Unlock Grant Money: Your Guide to Mastering the NSF Funding Search

Finding the right Grant Money to fuel your research or project can be a game-changer. Navigating the world of funding opportunities, however, can often feel overwhelming. The National Science Foundation (NSF) provides a powerful Funding Search tool to help you discover available grant money. This guide will walk you through how to effectively use this tool, ensuring you don’t miss out on potential funding for your endeavors.

Understanding Current and Archived Grant Opportunities

When you first access the NSF Funding Search page, you’ll be presented with current, or active, grant opportunities. These are your immediate prospects for securing grant money. However, the NSF also maintains a record of archived opportunities, which, while expired, can be valuable for understanding funding trends or past initiatives.

To explore archived grant opportunities, simply select the “Archived funding opportunities” option. Keep in mind that archived listings are marked with an “Archived” label and, naturally, do not include active due date information. Reviewing archived opportunities can sometimes provide insights into the types of projects the NSF has funded in the past, which could inform your future grant money pursuits.

Harnessing Keyword Searches to Find Grant Money

The keyword search function is your primary tool for pinpointing grant money opportunities relevant to your specific area of interest. The NSF Funding Search is designed to be flexible, returning results that contain any of the keywords you enter. Importantly, the system is intelligent enough to prioritize results that contain more of your search terms, ranking them higher for relevance.

Effective Keyword Search Strategies for Grant Money

Let’s look at some practical examples of how to use keywords to find the grant money you need:

Broad Topic Search: If you’re working in environmental science, using ecology will show you grant opportunities that include the term “ecology”. This is a good starting point for a broad overview.
Specific Area of Focus: For those focused on social issues, racial equity will return results mentioning either “racial” or “equity.” The algorithm will give higher relevance to opportunities that address both, helping you narrow down your search for grant money in this domain.
Program Identification: If you know a specific NSF program number, like 23-561, entering it directly will pull up relevant opportunities. For NSF or PD publication numbers, just include the hyphen and omit “NSF” or “PD” for a precise search.

Refining Your Search: Excluding, Requiring, and Exact Matching

To make your search for grant money even more precise, you can utilize operators to refine your keyword queries:

Excluding Keywords: Use a minus sign (-) before a word to exclude it from your search. For example, intelligence -artificial will find grant opportunities related to “intelligence” but not “artificial intelligence.” This is useful for filtering out irrelevant results.
Requiring Keywords: Use a plus sign (+) to ensure a specific term is always included. artificial +intelligence will only show results that include “intelligence,” and prioritize those that also mention “artificial.” This is helpful when a keyword is essential to your grant money search.
Exact Phrase Matching: Use double quotes (” “) to search for an exact phrase. "stem field" will only return results containing the precise phrase “stem field,” excluding variations like “stem fields.” Similarly, "system" will only find “system,” not “systems” or “systematics.” This is crucial when you need to find grant money related to a very specific concept.

Combining Operators for Advanced Searches

You can combine these operators for highly refined searches to pinpoint the most relevant grant money opportunities. For example:

+"artificial intelligence" algorithm +robot -machine

This complex query will:

Require the exact phrase “artificial intelligence.”
Require the word “robot.”
Exclude the word “machine.”
Give higher relevance to results that also include “algorithm.”

This level of precision ensures you’re focusing on grant money opportunities that are a strong match for your project.

What the Keyword Search Covers

When you perform a keyword search, the NSF Funding Search tool examines a wide range of fields within each funding opportunity listing, maximizing your chances of finding relevant grant money:

Titles and Subtitles: Directly relevant to the opportunity.
Main Text and Synopsis: Detailed descriptions of the funding opportunity.
Document or Publication Numbers: For specific program identification.
Contacts: Names and details of program officers.
Organizations: NSF directorates and divisions.
Metadata: Keywords and hidden tags for improved discoverability.
Related Programs: Links to similar funding streams.

Limiting Your Search to Specific Fields

For even more control, you can narrow your keyword search to specific fields like “title,” “subtitle,” or “synopsis” using the “All fields” menu next to the search box. This can be useful when you have a very specific idea of what you’re looking for and want to refine results further to find targeted grant money.

Result Ranking: Finding the Best Grant Money Options First

The NSF Funding Search is designed to prioritize relevance. It automatically boosts results where your keywords appear in the title, including program abbreviations. This means the most pertinent grant money opportunities are likely to appear at the top of your search results.

Filtering Your Search for Targeted Grant Money

Filters provide another powerful way to narrow down your search and discover grant money that aligns with specific criteria. By default, no filters are active, giving you a broad view.

Individual and Grouped Filters

Individual Filters: Some filters are simple on/off toggles. For instance, toggling “Broadening Participation” to On will only show grant opportunities with this attribute. This helps you find grant money specifically focused on broadening participation in STEM.
Grouped Filters (Drop-down Menus): Filters related to the same category, like “Limited submissions,” are grouped in drop-down menus. This menu might include options for organizational limits, PI limits, and the number of proposals allowed.

Hierarchical Filters for Granular Selection

Hierarchical Filters (Nested Drop-down Menus): For categories with sub-categories, like “Directorate/Division,” you’ll find nested lists. This allows you to select entire directorates or drill down to specific divisions to find grant money within a particular area of NSF.

These hierarchical menus often include a search field to help you quickly locate specific categories or sub-categories, especially useful when dealing with long lists.

A “hide” control at the bottom of these drop-downs lets you simplify the view by collapsing sub-categories, showing only the main categories.

Knowing When Filters Are Active

When you apply a filter, a blue button representing that filter appears below the “Filters” heading. Click this button to easily remove the filter. This provides clear visual feedback on your active search parameters.

Expanding and Narrowing Results with Filters

Expanding Results: Selecting multiple filters within the same drop-down menu broadens your results. It includes opportunities that match any of the selected filter items from that category.
Narrowing Results: Using filters from different drop-down menus and toggles narrows your results. It requires opportunities to meet all the selected criteria across different filter categories, helping you pinpoint very specific grant money opportunities.

Sorting Results to Prioritize Grant Money Opportunities

By default, search results are sorted by relevance. If you haven’t used keywords or filters, results are ordered by publication date, with the newest opportunities appearing first. When you use keywords, the sorting shifts to prioritize how closely results match your search terms.

You can change the sort order to suit your needs:

Newest first: See the latest grant money opportunities.
Oldest first: Explore opportunities published longer ago.
Upcoming due dates: Prioritize opportunities with deadlines approaching soon (current opportunities only).
Proposals accepted any time: Focus on opportunities without deadlines (current opportunities only).
Most relevant: Sort by keyword or filter match, ignoring publication date.
Alphabetical by title: Browse opportunities alphabetically.

Exporting Your Grant Money Search Results

Once you’ve refined your search and have a list of potential grant money opportunities, you can export the results as a CSV data file. The “Export results as .csv” link is located above the search results list, making it easy to save and further analyze your findings.

Understanding Key Grant Terminology

Navigating grant opportunities often involves specific terminology. Here are some helpful definitions to clarify common terms you’ll encounter when searching for grant money on the NSF Funding Search:

Continuing grant: NSF commits to a specific funding level for an initial period (usually a year) with the intent to provide continued support in subsequent years, contingent on available funds and satisfactory progress.
Cooperative agreement: Similar to a grant, but involves substantial collaboration between NSF and the recipient in carrying out the project. Refer to the Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) for detailed information.
Dear Colleague Letter (DCL): Announcements of upcoming funding opportunities or special competitions for supplemental funding. DCLs may also announce changes to NSF policies or programs and can be found in the Document Library.
Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG): The definitive guide for NSF proposal and award processes. The current PAPPG version applies to all proposals submitted while it is in effect.
Standard grant: NSF provides a specific funding amount for a defined period with no commitment to future funding beyond the current award without a new proposal submission.

By mastering the NSF Funding Search tool and understanding these key terms, you’ll be well-equipped to find the grant money you need to support your important work.