One of the most obvious places to look for these types of funds will be the government agencies that would most likely handle your program. If you are a student looking for scholarships then the Department of Education website is a good place to start looking for educational grants. If you are a victim of a natural disaster, surfing through the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) free grant search could be of help.

There are a lot of government agencies that offer availability of free grants. Likely government agencies that might have grants available are: Department of Education Grants and Contracts Information, Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Transportation (DOT), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Stopping Violence Against Women and Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has over 300 programs run by several agencies which should be checked out.

If you cannot find the grant information you are searching for, there are other online federal resources that could aid you in your free grant search. These online resources are: Grantsnet, Non-profit Gateway and The Foundation Center.

For students, who would like to look for scholarship or research grants, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) website (http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/) is available for you. FAFSA contains information on grants, available loans and campus-based student aid programs.

For individuals and organizations that have an idea on the intricacies of grant application processes then the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) is the place to begin your search. CFDA contains entries about each program which could sound foreign to someone who is new to free grant terminologies. The CFDA website is http://www.cfda.gov/. The CFDA entry usually contains information on how the grant money should be used, how to apply complete with contact information, how they review and award the applications and what is expected from the successful grant applicants.

Recently, President George Bush's e-government initiative has launched a new free grant search website called GovBenefits.com. GovBenefits.com is an online tool that allows everyone to access and consequently avail themselves of government benefit programs that are designed to help them. This online tool is aimed at providing more focus on the citizens by our government. This free service intends to lessen bureaucracy and provide efficient service to the people by doing away with paper work.