Grant funding for independent researcher with no past track record I am an independent researcher working outside of academia with no past track record so far. Is it still possible to apply for research grants anyway, and how should I go about doing so?

I do have a very good research plan, but the catch is, I need some funding before I can carry them out. How can I convince grant agencies to give me a chance?
Ok, this is going to sting a bit, but, practically, this is not going to happen, no matter how brilliant your research idea and plan is. In practice, the scientific credentials of the proposal author / proposed principal investigator are very important to project / grant acceptance. Having no affiliation with a well-reputed research institution is already a strike against you, but not having a track record is a knockout criterion for each funding agency I am aware of. To give you one concrete example, the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF) will, according to their published rules, not even scientifically review a proposal with an insufficiently experienced principal investigator. From what I have heard, other agencies have similar formal rules. In short: you will need a co-proposer with sufficient standing in your field, otherwise you are essentially wasting your time preparing the proposal.

Maybe this seems unfair to you, but try to see it from the point of view of the funding agency. While you may have strong confidence in you and your project, you are a huge risk factor to the agency. You have no demonstrated experience in leading a project, maybe not even in participating in one, you are not embedded into on of the traditional research environments, you do not necessarily have the resources to even conduct the research project, and, from a legal point of view, if you just take the provided grants and run away, there is no organisation that the funding agency can sue to get their money back.