Though the application process is not extremely complicated, a rejection can still occur. Common reasons for the rejection of an application are:
- The DUNS number of the submitter does not match the DUNS number on the application.
- A virus was detected in a file attachment.
- Attachments do not follow the proper naming convention. Review the application instructions provided by the award-making agency for their attachment restrictions. The application was submitted after the deadline for receiving applications.
- The submitter does not have an authorized Grants.gov applicant registration.
- The submitter missed attaching a document.
Note: If your application is rejected you will need to address the errors and resubmit the application if the opportunity is still open for submission.
Attachments to be Added
Although Grants.gov does not restrict types of file attachments, if more than one attachment is included in a grant submission and two or more files have the same name, the grant application cannot be processed without manual intervention. To correct this, you should:
- Rename attached files with the same name so that no files share the same name.
- Reattach the files.
- Resubmit the application package.
Restrictions on File Names for any Attachment Included
- Review the application instructions provided by the award-making agency for their attachment restrictions.
- Review the form instructions you are completing.
If there are no restrictions for file names identified by the agency or in the form, then the file name restrictions are as follows:
- Limit file names to 50 or fewer characters
- Do not attach any documents with the same name. All attachments should have a unique name.
- Please use only the following characters when naming your attachments: A-Z, a-z, 0-9, underscore, hyphen, space, period, parenthesis, curly braces, square brackets, ampersand, tilde, exclamation point, comma, semi colon, apostrophe, at sign, number sign, dollar sign, percent sign, plus sign, and equal sign. Attachments that do not follow this rule may cause the entire application to be rejected or cause issues during processing.
These were the key steps to successfully submit a grant application.
For more information, please visit Grants.gov application procedure.