# What is GOV.UK Find a grant?

**GOV.UK Find a grant**: GOV.UK Find a grant is the free government service that lets you search government grants, check whether you are eligible and learn how to apply, with saved searches and email alerts. It lists grants from departments and public bodies only, not trusts or lottery programmes; OpenGrant ingests it.

- Also called: Find a grant, find-government-grants.service.gov.uk, government grants finder
- Author: OpenGrant
- Updated: 2026-10-26
- Canonical URL: https://opengrant.co.uk/glossary/find-a-grant

GOV.UK Find a grant is the government's free service for finding grants from departments and public bodies. Its homepage on 26 October 2026 described it as "a service that allows you to search government grants", and said you can search, check whether you are eligible, learn how to apply, browse and filter the full list, save searches and sign up to be emailed when new grants are added. It is a beta service and has grown since launch; it does not show a running total of grants.

**Why it matters when applying.** Government grants are one of the five kinds of funding a UK charity can seek, alongside lottery, trusts, community foundations and companies, and Find a grant is the authoritative list for that kind. Programmes such as the Department for Work and Pensions' Youth Jobs Grant and the Department for Education's school drainage scheme appear there first. It covers nothing else: no trusts, no [National Lottery Community Fund](https://opengrant.co.uk/glossary/national-lottery-community-fund) programmes and no council funds. [Free UK grant finders](https://opengrant.co.uk/blog/free-grant-finders-uk) sets out what each free tool covers and leaves out.

**How OpenGrant uses it.** OpenGrant ingests Find a grant as one of its sources, so its records appear on the [browse pages](https://opengrant.co.uk/grants/browse) beside lottery, trust and community foundation schemes, each with a source link and a last-verified date. The complete guide to [charity grants in the UK](https://opengrant.co.uk/blog/charity-grants-uk) places it in a full search method.

**Example.** A fictional employment charity in Oldham searches Find a grant for "youth", finds a departmental programme open to voluntary organisations, and reads the eligibility page before adding it to its pipeline alongside two trusts found through GrantNav.

## Frequently asked questions

### Is GOV.UK Find a grant free?

Yes. Searching, filtering and reading each grant's eligibility and application details is free without an account. Signing in lets you save searches, manage notifications and start applications where the grant uses the service's own application form. There is no paid tier.

### What grants does GOV.UK Find a grant cover?

Grants from UK government departments and some arm's-length bodies. It does not list grant-making trusts, community foundations, National Lottery distributors or local council funds. For those you need the funder's own site, GrantNav for past grants, or a database of open calls that draws on several sources.

### Does OpenGrant include GOV.UK Find a grant?

Yes. OpenGrant ingests GOV.UK Find a grant as one of its published sources, so its records appear on the browse pages next to lottery, trust and community foundation schemes, each with a link back to the original listing and a last-verified date. The sources page lists every feed OpenGrant uses.

## Read more

- [Free UK grant finders for charities: what each one covers and what it leaves out](https://opengrant.co.uk/blog/free-grant-finders-uk)
- [Prospect research tools for freelance trust fundraisers](https://opengrant.co.uk/blog/prospect-research-tools-for-freelance-fundraisers)
- [Trust fundraising prospect research: how to find out who funds charities like yours](https://opengrant.co.uk/blog/trust-fundraising-prospect-research)
- [Browse grants by place, organisation and cause](https://opengrant.co.uk/grants/browse)
- [Grants for charities and community groups](https://opengrant.co.uk/grants/for/charities)

## Related terms

- [National Lottery Community Fund](https://opengrant.co.uk/glossary/national-lottery-community-fund): The National Lottery Community Fund is the public body that distributes National Lottery money for good causes to community projects across the UK. Its programmes range from Awards for All (£300 to £20,000, decided in 16 weeks in England) to Reaching Communities England (£20,001 or more).
- [GrantNav](https://opengrant.co.uk/glossary/grantnav): GrantNav is 360Giving's free search tool for grants that UK funders have already awarded and published in the 360Giving Data Standard. You can search by funder, recipient or keyword, filter by year, amount and region, and download the results, all under an open licence.
- [360Giving](https://opengrant.co.uk/glossary/360giving): 360Giving is the UK charity that helps grant funders publish the grants they have made as open data in one agreed format, the 360Giving Data Standard. The data is free to reuse and is the evidence base behind tools such as GrantNav and the funder research on OpenGrant.

## Sources and further reading

- [GOV.UK: Find a grant](https://www.find-government-grants.service.gov.uk/)
- [GOV.UK: Find government grants (guidance)](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/find-government-grants)
- [OpenGrant: sources and coverage](https://opengrant.co.uk/sources)

Full glossary: https://opengrant.co.uk/glossary.md