Finding and Navigating Funding Opportunities

Once you have successfully built out your Contracting Profile and launched a Funding Project, Raise uncovers the vast landscape of non-dilutive capital. By bridging your organization's core capabilities with active government solicitations, Raise transforms how you search, filter, and analyze federal and state government domain opportunities.

This guide details how to leverage the advanced search engine inside Raise and dissect individual opportunities to confidently decide which paths are worth pursuing.

Part 1: Navigating the Opportunities Dashboard

To explore available solicitations, click on Opportunities in the left-hand workspace sidebar. This dashboard serves as your unified command center for actively tracking non-dilutive contract and grant data.

1. Temporal View Toggles

At the top of the feed, you can easily filter standard real-time listings from prospective pipeline options:

• Active: Displays live, currently open applications and active solicitations that your team can apply to immediately.

• Forecasted: Highlights future, upcoming funding cycles and anticipated solicitations. This view gives your team the critical strategic advantage needed to position assets and build relationships before an official RFP drops.

• Further filter your Opportunities by Recently Added, Deadline, Award Amount, Pursuit Score, or Complexity

2. Multi-Filter Sidebar Navigation

Instead of parsing fragmented government systems, you can quickly isolate high-value solicitations using the dynamic sidebar filters:

• Opportunity Type: Narrow your search parameters by checking explicit vehicle boxes, including Contracts, Research grants, SBIR / STTR, or OTA / BAA.

• Agency: Type or select individual government agencies to focus exclusively on their funding pipelines.

• Award Range: Set minimum and maximum contract thresholds to match your financial targets and capital operational capacity.

• NAICS Codes: Enter specific industrial and technological codes to see matches aligned with your verified corporate specialties.

• Deadline: Quickly segment your pipeline by tracking open timelines, including Any deadline, Closing in 30 days, or Closing in 90 days.

Part 2: Reading the Opportunity Feed Cards

As your filtered search populates, each opportunity card surfaces high-level funding intelligence at a glance:

• Strategic Metadata Tags: Cards feature clear category markers like Defense or Federal, alongside automated keyword tags indicating specific program scopes (such as innovation management, SBIR phase III, AFWERX, or counterterrorism).

• Core Logistics: Each listing prominently calls out the target closing date (e.g., “Closes Jul 14, 2026”) and total potential funding thresholds (e.g., “Award: $250K – $3.5M”).

• Predictive AI Scoring Visuals: Positioned on the far right of every card is Raise's proprietary algorithm visualization tool:

  • Pursuit Score: A calculated index from 1 to 100 assessing how strongly the opportunity aligns with your active profile. Higher scores (such as an 82 or 88) denote an excellent strategic match.

  • Complexity Rating: A direct measurement indicating the resource intensity, compliance demands, and structural difficulty required to construct a compliant proposal submission.

Part 3: Deep-Dive Opportunity Analysis

Clicking directly into any individual solicitation card shifts your view from high-level discovery into a comprehensive, deep-dive evaluation split across two core layout columns.

Left Column: Central Solicitation Details

• Header & Origin: Displays the issuing body hierarchy (e.g., Department of Defense / Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)) alongside the formal program name.

• Core Logistics Bar: A quick-reference strip itemizing the maximum Award capacity, exact Deadline, solicitation Type, and original Posted date.

• Description Portal: A full-text window detailing the technical parameters, operational demands, and explicit government needs of the solicitation.

• Attachments Tab: Located in the left-hand sub-navigation panel, this section houses original source files, proposal instructions, and supplemental agency paperwork.

Right Column: Proprietary AI Analysis & Requirements

The right-hand panel consolidates Raise's predictive analytics into distinct, actionable sections:

• AI Analysis Box: Displays your live Pursuit alignment and Complexity scores natively. A high pursuit score coupled with a low complexity score flags an ideal tactical opportunity.

• Details Box: Breaks down key government tracking variables, explicitly listing relevant NAICS Codes alongside their official definitions (such as 541511 Custom Computer Programming Services), or standard CFDA reference markers. It also notes localized Set-aside restrictions (e.g., SBA small business designations).

• Eligibility Box: Outlines crucial organizational constraints to ensure compliance before you spend hours drafting. This panel flags mandatory Organization Types (e.g., nonprofit), Required Certifications (e.g., SAM.gov registration), and specific portals needed for Required Registrations (such as SAM.gov or Grants.gov).

Part 4: Moving From Match to Mission

When your team decides an opportunity is a strong fit for your operational pipeline, you can initiate immediate collaborative action from the top-right command buttons:

1. Bookmark: Saves the solicitation directly to your project tracking pipeline to monitor modifications or upcoming agency changes without initiating a full proposal workflow.

2. View Source: Routes you directly to the native external government portal (such as SAM.gov or Grants.gov) to verify foundational listings or review active public modifications.

3. Create Proposal: Funnels your collected profile assets straight into the automated drafting pipeline. Clicking Create Proposal signals the Raise AI engine to harvest all matching technical benchmarks, past award histories, and personnel CVs from your active profile, delivering a compliant first proposal draft directly into your workspace.

Best Practices for Evaluating Matches

• Verify Your Registrations Early: If the Eligibility box flags a mandatory registration your team does not possess, make sure to update your central Contracting Profile or initiate your SAM.gov registration before starting a proposal draft.

• Balance Pursuit vs. Complexity: An opportunity with an exceptional Pursuit score of 88 might feature a high Complexity rating of 75. Use this data to properly budget your team's administrative writing hours or request an expert human review from the Raise SME group.

• Utilize Forecasted Data: Use the "Forecasted" filter to build an ongoing 6-month tracking strategy, allowing your engineering and leadership teams to plan technology milestones well before a final application portal goes live.