Dog-Eared

How to Read a Grant Notice: What to Check Before You Read It All

By the Grant Hounds team · October 28, 2026 · 5-minute read

When a promising grant turns up, the natural move is to check the dollar amount and start planning. Then, a week into the draft, someone finds the line that says your type of organization can’t apply, or that the match has to be cash, or that a letter of intent was due last Friday.

Most of those surprises sit in plain sight in the notice. The trick is reading the parts that can stop you before the parts that excite you.

What a grant notice is

A grant notice is the funder’s official description of the opportunity: what it pays for, who can apply, how to apply, and how decisions get made. Federal agencies call it a notice of funding opportunity, or NOFO. States, foundations, and corporate funders may call it a request for proposals, a call for applications, or just guidelines.

For federal grants, the contents are set out in Appendix I to 2 CFR Part 200, revised in 2024. It asks agencies to write notices in plain language and use the same or similar headings across notices. The sections run in this order: basic information, eligibility, program description, application contents and format, submission requirements and deadlines, application review information, award notices, post-award requirements, and an optional section for other information. Once you know that order, you can find what you need in any federal notice.

Start with eligibility, not the dollar amount

The eligibility section lists the types of organizations that can apply, any other restrictions, and any limit on how many applications one organization can send. Read it closely. “Local governments” may or may not include special districts, and “nonprofits” may require a specific tax status. If your organization doesn’t clearly fit, the rest of the notice doesn’t matter yet.

Cost sharing lives in this section too. Under the federal appendix, a notice that requires a match has to say clearly that not committing to it will make the application ineligible, and it has to explain how the match is calculated and whether in-kind contributions count. If you want the full picture there, our article on matching funds walks through it.

Then check the dates

The basic information section at the top of a federal notice includes key dates: the application deadline, plus any letter of intent or preapplication deadline, which can come weeks earlier. Under 2 CFR 200.204, federal agencies should generally keep an opportunity open for at least 60 calendar days, and no opportunity should be open for less than 30 calendar days unless the agency finds that urgent circumstances justify it. That can sound like plenty of time. It often isn’t.

Count backward from the deadline. The submission section will say your organization must be registered in SAM.gov before it applies, and keep that registration active. If a board or council has to approve the application, find its next meeting date. If partners need to send letters, give them time. Our article on grant readiness covers the steps that tend to take longest.

Read how it will be scored

The application review section is where the funder tells you what wins. It describes each review criterion, and when the criteria aren’t equally important, the federal appendix asks the agency to give their relative percentages or weights. If one criterion is worth 40 points and your organization is thin there, that matters more than any page limit.

The same section can describe a first screening that knocks applications out before scoring, and other factors the agency may weigh in final decisions, such as geographic balance. It also explains the risk review, where the agency looks at an applicant’s history and ability to manage federal money. A strong idea doesn’t make up for an application that never reaches the reviewers.

Look past the award

The post-award section covers the terms that come with the money and the reports you’d owe, including how often and how they’re submitted. It’s easy to skip, because it describes life after a win. But it describes the work your staff would carry for the whole award. If quarterly financial and progress reports would land on one already-stretched person, that belongs in the decision now.

The award notices section adds one more useful point: a letter saying you’ve been selected is not permission to start spending. The official award document is. Any costs you take on before it arrives, where the notice allows them at all, are at your own risk.

A 15-minute first read

Before anyone starts writing, have one person read only these parts and answer five questions in a short note to the team:

• Can we apply? Does our organization type appear in the eligibility list, with no restriction that rules us out?
• What would we put in? Is there a required match, how is it calculated, and does in-kind count?
• When is everything due? The application, any letter of intent, and our own approvals, with our SAM.gov registration confirmed active.
• What gets scored? The top two or three criteria and their weights, and whether we’re strong there.
• What comes after? The reports we’d owe and who on our team would own them.

If any answer is “no” or “we don’t know,” that’s the conversation to have first. The program description, page limits, and formatting rules can wait until you know the grant is worth the effort.

Foundation and state notices

Foundations and state programs don’t follow the federal format. Some publish detailed guidelines, and some post a single page and expect a conversation. The same five questions still apply. When the answers aren’t written down, it’s fair to ask the program officer before you invest the hours, and many funders would rather you did.

How we think about grant notices at Grant Hounds

When we research grants for an organization, we read the notice for each opportunity, not just the summary. We check eligibility against what that organization has told us, note the deadlines and match, and flag anything that would stop an application before it’s scored. We don’t write applications. We find and qualify the opportunities so your team’s time goes toward the ones worth pursuing.

If you want a quick read on where your organization stands, our free two-minute readiness check asks six questions and shows you what to fix first.

Who this matters most for

Keep reading

• Matching Funds: What “Match Required” Really Means Before You Apply

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• Are You Grant-Ready? What Funders Look for Before They Read Your Proposal

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