Why is it so HARD to find grants!?! ft: Ryan Alcorn, Founder and CEO of GrantExec

Ryan, why is it so hard to find grants?

It's a good question, and it's a question that we hear a lot. It's a, it's a common problem. Main issue is fragmentation. Grants are all over the world, for our purposes, all over the US. Now they're coming from different places. You've got the federal government and its 26, 27 agencies that offer grants. All of them do so through their own programs. There's some collaboration. Grants.gov is a good resource where you can find opportunities from the federal government, but it's pretty technical and unfortunately somewhat out of date. You've got state governments that all have their own programs within each state. Agencies are offering their own grants as well. Then at the local level, you've got opportunities, and then the private sector is its own, own whole can of worms because no, no single place has a repository of private grant opportunities. There's some good partial databases. Foundation Center does a good job with Candid. OpenGrants has put together a good government database, good partial government database. So folks are trying to solve this problem, but ultimately nobody has centralized this universe of opportunities because grant seeking is unfortunately a particularly fragmented problem. It's incredibly well-intentioned. Grantmakers care deeply about the organizations that they're looking to give to, but the funding for modern infrastructure has not been there, at least to date.

Yeah, I, I echo all everything you said, Ryan. I know before KeepYourEquity.co, I was in the startup world as a founder, and we raised a lot of money through non-dilutive funding, and that's exactly the problem that we found. We heard about these SBIR grants just because of people in our network, and so we went for them, and we were very fortunate to get them. But I just find there's a lot of other great opportunities that I just wasn't familiar with, either in the seed level, the foundational level. And so it's— I'm finding them through word of mouth, or like you said, I'm spending like hours trying to scour the internet to say, I just use like different keywords of what I think makes sense, but they could be describing these opportunities very differently. So sometimes things come up, I miss the deadline, and for me it was just very difficult just trying to spend the time to find these grants. I know you had, you had a little bit of a difficult issue, a problem as well too. How did you get into this?

I did, yeah, absolutely. Well, and I'll just say quickly on, on an issue around grant offerings, if you think about it, say you've got a family foundation, you're very passionate about animal rescues and you want to give to organizations that, that are supporting animal rights, maybe you put together a website, um, and you tell all your friends about it, but there's nobody picking that up necessarily indexing it and ensuring that it reaches the right folks. So best intentions, but there's just not a great delivery mechanism at this time. Um, to the question about how I got into this space, when I was in college, I was working for a woman-owned small business Orbee International, and they were dedicated to international development. Now, one of my, my tasks there as a, as a college intern was to scour the internet. It was actually just a long list of links in an Excel sheet to check every day to see if there was a new relevant opportunity from that funder. It was incredibly tedious. I love my time there. I love the folks that I worked with, but we knew it was a particularly low-tech solution and, uh, one not efficient and also not comprehensive. Uh, we were aware that there were likely opportunities that we'd hear about, as you said, through word of mouth or through the news talking about grants being deployed in certain places, but we didn't have a central repository. So the best we could do at the time was an Excel sheet of links, um, which was obviously not the way to go, even just 5, 6 years ago. Now, I got pretty frustrated with that process, and so I began to look into ways to automate the checking of these websites. So began to look into web parsing, how we might capture that data that was posted publicly but not reaching our accounts, whether it be through newsletters or, or some kind of live feed, just didn't have it. And so began to talk with folks much smarter than myself with great technical capacity and determined the feasibility of a system where we could automatically collect this data, put it all into one place. And then eventually what we were able to do is develop a larger database of government data. So federal, state, and as many local governments as we could collect and private funders all into one place. And so today our database has about 7,500 active opportunities worth about $120 billion. And so from there, what we've done is we've built out a matching algorithm And so client can come to us and say, hey, this is who we are. This is what we're looking for. These are our, this is what we might be eligible for based on this profile, what's out there. And now using large language models, we're able to rapidly identify those relevant opportunities. So that's a long way of saying terribly tedious low-tech process that just needed to be automated. And so that's what we've been on a mission here at GrantExec to do ever since.

I, I love that. So I remember myself, I also had those Excel sheets. I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out these grants. So I love that you guys automated the process and have made a platform just to do just that. So you, you've spent months just developing this smart AI algorithm just to help people find grants tailored to kind of what they need. And I, and I think you said we can use this for like startups, companies, nonprofits, pretty much anyone can use that. Is that correct?

Yeah, it, it is. And, and that's one of the, the great things about grants, although sometimes one of the, the, the obfuscating things about grants is at its core, it's just a financial instrument, right? It's one organization effectively, and it's an oversimplification, donating to another organization for a purpose other than financial return for that giving organization. So grants are excellent because they're non-dilutive. You're not losing any equity to take on the money. They're not a loan, so you don't have to pay it back. And there's typically a social reason for offering it. So the government will offer for new technical, technological developments. New, new social programs, issues that, that may not receive traditional funding for a major return on investment per se, but do something to benefit society. And so that comes in, in numerous different ways. Nonprofits are typically the first, first type of organization you might think of when you hear the word grant. And that's the data bears that out with at least in our database, we'd see 60 to 70% of active opportunities go to nonprofits. But they're certainly not the only recipient of nonprofits. We ourselves as a startup received a grant from the Commonwealth of Virginia here as a commercialization grant to help build out our technology. And before getting into this space, I wouldn't have known that for-profit businesses could receive grants. And so to your point, not only can nonprofits, startups, local governments, of course, through federal and state programs, you've also got schools, researchers, universities, and then larger businesses that are looking to decarbonize or looking to electrify their, their, their operations, things like that. As long as they're aligned with the interests of the funder, there are opportunities for almost any type of organization, particularly if they have some type of social good coming from their work.

Right. I love that. And even though, you know, I specialize in SBIR, it's a lot for science and tech startups. A lot of these clients come to me and say, hey, what other opportunities are there for grants or non-dilutive funding outside the SBIR realm? And so here I am, like, scratching my head. I'm not quite sure exactly, because again, it takes a long time to do this. So I sent a couple of my clients to you, and I was really blown away by some of your searches, especially from your scouting report. So let's, let's say, let's say, hey, I'm, I'm a new startup. I'm looking for grants, Ryan. Walk me through what, what do I do?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So the, the traditional way of doing things would be to start by asking your network or Google search. and those, those processes are painful, quickly tiresome, but you might get lucky. You might find something. There are some good, good free resources out there, or you could go to GrantExec because we've got a live feed of all of the grants in our database listed out for free on our website. So that's a great starting point. If you just want to see what's out there, you don't want to commit to, to a matching solution, totally fine by us. We recognize that this data is publicly available and we want to keep it that way. So we offer that for free. Now our paid solution is for the matching. What we've done is pulled together a system that takes your profile and allows us to provide accurate, insightful recommendations for specific opportunities to pursue at speed. So you ask about the process. So someone comes to our site, they can, they click on order a scouting report. Now I'm a baseball fan and so that's, that's the lingo that I've chosen for the product. But essentially what that means is You complete a profile on the website. We'll ask you questions about what type of organization are you. If you're a nonprofit, do you have 501(c)(3) status? If you're a startup, where in your development process are you? Are you pre-revenue? Have you, uh, do you have an MVP? Are you commercializing that MVP? The stage that you're at, uh, really does impact the type of grants that you're eligible for. Now, once we gather that information, it takes maybe 5, 10 minutes to fill out. The more that you can provide us with is better. Uh, that'll return better, better recommendations. Now, once you hit submit, you are then able to, well, your work is done essentially, at least for the moment. So then the data hits our end through our backend systems, our algorithm runs, and then we hand curate with our, our team. We've got 25 grant writers who support us in reviewing these opportunities, ensuring that they're relevant. We'll go back and check the websites to make sure that the data is still accurate and as up to date as possible. From there, we provide a personalized briefing of each opportunity. We say, Hey, this is the opportunity we recommend. This is why we recommend it. And here are the next steps you can take to pursue it. Included with that comes not only the source link, the opportunity title, but contact information, the award amount, specific insights that you might need to know. So essentially what we're trying to do is not only bring you to that specific page that the funder has put up, but also give you a personalized recommendation as to why you should pursue it. We're able to turn those around currently in about 3 business days. That's shortening, and we are getting to the point where we'll be transitioning to a SaaS platform. So this will be, instead of a few days, just a matter of minutes. So we're very excited about that. Not quite there yet, but we're hoping to get there soon. So that's our process in a nutshell. And like I said, we also have grant writers. And so if you identify an opportunity and you're looking for some extra support, you can work with an excellent grant writer like Stacy Chin to get the job done and put you in the best place possible to secure that funding.

I love that, Ryan, and I understand too, like, your reports also pull out the key things I'm always looking for and, like, scrolling through the 100-page solicitation. You make it super easy. It's, like, right there, like, the funding opportunity, who's eligible, who can I contact to talk about more, and kind of what the scope is. And I think that just— if I had this, like, years ago when I was doing a startup, that would save me so, so much time. So I'm really glad you're working on this, and I'm sure it's a great tool for anyone just looking for grants or any non-dilutive funding opportunities. See what's available. But, um, why, why don't you walk me through the website and how can I use your website as a resource to—

Yeah, absolutely.

Something good for me.

Yeah. So what I will do is I'll show you first a live overview of our website. So this is, uh, connected directly to our database. So today we've got a, uh, nearly 11,000 opportunities in the database worth $129.4 billion. It's a lot of money. This is all active opportunities. We've got another at least 50,000 opportunities in an archive that have expired and haven't been— haven't come back around. You can see we track right now about 3,500 funders, and just in the last 24 hours, there were 87 new grants. So this is, this is just a fun data visualization. Love building these, and so wanted to put it out there. But you can see each state has a certain number of opportunities. Now, most of these opportunities are also available nationwide. Regardless of where in the US you're based. But one interesting thing is I'll show you while by funding amount, the opportunities are particularly, and because we're on Zoom, this might be a little slow, but what I would show you is the number of organization, the number of grants themselves between federal, state, local, and private. Oh, there we go. So we've got a number of private opportunities. Federal is the largest funder by far, but by grant count, there are actually more private opportunities.

I didn't know that. Yeah. Wow.

Than given by the federal government. You can also see we break it down by organization type. So nonprofits receive the most, they're in the lead, you could say, about $87 billion in our database. And our database is growing. I wouldn't call it comprehensive yet. That's, that's a goal that we're trying to reach, but Frankly, that's never been done before. Nobody has centralized that entire universe of opportunities. We would love to be the first ones to do it. There are a lot of great folks working on it as well. But I want to throw that out there because we're still growing and, and still compiling new data. Also within, I can show you the issue areas that are provided. So it's great to see that the environment, this is climate resilience, renewables, things like that, all tied in. And so you can see there's a lot of money going to environmental issues, which which is excellent. Now, one thing that we're trying to do over time is track trend data, not just by recipient type, but also issue area. We want to know where are folks sending money, what's being funded, what's not being funded. So you maybe you see consumer protection or women and girls services are only receiving about $1.7 million there. Now, some of that might be an undercount on our part, but we want to get to a point where we can show broad trends and say, hey, Funders, there's not a lot of money going here. Consider injecting some cash into this issue area because maybe there's a gap. So that's, that's kind of a side project, but there's so many opportunities for innovation in this space.

Absolutely. That's great. This is so helpful to see the breakdown of everything going on.

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. And also in here, I'll just show you real quick. Sometimes when, when you think of grants, if you only think of, you only hear about large federal opportunities, you know, $100 million, $200 million grants, those can seem pretty distant, right? Now, what I wanted to point out is a lot of these opportunities are small applications and small grants, and so they don't necessarily take the same amount of time to pursue. So small grants, $1,000 to $5,000, $700-some. And you can see these are all $100,000-plus in smaller amounts. So typically smaller amount means less overhead, less application work to do. And so there's a way that you can fund your organization through smaller grants as well. I'll also show briefly the, this is federal-specific. So the data that we pull comes from the 26 agencies that offer grant opportunities. Now you can find this data in table form and on grants.gov, but what I really like about this is it shows you a live snapshot of what the government visually, what the government is offering today. So you've got almost $90 billion from 2,300 grants. And then what I really like is we can track day by day. So this, this parser runs daily. Last 24 hours, we had 17 new grants and $273 million in new funding. See, the EPA right now is the biggest funder. Now that changes often, and we track that in our, in our trends. You can find in the data center under federal trends. Um, but the last thing that I'll show right on the website is we have a live feed. So like I said, we wanna make this data publicly available because that was the intention of the funders. And so what we've done is this is directly connected to latest grants that hit our database. So you see, yeah, these are, these are all opportunities. Yeah. So you say, all right, well what about, let's see, private opportunities. So you can filter there grants for the arts, humanities, and Interpretive Sciences and Maths, and then you can click on the opportunity there and it'll take you right to the opportunity page. So that's just a little bit about, about what we do. If you go to Solutions and Pricing, you can check out our scouting reports to learn more, and then there's a link within to order a scouting report if you're interested. And as always, there we've got blog posts if you want to learn more about the grant seeking process, federal opportunities, just a lot of good content that we're putting out to try to inform grant seekers about the opportunities that are out there.

I love the mission, Ryan, and I think this is something of huge need out there, especially now it's so difficult to get just like venture funding or just even like equity-based fundraising. It's getting more and more difficult. So I'm glad that we're making these grant opportunities and these non-diluted funding opportunities more accessible. But thank you so much for your time. This has been incredibly helpful. Um, is there any last parting words that you want our audience to know or any, uh, founders to know about finding grants and using GrantExec?

Well, I, I appreciate that, and it's been a pleasure to be here. I would just say that we're in a moment right now of incredible possibility with language models, AI, new solutions. Not only are they excellent tools to support you, but it's, it's, and, and there are, there are fascinating opportunities that will come from them. But right now, they're excellent tools, and you can get so much more done with a small team that used to require significantly more resources. And so for, for new founders, for solopreneurs, for small teams, don't feel that you need to raise an incredible amount of capital early to get the job done because the tools that are out there today, whether it be even something as simple, simple as Grammarly Go, I'm not paid to support them, but I'll just give them a plug. Being able to write, edit emails, things like that just incredibly quickly. Makes a world of difference. So I would say, you know, it's, it's, there's healthy skepticism of AI, but there are some real tangible solutions that are incredibly beneficial. And so I, I would recommend checking them out and don't be overwhelmed by, by what's out there. Just jump right in. And if we can do anything to support you, hit us up.

So what I'm hearing, Ryan, is that this is nothing but a better time to get non-dilutive funding and to have people just for companies, which is great.

I hope so. I hope so.

Yeah, I think so too. Fantastic, fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Ryan, for your time today. If you guys are interested in checking out Granting Second Dare, fantastic platform, I'll leave referral code on the screen, also in the description below. Um, it's a great tool. I know you guys have been asking me about ways to find grants, and I hope this is a great solution for you guys and that you find this helpful to support you in your non-dilutive fundraising journey. Thank you so much for joining me today, and I will see you in the video very soon.