Elon Musk Takes Over Grants.gov
As we have been forecasting, one of the four ways in which the White House is making life more challenging for nonprofits is by not posting anticipated or typical federal grant opportunities.
They just went all-in on that effort, with Elon Musk's "team" having overtaken Grants.Gov. Via the Washington Post:
U.S. DOGE Service employees have inserted themselves into the government’s long-established process to alert the public about potential federal grants and allow organizations to apply for funds, according to four people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive situation.
The changes to the process — which will allow DOGE to review and approve proposed grant opportunities across the federal government — threaten to further delay or even halt billions of dollars that agencies usually make in federal awards, the people said. The moves come amid the Trump administration’s broader push to cut federal spending and crack down on grants that DOGE and other officials say conflict with White House priorities.
DOGE employees have made changes to grants.gov, a federal website that has traditionally served as a clearinghouse for more than $500 billion in annual awards and is used by thousands of outside organizations, the people said. Federal agencies including the Defense, State and Interior departments have historically have posted their grant opportunities directly to the site. Nonprofits, universities and local governments respond to these grant opportunities with applications to receive federal funding for activities that include cancer research, cybersecurity, highway construction and wastewater management.
But a DOGE engineer recently deleted many federal officials’ permissions to post grant opportunities, without informing them that their permissions had been removed, the people said. Now the responsibility of posting these grant opportunities is poised to rest with DOGE — and if its employees delay those postings or stop them altogether, “it could effectively shut down federal-grant making,” said one federal official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal operations.
Agency officials have been told that the grants.gov site has been under systems maintenance. They have been instructed to email their planned grant notices to grantreview@hhs.gov, an inbox at the Department of Health and Human Services that is being monitored by DOGE, the people said.
About 5,000 notices of funding opportunities are typically posted on grants.gov each year, with more than 10 million visitors to the site, according to people with knowledge of its operations. Some federal agencies have been able to post grant opportunities, known as Notice of Funding Opportunities or NOFOs, but the vast majority rely on grants.gov, the people said.
HHS — which has typically posted more than 1,000 grant opportunities per year, the most of any government agency — has long managed the site.
In a written statement, HHS said that the agency was “taking action to ensure new grant opportunities are aligned” with administration priorities, such as ending the chronic disease epidemic and focusing on its Make America Healthy Again agenda.
The potential consequences of this are difficult to quantify. But we must try: Please, let us know how and when this begins to affect your nonprofit, so we can help tell the story here to our elected officials in Washington who still have the power to do something about this unprecedented breach.