Grant Opportunity Finder: Every Open US Federal Grant, Soonest Deadline First

Find open and upcoming US federal grants on Grants.gov by keyword, agency or who is allowed to apply. You get the award size, the total program funding, the deadline and the days left, the eligibility rules and the program contact. On every run after the first, it flags new grants and forecasts that have just opened for applications.

Built for grant writers and development teams who still check Grants.gov by hand every week and hope they didn't miss one.

How it works

flowchart LR
    A["Keywords, agencies,<br/>who can apply"] --> B["Grants.gov search"]
    B --> C["Full record per grant:<br/>award size, eligibility, contact"]
    C --> D["One row per grant,<br/>soonest deadline first"]
    D --> E{"Since last run?"}
    E -->|not seen| F["new-opportunity"]
    E -->|forecast opened| G["now-open"]
    E -->|deadline moved| H["deadline-changed"]

There's no scraping and no API key. It reads Grants.gov's own public API, the same one its website uses, so a restyled page won't break it.

Built for

• Nonprofit development teams building a funding pipeline
• Grant writers and consultants watching for clients across many programs
• Universities and research offices tracking NSF, NIH, DOE and DOD calls
• Small businesses looking for SBIR and other for-profit-eligible funding
• Cities, counties and tribes that need every infrastructure and community grant

Input

{
  "keywords": ["broadband", "digital equity"],
  "eligibilities": ["12"],
  "minAwardCeiling": 250000,
  "closingWithinDays": 60,
  "onlyChanged": true
}

Setting	What it does
keywords	What the grant is for. Each keyword runs its own search, most relevant first
statuses	forecasted (coming soon), posted (open now), or both
eligibilities	Only grants your organisation type can apply for
fundingCategories	Health, Education, Energy, Science and Technology and so on
agencies	Grants.gov agency codes such as NSF or HHS-NIH11
minAwardCeiling	Skip grants whose largest award is too small to be worth the effort
closingWithinDays	Only deadlines in the next N days
onlyChanged	Return nothing on a quiet run
timeBudgetSecs	How long a run may spend before returning what it has

Output

{
  "opportunityNumber": "25-514",
  "title": "NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Program",
  "agency": "U.S. National Science Foundation",
  "status": "posted",
  "closeDate": "2027-03-02",
  "daysUntilClose": 160,
  "awardCeiling": 5000000,
  "awardFloor": 1000000,
  "estimatedTotalFunding": 120000000,
  "expectedAwards": 60,
  "costSharing": false,
  "fundingInstruments": ["Grant"],
  "eligibleApplicants": ["Others (see text field entitled \"Additional Information on Eligibility\" for clarification)"],
  "contactEmail": "grantsgovsupport@nsf.gov",
  "moreInfoUrl": "http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf25514",
  "url": "https://www.grants.gov/search-results-detail/357498",
  "matchedKeywords": ["rural"],
  "changeType": "new-opportunity",
  "checkedAt": "2026-09-23T18:08:55.059Z"
}

Rows come back soonest open deadline first, so a grant closing this week sits at the top instead of being buried by posting date.

A forecast that opens is the most useful alert here. Agencies announce many grants weeks or months early as forecasts. The day one moves to posted, it comes back as now-open, which is usually the day you want to start writing.

Turn it into a weekly funding alert

{
  "keywords": ["mental health", "substance use"],
  "eligibilities": ["12", "13"],
  "onlyChanged": true
}

Schedule it weekly. The first run records what's already out there without alerting you. After that, each run returns only new grants, grants that just opened and moved deadlines.

Run it as an API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/arched_friend~grant-opportunity-finder/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "keywords": ["climate resilience"],
    "statuses": ["posted"],
    "closingWithinDays": 45
  }'

Pricing

You pay $0.002 for each grant returned. A quiet run with onlyChanged on costs nothing.

Tracking federal grants weekly	Monthly cost
Checking Grants.gov by hand	a few hours every week
Grant database subscriptions	roughly $100 to $300 per month
This Actor	under $1 per month for most searches

Common questions

Why are some award amounts null? The agency left them blank. Grants.gov stores a blank amount as 0, and a $0 ceiling isn't a real ceiling, so it's returned as null. The minAwardCeiling filter keeps those grants rather than hiding real money.

Why did a keyword find a grant that doesn't mention it in the title? Grants.gov matches any of the words anywhere in the listing, and orders results by relevance. A single precise word (broadband) usually beats a long phrase. Use excludeTerms to trim the rest.

Does it cover foundation or state grants? No. It covers federal grants, which is everything listed on Grants.gov.

Do I need an API key? No. The Grants.gov API is public and keyless.

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