Any proposal you submit will need to support and advance a funding agency's mission: therefore, identifying funders whose priorities and interests align with your research is a critical step.

To begin identifying those best-fit agencies:

• Talk to your colleagues, your mentor, faculty members in your area
• Ask other people in your field who funds their work
• Network at professional conferences: funders will often attend conferences on research they are interested in funding
• Journal articles – often authors will note who funded the work discussed in an article
• Set up funding searches: sign up for weekly email reports on government grants sites and Pivot;
• Pivot is one of the largest databases of grant funding opportunities that includes federal, corporate, and foundation listings.
• Follow agencies or foundations that are in the appropriate area for your research through email alerts/follow them on Twitter – this is often the fastest way to get notified of new opportunities. Read about their mission, current priorities, recent awards, and funding mechanisms to ensure your work aligns with their interests.
• Attend grants conferences/workshops run by funding agencies: NEH, NEA, NIH, NSF, DOD (divisions within DOD host their own ‘proposer’s days) and others all offer sessions to explain individual grant mechanisms and/or for general grantmaking. Some are via webinar, some in person.
• Limited submissions are external sponsored funding opportunities that require an internal selection process based on sponsor limitations for the number of proposals and/or specific restrictions on applications submitted by Tufts.

The keywords you use will depend on the database you are searching, but you will have a general sense of which keywords apply to your particular field and your specific research based on the conceptual terms that reappear throughout your words. Two places to start:

PIVOT : Tufts subscribes to PIVOT, the largest database of funding opportunities: however, funders must pay to be included so PIVOT’s lists are not all-inclusive and include largely the federal and large foundation funders: for smaller foundations or private sources, reach out to Corporate and Foundation Relations or to colleagues in your field.

Grants.gov  Federal funding opportunities published on Grants.gov are for organizations and entities supporting the development and management of government-funded programs and projects.

Note: Database searches DO NOT match terms in a specific order: this means that your best match may be the last entry. If your searches are returning too many or too few searches or just stuck, Tufts Librarians can help with keywords and searches.  Tufts Library.

Best practice:  Set aside time to curate your ongoing funding searches/adjust key words based on the results you are getting, check in on the websites of your likely funding agencies, and peruse your research office website and email announcements.

Connecting with colleagues in your research community will always be the best resource for essential perspectives and insight into funding agencies most relevant to your area of interest, as well as into the funding landscape generally.  Specifically, these conversations will:

• Let you 'read between the lines', meaning finding out what agencies really like/want to fund: this agency focus may shift or change from year to year in subtle ways that can impact how you frame the way you propose your project
• Help you learn about the 'culture' of different funders: what are they looking for, what impresses them in proposals?
• Identify the best strategies for finding and/or approaching a Program or Scientific Officer
• Offer early information about new opportunities even before they are posted publicly – including your opportunities to weigh in on priority directions and needs of your field.

Tip: Register for agency newsletters so you can keep an eye on Dear Colleague letters and other funding agency announcements about both upcoming and standing opportunities.