage of government grant search engines out there. We’re going to take a deep dive into our top 5 favorite Grants.gov alternatives and some of their key aspects, such as:

• Main features
• Types of funders they list
• How user-friendly they are
• How popular they are
• Pricing

Let’s go!

1. Instrumentl‍

We might be biased, but we think Instrumentl is an excellent alternative to Grants.gov. Let’s examine the features, tools, and functions that make Instrumentl such a powerful tool.

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Features

Instrumentl streamlines the federal grant process with features including:

• A comprehensive database of funding opportunities—including federal grants, as well as grants from corporations and foundations
• Smart matching technology that helps you identify only the best-fit opportunities
• A submission tracker and grants calendar
• Multi-user collaboration tools
• Automatic deadline updates and reminders
• Easy-to-create reports

Instrumentl’s platform integrates grant prospecting, tracking, and management, making it easier to handle the complexities of federal grants—all in one easy-to-navigate platform.

Types of Funders Listed

Instrumentl is truly a one-stop-shop for finding funding opportunities, as they list countless different types of funders:

• State/Federal Government Agencies
• Corporations
• Associations/Societies
• Foundations

Boasting over 400,000 funders, 17,000+ live RFPs, and 150 new opportunities added each week, Instrumentl’s US grant database is unmatched in terms of its scope.

User Friendliness

Instrumentl is well-known for being super user-friendly and easy to use—regardless of your level of tech-savvy. The platform features easy navigation, automated notifications for upcoming deadlines, and tools for team collaboration, streamlining your grant processes from start to finish.

Chandra G., CFO at Giving the Basics, Inc., and current Instrumentl user, shares her feedback:
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“Instrumentl’s software is very user-friendly. With the ability to set up several projects, we can organize our current and upcoming grants. We are also able to filter through the different stages of a grant, from researching to planned to submitted to awarded, with just the click of a button.”

Popularity

Instrumentl stands out among grant professionals as an increasingly popular tool for its competitive coverage of the entire grant lifecycle.

Other tools in this article primarily focus on prospecting. Instrumentl streamlines securing and managing grants from start to finish. Users praise its effectiveness not only in managing federal funding opportunities but also in maximizing the number of grants secured.

Sara D., CEO at Experience Camps, shares:
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“The Instrumentl platform showed an immediate ROI for our organization. The reporting and dashboard is user-friendly and give us a clear and simple way to share progress and opportunities across our team and with our board. What started as a free trial has become a staple tool for our fundraising team.”

Reviews across the web cite Instrumentl’s intuitiveness, user-friendliness, and grant management capabilities.

Pricing‍

One of my favorite things about Instrumentl is that they offer a 14-day free trial, with no credit card required. This allows you to sign up, dig in, and experience these incredible benefits and functions first-hand.

After your free trial ends and you decide you’re ready to sign up, there are multiple pricing options that you can choose from, depending on whether you’re a consultant, nonprofit, or university. Plans range from $179 to $499 per month, depending on the number of projects and features you’d like access to. Visit Instrumentl’s pricing page for more information.

Side Note: We acknowledge that our pricing is higher than the other tools listed here. However, we offer a comprehensive solution that covers the entire grant lifecycle. This means that you don’t need to invest in multiple tools; we handle everything from prospecting to submission, tracking, and reporting. Our aim is to ensure that you achieve a higher return on investment (ROI) with Instrumentl.

2. NIH

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the US Department of Health and Human Services, is the nation’s medical research agency; their work focuses on making medical and scientific discoveries that improve health and save lives.

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The NIH’s grant webpage offers an extensive and specialized platform for securing federal grants, focusing on those related to medical research. This makes it a premier alternative to Grants.gov for grant professionals working in the field of medical/scientific research.

Here’s a closer look at some of its offerings.

Features

The NIH grants page provides:

• Detailed guidance for grant professionals on how to find funding
• Grant due dates
• How to apply
• Policy and compliance requirements
• A grants blog

Within the “Find Grant Funding” page, you can narrow your search for opportunities by organization or activity code. You can also click on the blue hyperlinked title of any opportunity to see all the available details.

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The NIH platform does not support post-award grant management or tracking; however, it is managed through a separate NIH platform.

Types of Funders Listed

NIH lists only federal funders who are focused on health and biomedical research. Key agencies include various NIH institutes such as the National Cancer Institute, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), and National Institute on Aging (NIA).

User Friendliness

The NIH grants website is designed for ease of use, with comprehensive guides, tutorials, and an intuitive user interface. The structured layout and search functionality make navigating funding opportunities and application processes straightforward—even for non-biomedical scientists!

However, the ability to filter searches is limited by some highly-technical filters, and it takes a good amount of effort to review each opportunity to determine if it’s a good fit for your biomedical research needs. This makes the platform a bit more cumbersome to use than others on this list.

Popularity

NIH is a well-established and respected platform within the research community and is widely utilized by universities, research institutions, and healthcare organizations. That said, if your work doesn’t fall within the medical research space, you will not likely have heard of—or find use for—this specific Grants.gov alternative.

Pricing

Great news—the NIH grants website is free to use!

3. Foundation Directory Online

As a leading resource for nonprofits, Foundation Directory Online (FDO) by Candid offers an extensive suite of tools to help organizations connect with potential funders—including state and federal government agencies. This platform offers a wealth of resources and features specifically designed to streamline the process of finding and securing federal grants.

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Features

FDO offers a range of powerful tools designed to support grant seekers in their funding endeavors:

• Advanced Search Capabilities: Users can leverage search filters to narrow down funding opportunities based on criteria such as state, funding interests, and specific types of funders, including federal grantmakers. This feature streamlines the process of identifying relevant opportunities.
• Federal Funding Alerts: Grant seekers have the option to set up alerts, ensuring they receive timely notifications about new federal funding opportunities. This feature enables users to stay informed about the latest grants that match their interests and priorities.
• Historical Data on Federal Grants: FDO provides access to a comprehensive database of previously awarded federal grants. By analyzing historical data, grant professionals can gain valuable insights into funding trends and successful applications within their field of work.

It’s important to note that while FDO does offer some information on RFPs and active grants, its primary focus is on maintaining a robust funder database. Unlike some other Grants.gov alternatives, FDO requires manual searching for RFPs; therefore, it may not offer the same level of automatic matching to good-fit opportunities as some of its competitors.

Types of Funders Listed

FDO showcases opportunities for a wide range of funders, ranging from foundations to corporations to federal agencies. They include data on a variety of federal funders, including:

• National Science Foundation (NSF)
• Department of Education (DOE)
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
• Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)

These funders cover various fields, including healthcare, education, environmental conservation, and scientific research, making FDO a competitive alternative to Grants.gov.

User Friendliness

The FDO platform is designed to be user-friendly and includes intuitive search functions and a simple-to-use interface.

Some users mention limitations in searching for open and upcoming Requests for Proposals (RFPs); however, the detailed profiles and historical data on federal grants make it easier to find relevant opportunities than Grants.gov.

Popularity

Foundation Directory Online is widely recognized and utilized in the nonprofit sector, particularly by organizations with robust fundraising programs. Its comprehensive database and user-friendliness make it a popular choice among grant professionals.

However, FDO is not without limitations. Its limited focus on RFPS and automatic matching mean that users may need to invest more time and effort into identifying relevant opportunities than they would with some other Grants.gov alternatives.

Pricing‍

Unlike some other Grants.gov alternatives, FDO’s platform has a cost attached. There are various subscription tiers available to meet different needs and budgets:

• Essential Plan: Starts at $49.99/month, providing access to a substantial portion of the database.
• Professional Plan: $199.99/month, offering enhanced search capabilities and additional data.
• Enterprise Plan: Tailored for larger organizations; pricing is only available upon request.

4. Grant Watch

GrantWatch is another robust alternative to Grants.gov for those seeking federal grant opportunities. Let’s examine its features, funder types, usability, and pricing.

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Features

GrantWatch offers several features that cater to those looking for government grants:

• Detailed Grant Summaries: There’s nothing worse than finding a promising grant opportunity but you can’t locate the relevant details to determine if it’s a good fit for your project. That isn’t an issue with GrantWatch—each grant listing provides a detailed summary, including:some text
  • Eligibility criteria
  • Deadlines
  • Application requirements
• Advanced Search Filters: Users can refine searches using filters such as funding source, recipient type, and grant category. This helps you pinpoint federal grants quickly and easily without sifting through dozens of irrelevant results.
• Notification System: Users can set up email alerts to receive notifications about new federal opportunities that match their criteria.

Here’s something to be aware of: GrantWatch is a prospecting tool only. It does not offer functions to support grant management in the post-award phase. This is a critical piece of information to take into consideration as you are assessing if this is the right alternative for you.

Types of Funders Listed

GrantWatch includes a diverse range of funders, including:

• Federal Agencies
• State and Local Governments
• Foundations and Corporations

User Friendliness

GrantWatch is designed with the user experience in mind. Here are some of the key things that make it easy to use, no matter your skill level:

• Intuitive Interface: The website features a straightforward interface that makes navigating numerous grant listings effortless.
• Search Efficiency: The advanced search tools and filters significantly reduce the time needed to locate relevant federal grants.
• Support and Resources: GrantWatch provides extensive support resources, including webinars and a knowledge base, to assist users in maximizing their grant search and application efforts.

Popularity

GrantWatch is a well-regarded platform among grant professionals. It has a wide user base, including education institutions, nonprofits, and individual grant-seekers.

However, the lack of post-award grant management features means that users likely need to invest in other software solutions for that part of the grant lifecycle, which may not be cost efficient.

This platform also lacks the ability to provide funder insights, which is a necessity when determining whether funding opportunities are a good fit or not. For these reasons, many grant professionals might choose a different GrantWatch alternative.

Pricing

GrantWatch offers various subscription plans:

• Individual Plans: Subscriptions start at $18 per week or $45 monthly.
• Annual Plans: For long-term use, annual subscriptions are available at $199.

5. GrantStation

Last but not least, GrantStation is another excellent Grants.gov alternative for federal grant seekers. Similar to GrantWatch, this platform covers only the grant prospecting part of the grant lifecycle.

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Features

GrantStation provides a handful of features tailored toward those seeking federal funding:

• Federal Grant Listings: This platform includes a robust selection of federal grant opportunities, ensuring users have access to the latest and most relevant federal funding sources.
• Customizable Grant Alerts: Users can set up email alerts to receive notifications about new federal grant opportunities that match their specific needs.
•  Proposal Writing Support: GrantStation offers resources and templates for writing federal grant proposals, which can increase the chances of a successful application.

Types of Funders Listed

This platform lists various funders, including federal and state government agencies and private funders such as foundations and corporations.

User Friendliness

Like the other Grants.gov alternatives we’ve discussed, the GrantStation platform was designed to be easy to use. It offers a few features that help it stand out in terms of usability:

• Guided Support: Comprehensive tutorials and how-to guides help users navigate the database and understand the application process for federal grants.
• Intuitive Interface: A clear, easy-to-use platform simplifies the process of searching for federal grants, which can be challenging enough as it is.

Popularity

GrantStation is highly regarded among grant professionals and is widely used by nonprofits, educational institutions, and government agencies. Over 60,000 organizations use this platform to support their grant-seeking efforts!

Pricing

GrantStation offers competitive pricing:

• Annual Membership: $699 annually provides full access to the grants database and extensive resources, including federal grant listings.‍
• Discounted Rates: Special rates are available for associations and organizations, making it more affordable for groups or larger entities.

Instrumentl is a premier alternative to Grants.gov for those seeking federal grants. But that’s not all—Instrumentl can also support your search for private grants from foundations and corporations! It’s basically a one-stop shop for all your grant-seeking and grant-management needs.

Ready to learn more? Let’s dive in.

Automagical Deadline Reminder

Instrumentl’s automagical deadline reminders are magical: with automatic email updates any time a funder changes a deadline, these reminders ensure you never miss a deadline.

This feature is especially beneficial for managing the complex timelines associated with federal.

grants. They’ll keep you—and your whole team—on track and organized.

Integrated Information From IRS 990 Form

Instrumentl analyzes information from IRS 990 forms, offering insights into foundation and corporate funders' financial health and grantmaking patterns. This feature helps grant professionals make informed decisions about which grants to pursue and which opportunities offer the highest ROI.

Here’s an example 990 Snapshot: it shows the funder’s past grantees, median grant amount, geographic giving priorities, and more.

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Intelligent Matching to RFPs and Funders

Instrumentl’s intelligent matching algorithm connects users with relevant Requests for Proposals (RFPs) and funders based on their specific needs and profiles.

Here’s how it works: You tell Instrumentl about your nonprofit—where you’re located, the type of work you do, and what kind of grant(s) you’re looking for—and the platform does the rest of the heavy lifting! You’ll get a curated list of matches, with new opportunities sent to your inbox every week. Sounds amazing, right? (It is!)

This tailored approach maximizes the chances of finding the most suitable federal grant opportunities, saving time and effort in the grant search process.

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Easy Collaboration and Task Management

Instrumentl’s platform facilitates seamless collaboration and task management among your entire team. This is critical for federal grant projects, which are notoriously complex.

Users can assign tasks, track progress, and collaborate with team members within the platform, making it easier to coordinate efforts and make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

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Find Foundations Open to New Grantees

It’s frustrating to find a funder that supports projects in your field of work but is invite-only or doesn’t open its doors to new grantees.

Instead of wasting your time on an application and finding this out after the fact, Instrumentl shows you the data upfront with their Openness to New Grantees report.

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Generate Reports in a Flash

Reporting requirements for federal grants are also known to be pretty complex. And chances are, you’ll also have to report your progress to other stakeholders as well—board members, volunteers, community partners, and so on. But have no fear; Instrumentl allows you to generate detailed reports super quickly.

These reports can summarize potential funding opportunities, application statuses, and other critical data, making presenting findings to your stakeholders easier.

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Organize by Project

Keep yourself—and your team—organized with Instrumentl’s Grant Tracker.

It’s no secret that federal grants are complicated—and they have a LOT of required activities. Don’t worry: Instrumentl has got your back.

With our Grant Tracker, all upcoming reports, deadlines, and other major activities (like sending thank-you notes), will show up in one place, ensuring that nothing gets missed.

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Whew! That was a lot to take in! Let’s wrap things up.

Grant professionals seek alternatives to Grants.gov for various reasons. While it’s a valuable resource for federal grants, its usability issues, lack of information, and complexity can pose challenges, particularly for smaller, more resource-constrained nonprofits.

If you’re searching for a comprehensive solution for grant research and management, we’ve explored 5 user-friendly alternatives in this article. Each offers competitive features at varying price points.

However, if you’re seeking a tool that supports your grant-seeking and management processes from start to finish, consider signing up for Instrumentl. With its innovative features aimed at streamlining and enhancing the entire grant lifecycle, Instrumentl is sure to revolutionize your grant's game.

Ready to dive in? Take the next step and sign up for Instrumentl today!