Government Grant

A predetermined amount of money given by a government to a person or business.

Students can get grants. Research initiatives and museums can get grants. Companies looking to develop environmentally-responsible products can get grants. Basically, anyone can apply for a government grant. There are websites devoted to helping people find grant opportunities. And any government—state, local, or national—can offer grants. That’s right—they’re just giving the stuff away, and grant recipients don’t even have to pay the money back.

But before anyone out there gets excited and starts screaming “free money!” as they run toward the nearest government building, we’re gonna be honest: government grants are crazy hard to get. Everybody wants them, which means competition is fierce and most applicants end up going home empty-handed. In fact, they’re so hard to get that some organizations hire people specifically to look and apply for government grants. Seriously, that’s their whole job. We see that a lot in the nonprofit sector, where some companies can live or die based on whether or not they receive grant money.

Even though government grants don’t have to be paid back, they can come with other requirements. For example, if we receive a grant to conduct research on the effects of social media on our local Corgi population, we’re probably going to be expected to report on our findings. Or if we receive an education grant to help pay for college, we might not be able to receive subsequent grants if our grades fall below a certain grade point average.

So it’s not like we can just take the grant money we receive and go blow it in Puerto Vallarta. Well, we guess we could, but that’s not really what grants are designed for. But it would probably a good way to ensure that there would be no second grant.