Grants are funding streams that come from either governmental or non-governmental agencies. Grants fund technology or non-technology projects, and most of the funding for grants comes from the federal government.
Finding the Right Grants: Keywords and IT Scoring
Within Navigator, users can search for keywords to pull results for specific grants that fit their criteria. Since grants fund technology and non-technology related projects, it’s essential to have the right tool that tells you how likely it is that a specific grant will be used for tech.
In Navigator, grants are scored from A to C based on their likelihood to fund technology. A-grants are the most technology-focused, with at least 80% of funding going towards technology. B-grants are more flexible and can fund technology if the applicant chooses to use that grant for that purpose. Within B-grants, there are a wide number of technology-friendly grant opportunities. 50% of B-grants will go towards technology and 50% will be used for non-technology purposes. C-grants are not specifically utilized for tech, but there is room for technology to be used with these grants.
Why This Matters for Private-Sector Sales Professionals
Instead of manually sorting through grants to figure out where your solution fits in and what might apply to your clients, Navigator’s new grants scoring matrix does the work for you and looks at the past performance of these grants to help you identify relevant funding streams. The new feature shows you what grant opportunities are worthwhile for you to target and where to direct your efforts. This allows salespeople to search for and seamlessly introduce new grant opportunities to clients.
As the Grants Office says, “grants fund projects, not products.” Understanding how your solution fits into grants projects is essential for leveraging new opportunities. See the new grants intelligence feature in GovTech Navigator live, here.