Later this month, October 28-31, Grants.gov will be down for maintenance. We are highlighting this outage for two reasons. First, it falls during the DRS application period. Second, following maintenance, Grants.gov will be different. A blog post from Grants.gov describes the planned update as resulting in a “new look and feel” and with a “more intuitive and responsive user experience.”
You might be wondering, what does this upgrade mean? In a Grants.gov Community Blog post from October 17, 2023, the new system is described as more secure and accessible. These changes are part of a system modernization initiative and will result in a more user-friendly experience. The content on Grants.gov will remain the same. The Grants.gov Community Blog post also encourages users to update bookmarks and hyperlinks to Grants.gov pages, as URLs may change.
Some changes to Grants.gov will take place at a later date. You might come across interfaces that feel like the “old” system, as some pages within Grants.gov are not being updated during the upcoming maintenance. Additionally, Chatbot and other features will not be available in the new sections of the website. These features will be integrated into future updates.
In early November, we encourage you to sign in to Grants.gov and familiarize yourself with the updated system. While it is designed to be more user-friendly, it might still feel new. It will be better to work out any navigation challenges now, before it is time to enter data and upload documents to submit your DRS application.
Remember that Grants.gov will be down for the upgrade October 28-31. Also note that Grants.gov will be down for regularly scheduled maintenance from November 18-20. There are no other scheduled outages prior to the December 14, 2023 DRS application due date.
Foundations for Families offers a variety of Consulting Services to support programs in DRS. If your program has the capacity to write its own grant application but needs help with the timeline, template, and process, consider Foundations for Families’ DRS Toolkit. Please be in touch to learn more. We would be glad to talk with you about your program’s needs.
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