501C3 Grant Opportunities

Before we get to the 501C3 Grant Opportunities section, let’s learn more about the 501C3 status for an organization. This status is issued by the IRS that basically confirm that your organization is exempted from tax responsibilities. There are several steps for a public charity or non-profit organization to be recognized as 501C3 organization by the IRS, but we won’t talk about it here. Bottom line is, this status legally confirms that your organization is a true non-profit organization.

Many of the available grants from the government and corporate foundations are aimed at individuals with certain conditions and also non-profit organizations with 501C3 status. The United States law have regulated that the grant-giving foundations have to provide grants or other donation to qualified public charities. The qualification would be that 501C3 status.

Now let’s dig into the grant opportunities section. There are various grant opportunities for qualified non-profit organization, so many that you need to distinguish the specific type of grant that you want. This means that before you go and send the grant proposal, you have to properly prepare and analyze your organization first.

Figure out what are your non-profit organization’s projects goals and funding needs, along with the methods and solutions you’re offering to reach that goal or solve the problems at hand. This is important because grant givers don’t even bother to take a glance to grant applications that are not in line with the grant givers’ objective and goals.

501C3 Grants Opportunities Private

How to Find 501C3 Grant Opportunities

With that in mind, there are two major sources of grants, including government agencies (Federal, state and/or local) and foundations and corporations. Let’s start with the ones offered by the foundations and corporations, shall we?

Get Registered

To get the correct 501C3 grants from either private foundations or corporations, there are several places you can try. However, you may want to consider registering in these sites:

1. The Foundation Center’s Foundation Directory Online. This site is a free website that provides information about the foundation website, description, along with the contact number.
2. You can use GuideStar website to check the list of nonprofit organizations in the United States.
3. The National Center for Charitable Statistics is available for those who want to find out further data about the nonprofit sector in the US.

501C3 Grants Search

Now that you’ve registered your non-profit organization, you should visit:

Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library’s Central Library provides good list of the Foundation Center’s Foundation Directory Online. This directory covers more than 120 thousands of foundations and corporate giving programs. You can also do a search based on geographical area, type of grants, or even the grantmaker’s name and location.

For those who are interested to find federal, state, or local government grants, you should go to grants.gov. This site provides the currently available grants from the government for free. Search for the grant opportunities that are related to your project.

Last but not least, we are deeply sorry for not being able to give you each of the grantmakers information because there are simply too many types of grants available for various fields. Hopefully, the two sources above can give you plenty of reason not to give up on looking for 501C3 grant opportunities.

image: littletribechildrensfoundation.org