Grant Notes.

First a quick summary. Many sites on the web hype getting big cash from government grants. Even certain infomercials on the TV. According to one source, about 98% of them are only a plan to separate you with your money. Truth: grants do exist, you can and probably do qualify for some of them. If you are willing to deal with the application process, it really is free to you. The application process requires tons of patience and a learning curve.

Why are all those web sites considered scams? Because they want cash from you. Anywhere from $30 to $40 usually but sometimes much more. What you get is books and material that is likely outdated or inaccurate. The one thing you will really want if you don't want to deal with the application process first hand is some good customer service and a refund policy if things aren't what they seem. The scam sites only offer hype and little hope.

There is no real step by step instructions to getting a grant. I don't have one yet but I haven't applied yet either. I guess my intent is to take notes on an ongoing ordeal with getting one or more grants for myself and in the process enlighten both me and you. First of all, go to this web site and bookmark it: http://www.grants.gov.

At www.grants.gov, read the page entirely. As it says there are 2 basic things to do: Find Grants and Apply for Grants. But first you will need to do some registering.

There is a link to download some software. At the time I am doing this, it is a file about 8mb and requires an upgrade file of about 2mb. Get them. Save them. Load them. A Restart of your computer will be needed so you may want to bookmark the web site so you can continue when you reconnect to the web.

Next it says to download a Grant Application Package. You enter some reference numbers and hit a button and the download begins. But first... you should probably do an actual search for something to apply for. There is also a matter of registering. The options on that seems either to register as an organization or as an individual. Where to go from here...

Well, there is a link to Select a Role. Depending on what your own purposes for a grant are you can choose from the following options, each has a radio button to check: E-Business Point of Contact. Authorized Organization Representative. Individual. Grant Researcher.

There is a brief description for each option to help you decide. Then hit the button and see what it says. In my case I could check any of them except the last one about being a grant writer. Let's see what we learn by checking the "Individual" option. Mainly because I read something on the site about having a DUNS number for your organization. I'm sure I don't have one yet and I don't want to get one right now.

On the page that shows up I'm confronted with an ominous message: "to submit applications on Grants.gov, you must complete a one-time registration process. The registration process can take up to a day to complete."

Wow, a whole day to complete. The words 'Registration Process is a link. Do I click it now? It is getting late and I think a good nights sleep will help me figure this out. At any rate, this is the thing to do because you can't seem to get any further under any role with out registering. I think I'll install those downloads now and reboot. Registration can wait until tomorrow.

That was an easy setup and upgrade. Just take the defaults in the setup process for where to put it on the hard drive and in the start menu. Enter name and company name. Accept agreement terms and it seems to be fairly accessible with Jaws. Using the Jaws/Mouse cursor might be needed to read everything on the screen though. No menu system. Not sure what it does or how it works. We'll have to get to that as we actually use it.