How it works
How WinAGrant verifies grants and filters out bad matches
For a small business, the hard part was never writing the application. It was knowing a grant is real, still open, and actually yours to win. Here is exactly what we do before a grant ever reaches your list, and before you send anything to a funder.
We check funder pages for changes daily. Every draft is sent to Strayguard™, our in-house AI review. It flags claims it can't trace back to your answers, so you can confirm or cut them.
We check funder pages for changes daily
Our database watches 564 curated grant programs: federal, state, and private. We check funder pages for changes daily. When a page changes, we verify the grant again. Grants on our public pages show the date we last verified them. If a deadline moves, a program closes, or the eligibility rules change, the listing updates or comes down. On top of that, every match run searches Grants.gov, the federal government's own database, live.
The receipts
Our database holds 564 curated grant programs. 358 of them are verified private and state programs. The rest are federal programs and programs we're still verifying.
In the last 30 days, our verifier looked at 254 programs that were called small business grants and turned them down. Here's why:
- 6 were loans, tax credits, or other financing
- 1 paid an investor, fund, or lender instead of the business
- 12 were limited to nonprofits, universities, governments, or individuals
- 2 were contracts, not grants
- 196 couldn't be confirmed as a real, open grant from the funder's own page
- 37 weren't money a small business could receive as a grant, for other reasons
A few we turned down in September 2026:
- New York's Linked Deposit Program lowers the interest rate on a bank loan. It's a loan, so we don't list it.
- Pennsylvania's Ben Franklin Venture Investment Program lends money to venture capital funds, which then invest in companies. The money goes to investors, not to your business, so we don't list it.
- Missouri's Advanced Industrial Manufacturing Zones program redirects state tax revenue into a port authority fund. It isn't money paid to your business.
Examples checked against each funder's page, September 23, 2026. Counts as of October 25, 2026.
We drop grants that only look like they're for you
A lot of what gets called a “small business grant” is not one. Before a program is ever shown, our verifier reads the funder's page and answers two plain questions: can a small business itself receive this money, and is it actually a grant, meaning money you never pay back and give up no ownership for? We drop:
- money that really goes to an investor, fund, or lender instead of to the business
- tax credits, loans, and loan guarantees dressed up as grants
- contracts and procurement solicitations
- programs whose fine print excludes for-profit businesses (many “small business” federal notices really target nonprofits, universities, or research institutions)
- single-source awards already earmarked for one named organization
We run a separate check for nonprofits, so a nonprofit only sees grants a nonprofit can actually apply for.
The catalog these checks produce is summarized, with dated figures, on our live grant statistics page.
We tell you why each grant fits your business
Every match comes with plain reasons it fits you: your industry, your state, how your business is owned, what you need the money for. No mystery score. If we cannot say why a grant fits you, it does not belong on your list. A match means your business appears eligible based on your answers and the funder's own published requirements. The funder makes the final eligibility decision, not us.
Every draft goes to Strayguard™, our in-house AI review
Every draft is sent to Strayguard, separate from the AI that wrote it, which runs in-house checks we don't publish. It scores the draft against the funder's published criteria and flags details it can't trace to your answers: a number that does not add up, a claim you never made, language a funder would question. The writer is told to use only your facts. Where it needs one you haven't given, it leaves a marked blank. If the review can't finish, your draft page tells you.
The writer follows 28 grant-writing rules. They are ours, we built them, and we do not publish them. What we do show you is what it flags, highlighted in your draft. How Strayguard works → It is deliberately strict. That is the point.
What the writer's 28 rules cover, in plain terms:
- Funder alignment: does the application answer what this funder actually asks for
- Evidence: does each claim trace back to something you told us
- Specificity: real numbers and details, not filler
- Measurable outcomes: what the money will actually accomplish
- Budget consistency: the ask matches the plan
- Requirement coverage: nothing the funder requires is left out
Each is drawn from how federal reviewers score and what professional grant writers do. The specific rules stay ours.
What we don't do
- We do not promise you will win. Grants are competitive, and anyone who guarantees funding is lying.
- We are not a human grant consultant. This is AI, and we say so plainly. You review, edit, and submit every application yourself.
- We do not charge you before you have seen your matches.
- We do not ask for your Social Security number, bank login, or any government ID. We store the business details you give us to match and write your grants, your email, and your card through Stripe. We never store raw card numbers.
- We do not charge you for the grant itself. Most grants are free to apply for. A few private funders charge a small application fee, and we show it on the card. Our fee is for finding and writing.