Methodology

GrantsJunction imports official public data on a schedule — Grants.gov daily and SAM.gov Assistance Listings weekly — keeps the original source record for every item, normalizes formats without changing meaning, and clearly labels anything we calculate ourselves. The official notice always governs.

1. Sources

See the live source registry and data status for last successful refresh times.

2. How records are imported

• Each run is logged with counts of records seen, created, updated, unchanged and failed.
• We store the raw source payload and a fingerprint (hash) for every record, so changes can be detected and audited.
• Unchanged records only have their “last verified” time updated. Changed records are re-normalized, and important field changes (deadline, award amounts, status) are recorded.
• One malformed record never stops a run, and a failed run never deletes existing data.
• If a source suddenly reports far fewer active records than we hold, the run stops before changing anything (a safety check against upstream outages).
• Closed opportunities stay available for research and are clearly marked closed.

3. Normalization

We standardize dates (deadlines are calendar dates in U.S. Eastern time, as Grants.gov publishes them), dollar amounts, agency codes, Assistance Listing Numbers, applicant-type codes, funding categories and instruments. We preserve the agency's original wording: synopses are shown as published, cleaned only for safe display.

4. Derived labels

Some labels are calculated by GrantsJunction rather than published by the source. They are always labeled:

• Closing soon — an open opportunity with a close date 14 days away or less. Shown as “Closes in N days.”
• Verified today / N days ago — when we last confirmed the record against the source.
• State mentions — a notice whose title or synopsis names a state. This is not an eligibility restriction. Notices naming five or more jurisdictions are treated as boilerplate and excluded.
• Related opportunities — ranked by shared Assistance Listings, agency, categories and eligible applicant types.
• Grant Finder match strength — how many of your answers a notice lines up with. It is not an approval probability.
• “At a glance” summaries — sentences assembled only from the record's source fields. No AI-generated text is used.

5. What we never do

• We never state that you qualify or will be approved.
• We never calculate approval rates from award data — the number of applications is rarely published.
• We never overwrite official data based only on user reports; corrections are verified against the source.
• We never imply government affiliation.

6. Limitations

• Grants.gov covers federal discretionary opportunities. Formula funds, state and local grants, and most private foundation grants are not yet included.
• Agencies sometimes update a notice's attachments without changing the summary record; always read the full announcement.
• Program obligations come from agency-reported figures in SAM.gov and may be revised.

7. Corrections

Every grant and program page has a report a data issue link. We review reports against the official source and fix normalization errors promptly.