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Grant Submission Information for Preschool Development Grants

PLEASE REGISTER EARLY

Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) 

If you have not applied for a grant before, the first step in the process is 

obtaining a Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number from Dun & 

Bradstreet. You can request a DUNS number for free in order to do business with 

the Federal government. Visit their website at http://fedgov.dnb.com/webform

It takes approximately 1-2 days to obtain a DUNS number. 

System for Award Management (SAM)

Next you will need to ensure that your organization is registered with the System 

for Award Management (SAM), which is located at www.sam.gov. In order to 

complete your SAM registration, you must have your organization’s Taxpayer ID 

Number (TIN) and taxpayer name. If you have a SAM registration and have not 

updated since last year, please make sure it is active. You may need to 

reactivate your account as accounts must be updated annually.

The SAM registration can take a couple of weeks, depending upon if you need 

to obtain a DUNS, TIN, reactivate your account, CAGE code validation, or have 

errors in your registration. Thus, it is recommended that you register immediately 

at the SAM website in order that this process is completed early and in time for 

submitting your application on Grants.gov. Please note: An active SAM 

account is needed in order to submit your application on Grants.gov. Also, 

once your SAM registration is active, it will take 24-48 hours for the information 

from SAM to upload to Grants.gov and be available so you can submit your 

application through Grants.gov. 

For assistance registering on SAM, you may refer to the Quick Start Guide for 

Grant Registration under the HELP Section of the SAM website. You may also 

contact the Federal Service Desk located under the Help Section.

Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) profile

You must complete an Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) profile 

and enter a user name and password on Grants.gov in order to submit an 

application. Instructions for completing this are on the Grants.gov website 
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under the Registration link. The E-Business (e-Biz) Point of Contact at your 

organization must confirm you as an AOR through the Grants.gov system. The 

time for this validation depends upon the responsiveness of your e-Biz point of 

contact. At any time, you can track your AOR status on the Grants.gov website.

Submitting an Application on Grants.gov

When submitting an application, please allow enough time for the file to upload 

by the deadline. We strongly recommend that you do not wait until the last day 

to upload your application because if there are problems with your submission, 

you still have time to fix your application and resubmit. Information regarding 

submitting your application and checking the status can be found starting on 

page 24 of the application package.

An application must be fully uploaded and received by the deadline of 4:30 pm 

Washington DC time on October 14, 2014. This does not mean that as long as 

you hit the submit button by this timeframe it is accepted. Since the baud rate 

of transmission, size of your application, internet connection, and firewalls within 

your organization may play a part in how fast your application transmits, it is 

recommended that you not wait until the application deadline date to begin 

transmitting your application. 

Receipts

After you submit your application to Grants.gov, you will receive from 

Grants.gov an automatic notification of receipt that contains a Grants.gov 

tracking number. This notification indicates receipt by Grants.gov only and is 

not a receipt by the Department. The Department will retrieve your application 

from Grants.gov and send a second notification to you by email. This second 

notification will let you know if your application was submitted successfully and 

will assign your application a PR/Award number, which identifies your 

application at the Department. 

Please make sure you have received this second notification before considering 

your application uploaded. We have had in the past applicants upload their 

application, receive the first confirmation from Grants.gov and then log off 

Grants.gov, and go on leave. When they returned to the office much later, they 

read in the second email that there were problems with their upload. Since they 

didn’t wait to receive the second email, they were unable to correct their 

application and resubmit before the application deadline and were considered 

ineligible. This is another reason for not waiting until the last minute to submit 

your application.
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Attaching Files

When attaching files to your application, they must be in a .PDF read-only, nonmodifiable format, except for your Excel files. PDF files are the only Education 

approved file type accepted as written in the Federal Register notice. We will 

not accept any other attachments so make sure your Word documents are 

converted to PDF. Also, the Department will not accept any attachments that 

contain files within a file, such as PDF Portfolio files, or a fillable .PDF file. Any 

attachments that contain password protected files cannot be accessed by our 

system and thus will not be read. Please make sure you do not password 

protect any documents uploaded to Grants.gov

Naming Restrictions

There are naming restrictions for files uploaded on Grants.gov as mentioned in 

the application package. An application cannot be processed if there are two 

or more files with the same name or if your application name is 50 characters in 

length or contains special characters. Applications will be rejected if they do 

not meet the Grants.gov guidelines.