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Faculty & Staff

Working with ORSP to Find Funding

Armed with sharp analytical skills and a keen eye for potential in addition to your clearly stated mission, we can dive deep into databases, reports, and financial records, identifying the most promising grants. This work is essential in connecting passionate grant seekers with the resources they need to find the right funding source. Because working well ahead of schedule is the best possible strategy for winning grants and because it can take time to find open competitions, we search for grant opportunities with plenty of lead time: usually six months to a year. 

Click the button below to request a project consultation to get started. 

Request Project Consultation
Find Funding on Your Own

The Grants Resource Center (GRC) serves as our staff in Washington, D.C. With their eyes and ears on the ground for federal, private foundation, and industry grant opportunities, they provide numerous resources for grant seekers at public institutions of higher education across the U.S. For an overview of GRC services, you may watch GRC’s webinar recording. 

 

You can access GRC resources by submitting a request for credentials. Once you have requested and received your GRC credentials, you will have access to the following databases and services:

  • GrantSearch™, a database of currently open opportunities, 
  • Faculty Alerts arrive directly into your inbox after you setup filters related to your project and research activities, and
  • Annual Deadlines, an exhaustive, searchable list of recurring annual opportunities, frequently vetted, so grant seekers can plan well in advance of specific due dates.

ORSP also encourages faculty and staff to sign up to receive GRC’s specialized publications:

Due to federal budget constraints, GRC has begun featuring private opportunities in Bulletin. Bulletin has traditionally focused on federal opportunities and announcements; GRC made this change to keep institutions like UCA aware of viable alternatives to federal funding. You will continue to see private opportunities featured in GrantWeek, Deadlines, and in GRC’s databases.

You can use the following links to search for Arkansas state funding opportunities (which are not covered by GRC). 

Arkansas State Grants Directory (Type “grants” in the “Agencies” or “Services” fields.)

Arkansas State List of Agencies

If you need assistance finding more local opportunities, let us know by filling out the Project Consultation Request above.

Determining Mission Alignment

Whenever you find a funding opportunity that meets your needs, it’s important to ensure your project meets the funder’s needs. You’re not just asking for money to pay for supplies or graduate assistants; you’re asking to be invited to help the funder carry out their mission.

  • Be sure to vet guidelines thoroughly by reading them carefully, especially the funder’s mission statement and the opportunity overview.
  • Use a word cloud generator to create a visualization of the terms and phrases that are most used in the opportunity announcement.
  • Find projects the agency has funded in the past. These may be listed on their website, but, if they are a private foundation, you can also search their IRS Form 990s to see how much and to whom they’ve given money in the past.
  • Use Control F (PC) or Command F (Mac) to search for the following and ask yourself the associated questions:
    • Cost sharing or match/matching. Do you want the added task of finding funds to match the grantor’s portion?
    • Deadline. Do you have time to write a competitive application?
    • Eligibility. Are institutions of higher education eligible for the funding? Are 501(c)(3)s eligible? Are individuals eligible?
    • Project start date, project period, award notice. If the project is funded, will the money arrive in time to pay for the project costs?
    • $. Is the award enough? Can you patch together multiple awards to pay for total project costs? Is the award too much? If you need $50,000 and the agency is awarding individual awards of $2,000,000, you may be barking up the wrong tree.
Internal Grants Specific to UCA Faculty and Staff

The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs is providing the information below as a service. Individuals apply directly to the division offering the grant. Please check to make sure you are eligible before applying.