Greetings from Washington DC!

Currently, I am in the middle of a $ 410 Billion giving market. Isn’t that amazing? And that is not all: according to Giving USA, the American giving market is growing each year with a stunning $ 10 Billion. Oh, and this amount does not even include funding from the American Government or organizations such as the United Nations or the WorldBank.

So that is great, but does that mean there are also opportunities for your organization? And if so, where?

Here we present our top five websites to find grants in the USA:

The Foundation Center

The Foundation Center (now called Candid) is the best website to find information on foundations based in the USA (and beyond). It offers excellent information about more than 140,000 funders. The easy-to-use database gives you insight on the foundations’ strategy, their funding history, and their tax records. That last bit sounds boring but is actually a great tool to gain a thorough understanding of a foundation. The only downside I can come up with are the subscription costs: quality has a price.

Funds for NGOs

Funds for NGOs is a social enterprise and online initiative, with the goal of increasing the sustainability of NGOs across the world. It includes information on USA donors and other international donors. Even though the donor information they present is a bit basic, it is helpful in shortlisting donors that require more research. The advantages of this website are that it offers fundraising tools and it keeps track of calls for proposals worldwide. The subscription costs are reasonable and they frequently have 50% discount weeks!

Grants.gov

The USA government publishes all their grants on a central portal, called Grants.gov. This free portal helps you to find possibilities in other agencies than you might expect. Another great thing about this website is, that it includes forecasted calls: the calls that are not published yet. This gives you the opportunity to prepare your proposal even better. However, be aware that not all calls are published in a forecast first. Also attention to the jargon on this website!

Devex

Devex is a membership website which has some great features for funding searches. It monitors calls for proposals and tenders from over 600 development agencies and foundations worldwide. With their online tool, you can track those calls and receive alerts when new interesting calls are published. However, as said, it is not for free!

Google

Last but not least, the website we probably all use the most: Google. A great search engine and free as well. And if you know how to use it well, you will be able to find things that are difficult to find for others.