Grants.gov recognizes that helping the grant community to find, apply and succeed takes the collaborative energy of many supportive parties. It is therefore appropriate for the Grants.gov website to use the Internet to link to external web sites as a public service to our customers. Although Grants.gov tries to identify and link only with relevant sites, it does not endorse or approve any material on those sites.

The primary criteria for linking to an external site are its essential and indispensable relevance and usefulness to the Grants.gov initiative. External web site design must also be technically sound, user-friendly, and not duplicative of the overall Grants.gov document collection. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) cannot endorse or appear to endorse any enterprise, product, or service. As a result, HHS reserves the right to deny a request to add a link or remove a link if it is determined that a group's web site is primarily commercial in nature (e.g., advertising a product, charging a usage fee, soliciting user information, etc.), or if there is any indication of misleading or unsubstantiated claims. The sponsor's record with consumer protection groups may be grounds for denial of linking to the Grants.gov website. The Grants.gov website will not directly link to order forms or other forms of direct solicitation that are located on a non-governmental website.

All external links must be clearly identified as Non-HHS websites. The Grants.gov website will contain the following disclaimer appearing prominently in the first screen containing external links, and elsewhere throughout the website:

The Grants.gov link is provided as a public service only. These web pages are provided as a tool to help visitors explore the wide range of options and information available, and to help them make informed choices about how to prepare for and pursue grant application opportunities. As such, the organization, services, advice, or products are not endorsed or guaranteed in any way by Grants.gov and are entirely the responsibility of the sponsor of the site visited.

This linking policy is subject to revision in order to maintain consistency with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services overall policy on establishing links to external organizations.