Funders
Make your grants easier to find, wherever they’re posted.
Publish once and reach applicants across platforms — no extra lift.
A common language for grant data
CommonGrants is an open standard for managing opportunities, applications, and awards across grant platforms.
Why CommonGrants?
Section titled “Why CommonGrants?”CommonGrants is part of the SimplerGrants initiative led by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). While SimplerGrants focuses on modernizing the federal grant process, CommonGrants is designed to support a more open and interoperable ecosystem for all types of grants.
The problem
Section titled “The problem”The grant ecosystem today is fragmented. A patchwork of portals, formats, and systems creates friction for everyone involved:
- Funders must choose between usability and reach.
- Grant seekers juggle multiple platforms, answering the same questions over and over.
- Grant platforms spend time wrangling inconsistent data from disparate sources.
- Developers face steep costs to build tools that only work in one place.
The vision
Section titled “The vision”CommonGrants defines a unified API and data model for funding opportunities, applications, and awards — enabling interoperability by default and extensibility by design.
It lays the groundwork for:
- A “common app” experience for grant seekers and funders: faster discovery, simpler applications, less duplication.
- A shared interface for platforms and developers to exchange grant data without building custom integrations for every use case.
By making grant data portable, machine-readable, and easy to connect, CommonGrants helps the ecosystem move from fragmentation to integration.
Learn more Explore how CommonGrants is working to make this vision a reality.
Who is it for?
Section titled “Who is it for?”CommonGrants is designed to be adopted by technical teams, while benefiting a wide range of stakeholders:
Grant seekers
Spend less time on forms, more time on your mission.
Reuse answers. Apply across portals. Focus on the work that matters.
Grant platforms
Focus on features, not brittle integrations.
Standardize data exchange with other systems — without reinventing the wheel.
Developers
Build tools once. Connect them anywhere.
Work with a consistent interface across platforms — not dozens of custom APIs.
How do I get involved?
Section titled “How do I get involved?” Get started Learn how to define a CommonGrants API using TypeSpec.
View the API docs Browse the API endpoints supported by the protocol.
Explore the spec Deep dive into the technical specification.
Share your thoughts Help us make the protocol easier to use and adopt.