No matter what type of federal grant solicitation you want to respond to, chances are there are at least one, if not several, registrations that you’ll have to complete before you can submit your proposal.  Some of these registrations can take time to complete, so it is critical to find out what registrations you’ll need to complete as soon as you start your proposal planning process.

There are three basic registrations that all companies will have to complete: EIN, DUNS number, and CCR:

• EIN, or Employer Identification Number, is the tax ID number for your business, and is issued by the Internal Revenue Service.  Chances are your business already has an EIN, which is usually required to open a business bank account, among other things.  For start-ups who may not have incorporated their business yet, you’ll have to have an EIN in hand before submitting a proposal.
• The DUNS number is a unique identifier assigned  by Dun and Bradstreet to businesses world wide.  You can register for a DUNS number or update your company information at the DUNS website.
• CCR, or Central Contractor Registration, is a centralized clearinghouse for federal contractors.  You must have a DUNS number before you can register at CCR.  To register, visit the CCR website.

Once these basic registrations have been completed, there could be other registrations required depending on the agency you’re responding to, or the method of proposal submission.  Many federal agencies use Grants.gov as a submission portal for electronic proposals.  You need to have an account through Grants.gov in order to use the submission service.  The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a separate registration portal called eRA Commons.  You must have a DUNS number and CCR registration to complete the eRA Commons registration.

As you can see, some of these registrations can depend on other registrations, and some of these registrations can take several days to be processed, so waiting until the last minute to register can cause you to run up against proposal submission deadlines, and agencies will not accept late entries just because you didn’t get your registrations done ahead of time.

If you have any questions about what to do BEFORE writing a proposal, contact Sue Kristoff at The Kristoff Group, your guide to the proposal development process.