Grants in the US government usually issued to a certain projects that promote positive externalities, which means the project should have greater positive effect to the society rather than the private benefit. A certain grant may be given by the state government or by federal government.

Federal grants refer to grants that are mostly given to firms and companies and not for a certain individuals. These grants have three categories which are Earmark Grants, project grants and formula grants.

Formula grants are those grants that usually provide funds as mandated by the existing law. This type of grant might be a sum of money that US government needs to spend to protect the forests or provide services to demote substance abuse. Earmark grants are issued through legislators and being added to a certain bill that was being passed that also helps particular projects to acquire funding without any public reviews. In the Earmark Grants, there could be large possibilities of abusing it by the legislators. Project grants are issued to companies or person for the purpose of researching. A good example for this would be one pharmaceutical company that tried to develops a certain drug to fight a particular disease.

State grants usually issued to individuals given by a certain states. It includes the grants that promote higher education for people such as the education and college grants.

The Institutions and certain people are both qualify for the education grants. Institution may improve their facilities using this grant while individuals who greatly need the money such as people in the minority community and physically handicapped people may use the money for their college. College grants help the people who are higher achievers to finish their college by means of financial support coming from the government. The Government either pays a portion of their college expenses or they may take on the whole college expenditures which largely depend on a person’s case.

[James Ewing] has been in the field of personal government grants for a long time and maintains a website about personal grants application where you can get answers to the rest of your questions.