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Funding Resources

There are many places to begin a funding search, including NIH Grants, the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, the Carolina Internal Funding Database, and others. You can read more about some of these funding sources below.

UNC also has a Funding Information Portal that contains information about finding and applying for funding opportunities, in the form of collections of links to relevant resources. Some links are broken or lead to outdated information, but it is nonetheless a useful hub for those seeking funding.

The Office of Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health offer a number of funding programs and grants.
Main Funding Page | New Advanced Search | Old Advanced Search
The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) contains 2,354 federal assistance programs. There is some overlap with the funding opportunities offered by NIH Grants, but there are a significant number that are exclusive to CFDA, particularly in interdisciplinary areas.  CFDA can be accessed through beta.SAM.gov.
The Carolina Internal Funding Database contains opportunites that are funded from within UNC or that require university approval to apply. This is a small database (~200 records), but it is a good place to begin a funding search for researchers affiliated with UNC.
SPIN Plus is a funding database that has replaced COS Pivot as UNC’s funding opportunity database of record.  SPIN includes over 40,000 funding opportunities from more than 10,000 federal, public, non-profit, and private sponsors. You can learn more about about SPIN from UNC Office of Research Development.  Please note that you can only use SPIN while on the UNC campus.

In order to save searches and sign up for email notifications, you will need to register for a SPIN account, which you can do by clicking “Sign In” in the top right corner of the SPIN main funding page. You must then click the link “Need to create a new profile?” and enter your information, and your request will then be submitted to UNC’s SPIN administrator.

SPIN Main Funding Page

Foundation Directory Online is a service offered by the Foundation Center. It allows researchers, non-profits, and other people and organizations in need of funding to search for funding from foundations. There is a free version of the service that allows the user to search grantmakers or IRS 990 forms (the tax return forms submitted by organizations exempt from the income tax). However, full access to FDO requires a subscription.

  • UNC’s Funding Information Portal includes some information about the Foundation Directory here and here.
  • Because of licensing restrictions, the Funding Information Portal can only provide access to the free version of the Foundation Center’s database. Researchers who want to access the full database must make an appointment at the Office of Research Development.