grants.gov Electronic Submission Process, & Searching for SBIR/STTRTopics Jim Greenwood, President Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc. Sanibel Island, Florida

grants.gov The Idea – Common electronic submission process for all grant-making Federal agencies The Problem – Poorly implemented The Result – Difficult process to get registered on grants.gov so that you can submit a proposal Process can take 4-8 weeks! – Not user friendly as you try to submit your proposal via grants.gov The Victims – NIH – DOE – USDA – NIST – You

grants.gov Advice – Because grants.gov registration can take 4-8 weeks, you must do it NOW if your proposal is due before Feb 1st – Regardless, get registered NOW on grants.gov to get it out of the way so you can concentrate on preparing the proposal – Check out for tutorials on how to register on grants.gov (& on getting accounts with DUNS & SAM required by grants.gov)

grants.gov Advice – Download 1 or more agency guides on using grants.gov » NIH: » DOE: application/ » USDA: AFRI cfda instructions.pdf – Use grants.gov Help Desk – Consider finding grants.gov expertise elsewhere » Someone in a university’s grants office who deals with it routinely » A fellow SBIR/STTR company – Consider NIH’s new ASSET program for grants.gov submission – Diagram or chart the structure of the version of grants.gov that you must submit » Forms » Attachments » See following example for DOE – Start your proposal submission 4-5 days BEFORE the deadline

ASSIST (Application Submission System & Interface for Submission Tracking) is NIH's online system for the preparation, submission, and tracking of grant applications through Grants.gov to NIH. Attend our webinar! On November 4, 2015, from 2:00 to 3:30 pm ET, we’ll hold a webinar to help small businesses learn how ASSIST can help streamline the HHS SBIR/STTR electronic submission process. ASSIST is not required, so small businesses can still apply using the Grants.gov’s downloadable forms method. During the SBIR/STTR ASSIST webinar, you will learn how to: Populate application data from eRA Commons profiles Validate your application against NIH business rules prior to submission Preview your application images in the NIH format prior to submission Track your applications through to eRA Commons to verify agency receipt Preparing, Submitting & Tracking Your Small Business Grant Applications Using ASSIST Register Today: ASSIST provides: Secure web-based data entry Collaboration of multiple users Pre-submission validation of many NIH and Grants.gov business rules Pre-population of data from eRA Commons profiles Pre-submission print/preview of application in NIH format Submission status tracking for both Grants.gov and eRA Commons within a single system Ability to import subaward budget data from external sources Ability to copy application data (excluding attachments) from one announcement to another Funding opportunity announcements posted in the NIH Guide for Grants & Contracts ( that allow ASSIST as an option contain an "Apply Online Using ASSIST" button in addition to the "Apply Using Downloadable Forms" button. The following resources are available to help applicants prepare their applications using ASSIST: Getting Started: Preparing Your Single-project Application Using ASSIST ( ASSIST Online Help System ( ASSIST User Guide ( eRA Service Desk ( For more information, see NOT-OD (

FINDING AN AGENCY INTERESTED IN YOUR IDEAS, INNOVATIONS, TECHNOLOGIES Suggestion: check the websites and for databases & search engines where you compare your keywords with topics in – Currently open solicitations – Recently closed solicitations Why? Because you may not know what you do not know These search engines look across agencies, both contracts & grants, but stay within SBIR/STTR

So If No Relevant Topics Appear in Your Search… 1.Make sure you’ve checked both sbir.gov and zyn.com 2.Change your key words – Broaden them, especially for grant agencies 3.Encourage agency to include your topic in a future solicitation – But realize what you are opening yourself up to… 4.Turn to a grant agency & its broad topics