Grant Funding Glossary

Grant funding terms carry regulatory definitions, not conventional ones. The glossary below gives a one-sentence definition for each term that governs federal and philanthropic funding, with a primary-source citation and a link to the article explaining the mechanism in full.

Key takeaways

• Most grant terms are defined in regulation, not by industry convention.
• Instrument type turns on purpose and control, never on document titles.
• Cost rules apply separate tests: allowable, allocable, and reasonable.
• Evidence and evaluation words carry narrower regulatory meanings than everyday usage.
• Volatile figures live at the cited source, not in these definitions.

What are the foundational terms in grant funding?

Foundational grant funding terms name the instruments and the machinery that moves money: what separates a grant from a contract, how an authorization becomes an appropriation, and what a funding announcement is required to disclose. Federal statute defines most of these by purpose and control rather than by size, so a document label rarely settles what the document is.

Appropriation

Also known as: appropriations act.

A statutory provision granting a federal agency legal authority to incur obligations and make payments from the Treasury for specified purposes and periods.

Appropriations control both amount and time. Funds may be annual, multi-year, or no-year, and the period of availability determines when an agency must obligate them. The end-of-availability rush is why so many federal awards are made in the closing weeks of the fiscal year.

Example: An agency holding annual funds must obligate them by the end of the fiscal year or lose the authority to award.

Source: GAO, A Glossary of Terms Used in the Federal Budget Process. Explained in The Grant Funding Lifecycle.

Assistance Listing Number

Also known as: ALN, CFDA number.

The five-digit identifier assigned to a federal assistance program, formatted as two agency digits, a period, and three program digits.

The Assistance Listing Number is the join key of the federal grants data system. Searching by number rather than keyword finds every opportunity, award, and subaward tied to a program, and it is the field auditors use to build the schedule of federal expenditures. It replaced the CFDA number and the two are often used interchangeably.

Example: Searching an Assistance Listing Number on USAspending returns every past award under that program with recipient names and amounts.

Source: SAM.gov Assistance Listings. Explained in How to Search for Grants.

Authorization

Also known as: authorizing statute.

A law establishing or continuing a federal program, defining its purpose, eligible entities, and permissible activities, and setting a ceiling on what may later be appropriated.

Authorization creates the legal permission to have a program; it does not provide money. A program can be authorized and unfunded, or funded past an expired authorization. Eligibility rules that seem arbitrary in a funding announcement usually trace directly to the authorizing statute.

Example: A workforce program authorized for a multi-year period must still receive an annual appropriation before an agency can award funds.

Source: GAO, A Glossary of Terms Used in the Federal Budget Process. Explained in The Grant Funding Lifecycle.

Block Grant

A formula award consolidating funding for a broad purpose area, giving the receiving government wide latitude over program design within statutory limits.

Block grants trade federal specificity for state or local flexibility. States typically pass most of the money down as subawards, so the practical application point for a local organization is the state agency, not the federal one. Reporting flows back up the same chain.

Example: The Community Development Block Grant reaches local projects through city and state administering agencies rather than direct federal application.

Source: 2 CFR 200.1. Explained in Types of Grants Explained.

Cooperative Agreement

A federal financial assistance instrument used when the awarding agency expects substantial involvement in carrying out the funded activity rather than merely administering the award.

Substantial involvement is a statutory test about operational control, not about paperwork volume. Agencies use cooperative agreements when they intend to collaborate on technical direction, approve work plans mid-stream, or participate directly in project decisions. Reporting burden is often similar to a grant; the difference is who steers.

Example: NOAA funds a coastal restoration project under a cooperative agreement because agency scientists will jointly select monitoring sites.

Source: 31 U.S.C. 6305. Explained in Grants vs Contracts vs Cooperative Agreements.

Discretionary Grant

Also known as: competitive grant.

A federal award for which the agency selects recipients and sets award amounts through a competitive process, within the bounds of the authorizing statute.

Discretionary programs are where merit review, scoring, and proposal craft matter. The agency publishes a funding opportunity, receives applications, reviews them against published criteria, and chooses. Most of what people picture when they say grant writing applies only to discretionary programs.

Example: A Department of Education innovation program that scores applications against published criteria and funds a ranked subset is discretionary.

Source: 2 CFR 200.1. Explained in Types of Grants Explained.

Federal Financial Assistance

Federal money or property transferred to a non-federal entity to accomplish a public purpose authorized by statute, including grants, cooperative agreements, loans, and certain non-cash transfers.

The category is broader than grants. Definitions vary slightly by context: the Uniform Guidance definition governs administrative requirements, while civil rights statutes use their own broader readings. Assistance is what appears in the Assistance Listings and what triggers Uniform Guidance obligations.

Example: A federally donated surplus building conveyed to a community college counts as federal financial assistance even though no cash changes hands.

Source: 2 CFR 200.1. Explained in What Is a Grant?.

Fixed Amount Award

Also known as: fixed price award.

A federal award providing a set amount without regard to actual costs incurred, where accountability rests primarily on performance and results rather than expenditure documentation.

Fixed amount awards shift the risk of cost overruns onto the recipient and remove line-item budget scrutiny. Payment usually attaches to milestones or deliverables. Agencies must make an up-front determination that costs are reasonable, and rebudgeting rules that govern cost-reimbursement awards do not apply the same way.

Example: A training provider receives a fixed sum per participant who completes a defined curriculum, with payment triggered by completion counts.

Source: 2 CFR 200.201. Explained in Types of Grants Explained.

Formula Grant

Also known as: allocation grant.

A federal award distributed to eligible entities according to a statutory formula using factors such as population, poverty, or need, without competition among applicants.

Formula recipients apply to draw funds they are already entitled to, not to win a contest. The application resembles a plan submission: demonstrate eligibility, state how funds will be used, and accept the terms. Most federal grant dollars move by formula, while most competitive attention goes to discretionary programs.

Example: Title I education funds flow to school districts by a statutory formula keyed to counts of children in poverty.

Source: 2 CFR 200.1. Explained in Types of Grants Explained.

Grant

Also known as: grant agreement, grant award.

A legal instrument whose principal purpose is transferring value to a recipient to carry out a public purpose, with no substantial federal involvement expected during performance.

Federal law defines the instrument by purpose and control, not by size or by the word printed on the cover page. An agency must use a grant when it is transferring value for a public purpose and does not expect to be substantially involved. Money moving to buy something for the government’s own use is a procurement contract instead.

Example: A state health department receives a federal grant to run an immunization outreach program it designed and manages itself.

Source: 31 U.S.C. 6304. Explained in What Is a Grant?.

Grant Agreement

The written instrument that establishes a federal assistance relationship, stating the amount obligated, the approved scope, the period of performance, and the terms binding the recipient.

A grant agreement and a Notice of Award are usually the same document in federal practice. The signed instrument, not the funding announcement, is what obligates money and creates enforceable obligations. Private funders issue an analogous document, often called a grant letter or grant contract.

Example: A recipient signs a grant agreement that incorporates the agency’s general terms by reference and adds two award-specific reporting conditions.

Source: 2 CFR 200.1. Explained in What Is a Grant?.

Merit Review

Also known as: peer review, competitive review.

The structured evaluation of applications against published criteria by qualified reviewers, producing scores or ratings that inform but do not by themselves determine funding decisions.

Merit review answers a technical question: how strong is this proposal against the stated criteria. A separate programmatic step then applies portfolio considerations. Agencies use panel models, mail review, or hybrids, and the funding announcement must disclose the criteria and their relative weights.

Example: A study section scores an application on stated criteria; the institute council then weighs the score against portfolio priorities.

Source: 2 CFR 200.205. Explained in How Funders Decide Who Gets Money.

Notice of Funding Opportunity

Also known as: NOFO, FOA, Funding Opportunity Announcement, solicitation.

The published announcement inviting applications for a discretionary federal award, stating eligibility, deadlines, allowable activities, review criteria, and submission requirements.

The funding announcement is the governing document during the application phase and is required to follow a standard section order. Scoring criteria, page limits, and disqualifying conditions are frequently scattered across different sections, so the review criteria section alone never contains the full requirement set.

Example: An applicant builds a compliance matrix from every instruction in the announcement, not only from the review criteria section.

Source: 2 CFR 200 Appendix I. Explained in How to Read a NOFO.

Procurement Contract

Also known as: contract, acquisition contract.

A legal instrument whose principal purpose is acquiring property or services for the direct benefit or use of the government, governed by acquisition rules rather than assistance rules.

The distinction is statutory. Procurement means the government is the customer and specifies deliverables; assistance means the government is a funder supporting a purpose someone else pursues. Procurement carries protest rights, the Contract Disputes Act, and the Federal Acquisition Regulation. Assistance carries none of those.

Example: An agency issues a procurement contract for software it will operate itself, and a grant for a nonprofit’s community program.

Source: 31 U.S.C. 6303. Explained in Grants vs Contracts vs Cooperative Agreements.

Program Policy Factors

Also known as: programmatic considerations.

Published non-score considerations, such as geographic distribution or portfolio balance, that an agency official may apply when selecting awards from among reviewed applications.

Program policy factors are the legitimate, disclosed reason a lower-scored application sometimes beats a higher-scored one. Funding announcements are required to state such factors and to identify the official who applies them. Applicants who assume the top score wins misread how the second stage works.

Example: An agency funds a strong application from an unserved region over a marginally higher-scored application from a saturated one.

Source: 2 CFR 200 Appendix I. Explained in How Funders Decide Who Gets Money.

Recipient

Also known as: grantee, prime recipient.

An entity that obtains a federal award directly from a federal agency to carry out an activity under a federal program, excluding subawardees and individual beneficiaries.

Recipient status carries the full weight of the Uniform Guidance: internal controls, reporting, audit, and responsibility for anyone receiving a subaward downstream. An organization can be a recipient on one award and a subrecipient on another in the same fiscal year, with different obligations on each.

Example: A city receiving a Department of Transportation award directly is the recipient; the nonprofit it subawards to is a subrecipient.

Source: 2 CFR 200.1. Explained in What Is a Grant?.

Set-Aside

A statutorily required portion of a larger funding stream reserved for a defined purpose, program, or class of recipients before the remainder is distributed.

Set-asides create guaranteed pools that behave differently from ordinary competitions. The reserved percentage is fixed in statute rather than agency discretion, which makes these programs unusually stable across administrations. State passthrough set-asides work the same way inside formula programs.

Example: Federal research agencies above a spending threshold must reserve part of their extramural research budget for small business innovation awards.

Source: 15 U.S.C. 638. Explained in Grant Funding Myths, Corrected.

Uniform Guidance

Also known as: 2 CFR 200, Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements.

The government-wide rule set at 2 CFR Part 200 establishing administrative requirements, cost principles, and audit requirements for federal awards to non-federal entities.

The Uniform Guidance replaced a stack of separate OMB circulars with one framework. Each agency adopts it into its own title of the CFR and may add program-specific requirements, so the operative text is the agency’s adoption plus any award-specific terms. Periodic OMB revisions renumber and rewrite sections.

Example: A nonprofit’s cost allowability question is answered by Subpart E of 2 CFR 200 as adopted by the funding agency.

Source: 2 CFR Part 200. Explained in Federal Grants Explained.

What terms describe finding and qualifying grant funding?

Finding and qualifying grant funding has its own vocabulary, drawn from pipeline management rather than from regulation. The terms cover how agencies signal upcoming competitions, how organizations decide which competitions to enter, and how the fiscal calendar shapes when announcements appear. Most describe discipline: choosing what not to pursue is the load-bearing skill.

Continuing Resolution

Also known as: CR.

A temporary appropriations measure allowing agencies to keep operating at specified levels when regular appropriations have not been enacted by the start of the fiscal year.

Under a continuing resolution agencies generally cannot start new programs or expand existing ones, and they often award non-competing continuations at a reduced level pending final appropriations. Competitions get delayed rather than canceled, which compresses the remaining application window.

Example: An agency issues continuation awards at a reduced level during a continuing resolution and adjusts them after final appropriations.

Source: GAO, A Glossary of Terms Used in the Federal Budget Process. Explained in Grant Timing and the Funding Calendar.

Expected Value

The probability-weighted worth of pursuing an opportunity, calculated as the realistic award amount multiplied by an honest estimate of the chance of winning.

Expected value forces two uncomfortable admissions: the award is rarely the ceiling amount advertised, and the win probability is rarely as high as enthusiasm suggests. Comparing expected value against the labor cost of the proposal is the only defensible way to rank a crowded pipeline.

Example: A large award with a low estimated win probability can rank below a smaller award an organization is well positioned to win.

Explained in The Go/No-Go Decision.

Federal Fiscal Year

Also known as: FY.

The twelve-month accounting period the federal government uses for budgeting and obligation, beginning on October 1 and ending on September 30.

The fiscal year drives grant timing more than any other single factor. Appropriations must be enacted for the year to begin normally, agencies must obligate annual funds before the year closes, and award announcements cluster near the end of availability. Recipient fiscal years often differ, which complicates reporting alignment.

Example: An organization with a June fiscal year end reports on a federal award whose budget period follows the federal calendar instead.

Source: 31 U.S.C. 1102. Explained in Grant Timing and the Funding Calendar.

Form 990-PF

Also known as: 990-PF.

The annual information return every private foundation must file, disclosing assets, investment income, distributions, trustees, and a list of grants paid and approved.

Form 990-PF is the most reliable public window into a private foundation’s actual behavior. The grants list shows real recipients and real amounts, which frequently contradicts stated priorities on a website. Part numbering changes between revisions, so cite the schedule by name as well as number.

Example: A researcher reads several years of a foundation’s grants list to find its true median grant size and typical renewal pattern.

Source: IRS Form 990-PF. Explained in Researching a Funder with Form 990.

Go/No-Go Decision

Also known as: bid decision, pursuit decision.

A structured judgment on whether to invest proposal effort in a specific opportunity, made against defined criteria before drafting begins.

The decision protects the scarcest resource in grant seeking, which is qualified writing and subject-matter time. Effective go/no-go processes name a decision owner, use written criteria, and are made early enough that a no costs almost nothing. Late no-go decisions waste most of the effort they were meant to save.

Example: An organization declines an opportunity because the required cost share exceeds what its board will approve.

Explained in The Go/No-Go Decision.

Grant Forecast

Also known as: funding forecast.

An agency’s published schedule of funding competitions it plans to run in an upcoming period, used by applicants for advance planning.

Forecast quality varies sharply by agency. Some publish detailed forecasts with estimated dates and award ceilings; others post little. Treating forecast dates as firm is the common error, since appropriations timing and internal review routinely move publication by months.

Example: A forecast entry showing a recurring annual competition lets an applicant prepare in the quiet months rather than the deadline weeks.

Source: Grants.gov Search. Explained in Grant Timing and the Funding Calendar.

Grant Pipeline

Also known as: funding pipeline.

A managed set of identified funding opportunities tracked by stage, deadline, expected value, and decision owner, used to allocate limited proposal capacity.

A pipeline converts opportunistic applying into portfolio management. The useful metrics are conversion rate between stages and dollars per hour of proposal labor, not the raw count of opportunities collected. Pipelines fail when they track only deadlines and not the internal decision to pursue.

Example: A development team reviews its pipeline monthly and drops opportunities whose expected value no longer justifies the writing hours.

Explained in Building a Grant Pipeline.

Kill Criteria

Also known as: disqualifiers, no-go criteria.

Pre-agreed conditions that automatically end pursuit of an opportunity, defined before an organization becomes emotionally invested in a specific proposal.

Kill criteria exist to make a no cheap and unemotional. Typical criteria include ineligibility, unfundable cost share, a mismatch with the funder’s stated priorities, insufficient time to produce a compliant submission, or a required partner who has not committed in writing.

Example: A team sets a rule that any opportunity requiring an audited financial statement it does not have is an automatic no-go.

Explained in The Go/No-Go Decision.

Responsiveness Review

Also known as: screening review, administrative review.

The initial administrative screen that checks an application against pass-or-fail submission requirements before any substantive review occurs.

The screen is binary and unforgiving. Eligibility, deadline, page limits, formatting, required forms, and registration status are typical checkpoints, and a failure at this stage means no reviewer ever reads the proposal. Agencies are required to disclose disqualifying criteria in the funding announcement.

Example: An application exceeding the page limit is returned without review regardless of the quality of the project design.

Source: NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide, Chapter IV. Explained in How to Read a NOFO.

Win Rate

Also known as: success rate, award rate.

The share of submitted applications that result in an award, measured over a defined period and population of submissions.

Win rate is only meaningful when the denominator is stated. Agency-published success rates count applications, not applicants, and exclude submissions rejected before review. An organization’s own rate should be computed per funder type, because federal, foundation, and corporate rates are not comparable.

Example: An organization tracking win rate separately by funder type discovers its foundation rate is triple its federal rate.

Source: NIH Research Project Grant Success Rates. Explained in Building a Grant Pipeline.

What grant terms cover eligibility and organizational readiness?

Grant eligibility and readiness terms describe the conditions a funder assumes an applicant already satisfies before it applies. Registration identifiers, exclusion status, exempt-status documentation, and internal controls are gates rather than scoring factors. A single unmet condition disqualifies a strong project, and most of these gates take weeks or quarters to clear.

Authorized Organization Representative

Also known as: AOR.

The individual authorized to submit applications for an organization in Grants.gov, holding a role granted by the organization’s E-Business Point of Contact.

Authorization is per organization and per system, and it takes time to establish. Having a Grants.gov account is not the same as holding the submitting role. Agencies treat the submitting individual’s certification as binding on the organization, which is why the role is deliberately restricted.

Example: A grant writer with a Grants.gov account cannot submit because the E-Business Point of Contact has not granted the submitting role.

Source: Grants.gov Applicant Registration. Explained in SAM.gov Registration and the UEI.

Biographical Sketch

Also known as: biosketch, bio sketch.

A structured, page-limited summary of an individual’s qualifications, positions, contributions, and support, submitted in an agency-specified format rather than as a resume.

Research agencies enforce the format mechanically, and a noncompliant sketch can trigger return without review. Required content typically includes appointments, products or publications, and disclosure of all current and pending support. Formats are revised periodically, so the version in the funding announcement governs.

Example: An investigator submits an agency-format biographical sketch rather than a curriculum vitae to avoid an automated compliance rejection.

Source: NSF Senior Personnel Documents. Explained in The Documents Every Grant Application Needs.

Comprehensive Fiscal Sponsorship

Also known as: Model A, direct project sponsorship.

A sponsorship structure in which the sponsored project becomes a program of the sponsoring organization, which owns the assets, employs the staff, and bears legal responsibility.

Comprehensive sponsorship is the model funders trust most because responsibility is unambiguous. The trade is control: the sponsor’s board holds ultimate authority over the project, and separating later requires the sponsor’s agreement to transfer assets to a successor entity.

Example: Project staff become employees of the sponsor, and the project’s grant funds sit on the sponsor’s balance sheet.

Source: National Network of Fiscal Sponsors, Models of Fiscal Sponsorship. Explained in Fiscal Sponsorship for Grant Seekers.

Determination Letter

Also known as: IRS determination letter, 501(c)(3) letter.

The Internal Revenue Service ruling recognizing an organization’s tax-exempt status and stating its classification, including whether it is a public charity or a private foundation.

Funders request the letter as proof of exempt status, and its classification line matters as much as the exemption itself. Private foundations making grants outside the public charity category face additional procedures. Organizations that lost exemption for non-filing must show a current reinstatement letter.

Example: A foundation requires a current determination letter before releasing funds, and the classification line determines which grant agreement it uses.

Source: IRS, Obtaining Copies of Exemption Determination Letters. Explained in The Documents Every Grant Application Needs.

E-Business Point of Contact

Also known as: EBiz POC.

The individual designated in an organization’s SAM.gov registration who controls which staff may submit applications on the organization’s behalf in Grants.gov.

The role is an access-control chokepoint. Only the designated contact can grant the submitting role, and organizations routinely discover at deadline that the person named years ago has left. The contact also receives time-sensitive registration renewal notices that no one else sees.

Example: A submission fails because the departed staff member listed as E-Business Point of Contact never authorized a replacement submitter.

Source: SAM.gov Entity Registration. Explained in SAM.gov Registration and the UEI.

Eligible Applicant

Also known as: eligible entity.

An entity that satisfies every threshold condition a funding program imposes on who may apply, as fixed by the authorizing statute and the funding announcement.

Eligibility is a gate, not a scoring factor. Conditions typically combine legal form, geography, prior status, and registration currency, and a single unmet condition disqualifies regardless of project quality. Announcements sometimes distinguish eligible applicants from eligible beneficiaries, which are different populations.

Example: A program open to units of local government excludes a nonprofit even when the nonprofit is the intended service provider.

Source: 2 CFR 200 Appendix I. Explained in Grant Eligibility Explained.

Exclusion

Also known as: debarment listing, SAM exclusion.

A government-wide determination that bars an entity or individual from receiving federal awards, recorded in SAM.gov and enforced by every awarding agency.

Exclusions arise from debarment, suspension, or statutory prohibitions and reach the excluded party’s principals as well as the organization. Recipients must check exclusion status before issuing subawards and covered procurement transactions, and the check must be documented rather than assumed.

Example: A pass-through entity verifies exclusion status in SAM.gov before executing a subaward and retains a screenshot in the file.

Source: 2 CFR Part 180. Explained in Grant Eligibility Explained.

Fiscal Sponsorship

An arrangement in which a tax-exempt organization extends its charitable status to a project that lacks its own exemption, accepting legal and financial responsibility for the funds.

Sponsorship is not a pass-through service. In the comprehensive model the project becomes a program of the sponsor, which owns the funds and the liability. In the pre-approved grant relationship model the project stays a separate entity and the sponsor regrants to it while retaining oversight duties.

Example: An unincorporated coalition receives foundation funding through a sponsor that holds the grant and employs the project staff.

Source: National Network of Fiscal Sponsors, Models of Fiscal Sponsorship. Explained in Fiscal Sponsorship for Grant Seekers.

Grant Readiness

Also known as: funding readiness.

The condition of having the legal status, registrations, financial systems, documentation, and governance a funder assumes an applicant already possesses before applying.

Readiness is assessed against what the funder will require at award, not at application. The expensive gaps are usually financial: no written accounting policies, no audited or reviewed financial statements, no ability to survive a reimbursement lag. Fixing those takes quarters, not weeks.

Example: An organization postpones a federal application for a year to establish written procurement policies and an operating reserve.

Source: 2 CFR 200.206. Explained in The Grant Readiness Assessment.

Internal Control

Also known as: internal controls.

The processes an organization uses to obtain reasonable assurance that operations are effective, financial reporting is reliable, and laws, regulations, and award terms are being followed.

Federal recipients must establish and document internal controls, and agencies point to recognized frameworks as the reference standard. Auditors test whether the control exists in writing, whether staff follow it, and whether evidence of its operation is retained. A control no one can evidence is treated as absent.

Example: An organization documents that every invoice requires approval by someone other than the person who requested the purchase.

Source: 2 CFR 200.303. Explained in Internal Controls for Grant Recipients.

Letter of Commitment

Also known as: commitment letter.

A partner’s written statement specifying the concrete resources, activities, or personnel it will contribute to a proposed project, signed by someone authorized to bind the partner.

Reviewers distinguish commitment from endorsement. A commitment letter names quantities, roles, and timing; a support letter expresses enthusiasm. Generic praise on partner letterhead is scored as an absence of partnership, and identical wording across multiple letters signals that the applicant drafted them all.

Example: A clinic commits in writing to referring a stated number of patients per month and to assigning a named coordinator.

Source: NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide, Chapter II. Explained in The Documents Every Grant Application Needs.

Pre-Approved Grant Relationship

Also known as: Model C, regrant sponsorship.

A sponsorship structure in which the sponsor regrants funds to a legally separate project entity while retaining responsibility for ensuring charitable use.

The project keeps its own legal identity, staff, and liability, and the sponsor acts as a grantmaker with oversight duties rather than as an employer. Funders scrutinize this model more closely because charitable control is exercised at arm’s length through the grant agreement and reporting.

Example: A for-profit-adjacent community project receives regranted funds while remaining a separate entity accountable under a written agreement.

Source: National Network of Fiscal Sponsors, Models of Fiscal Sponsorship. Explained in Fiscal Sponsorship for Grant Seekers.

Segregation of Duties

Also known as: separation of duties.

A control design principle assigning authorization, custody of assets, and record keeping to different people so that no single individual can both commit and conceal an error.

Segregation is the control auditors probe first because it is structural rather than procedural. Small organizations often cannot fully separate the functions, which is permitted, but the gap must be acknowledged and covered by a documented compensating control rather than ignored.

Example: The person who signs checks does not also reconcile the bank statement or maintain the vendor master file.

Source: 2 CFR 200.303. Explained in Internal Controls for Grant Recipients.

Unique Entity Identifier

Also known as: UEI.

The twelve-character alphanumeric code that identifies an organization in SAM.gov and in every federal award, subaward, and reporting record tied to it.

The identifier replaced the DUNS number and is issued by SAM.gov through entity validation. The code itself does not expire, but the SAM.gov registration does, and an expired registration blocks application submission. An organization can obtain the identifier alone if it only needs to be reported as a subrecipient.

Example: A subrecipient obtains a Unique Entity Identifier without completing a full registration because it will never apply directly.

Source: SAM.gov Entity Registration. Explained in SAM.gov Registration and the UEI.

Variance Power

A sponsoring or holding organization’s legal authority to redirect contributed funds to another charitable use consistent with donor intent, exercised at its governing board’s discretion.

Variance power is what makes a contribution to a sponsor or a community foundation a completed charitable gift rather than an agency arrangement. Practically, it means the sponsor can withhold or redirect funds if the project cannot deliver, which is exactly the protection funders rely on.

Example: A sponsor’s agreement states that funds may be redirected to a similar charitable purpose if the project dissolves.

Source: National Network of Fiscal Sponsors, Models of Fiscal Sponsorship. Explained in Fiscal Sponsorship for Grant Seekers.

What are the key grant proposal writing terms?

Grant proposal terms name the sections reviewers score and the mechanics of how they read. The vocabulary distinguishes goals from objectives, compliance from responsiveness, and commitment from endorsement. Most terms exist because a specific confusion costs applicants points, and reviewers score what appears on the page rather than what an applicant could have proved.

Activity

Also known as: strategy, intervention.

The work a project performs to reach an objective, describing the means rather than the intended change.

Activities consume the budget and produce outputs; outcomes are what the outputs are supposed to cause. Listing activities where objectives belong is the most frequent scoring loss in proposal structure, because it leaves reviewers unable to tell what the project promises to change.

Example: Delivering forty hours of tutoring is an activity; the reading-level change it aims to produce is the objective.

Source: 34 CFR 77.1. Explained in Goals, Objectives, and Activities.

Assigned Reviewer

Also known as: primary reviewer, designated reviewer.

A panel member given formal responsibility for reading a specific application in full, writing a critique, and presenting it to the rest of the panel.

The assigned reviewers do the deep reading; other voting panel members may rely on the presentation, the summary, and the abstract. That asymmetry is why the summary and the opening of each section carry disproportionate weight in the final score.

Example: Three assigned reviewers write critiques while the remaining panel members vote after hearing the discussion.

Source: NIH, Scoring System and Procedure. Explained in Writing for the Reviewer.

Broader Impacts

The National Science Foundation review criterion assessing a proposed project’s potential to benefit society and contribute to specific desired societal outcomes.

Broader impacts must be addressed as a labeled component with its own activities and its own plan for assessing them, not as a closing paragraph of good intentions. Proposals lacking a separately labeled statement in the summary can be returned without review.

Example: A proposal describes a specific mentoring program with a stated participant count and an assessment method for its broader impacts.

Source: NSF Merit Review. Explained in Research Grants at NIH and NSF.

Compliance Matrix

Also known as: requirements matrix, shred.

A table with one row per instruction in a funding announcement, mapping each requirement to the proposal location, the responsible author, and its completion status.

The matrix converts a scattered announcement into a checkable list and is the single most reliable defense against administrative rejection. Building it requires reading every section for mandatory language, since requirements appear in eligibility, format, review criteria, and attachment instructions alike.

Example: A matrix row records a page-limit instruction, the section it constrains, the author responsible, and its verified status.

Source: 2 CFR 200 Appendix I. Explained in Building a Compliance Matrix.

Criterion Score

Also known as: review criterion rating.

A rating a reviewer assigns to one published evaluation criterion, recorded separately from any overall judgment of the application.

Criterion scores document reasoning and identify weaknesses, but at several agencies they do not arithmetically produce the overall score. Assuming the overall rating is an average leads applicants to spread effort evenly rather than concentrating it where the criterion actually drives the decision.

Example: An application receives strong marks on several criteria yet a middling overall rating because one criterion dominated reviewer judgment.

Source: NIH, Scoring System and Procedure. Explained in Writing for the Reviewer.

Dosage

Also known as: intensity, treatment intensity.

The quantified amount of an intervention a participant receives, expressed as frequency, session length, and total duration.

Dosage is the specification that determines both cost and plausibility. A design promising outcomes without stating dosage cannot be costed or evaluated, and reviewers familiar with the evidence base will recognize when the proposed amount is far below what produced the cited results.

Example: Two sessions per week of ninety minutes for sixteen weeks is a stated dosage; regular sessions is not.

Source: 34 CFR 77.1. Explained in Writing the Project Design.

Goal

A broad directional statement of the end condition a project moves toward, stated without a number, a deadline, or a measurement method.

Goals give a project its direction and objectives give it its contract. Because goals are not measurable, they cannot be the thing a project is held to. Confusing the two produces either unmeasurable objectives or goals so narrow they describe an activity.

Example: Improve early literacy outcomes for students in the district’s lowest-performing elementary schools.

Source: 34 CFR 75.210. Explained in Goals, Objectives, and Activities.

Intellectual Merit

The National Science Foundation review criterion assessing a proposed project’s potential to advance knowledge and understanding within or across fields.

Intellectual merit is one of two criteria the National Science Board approved for all foundation proposals, and both must be addressed explicitly in the summary and the project description. Reviewers assess the same elements under each criterion, including the soundness of the plan and the qualifications of the team.

Example: A project summary contains a separately labeled intellectual merit statement as the proposal guide requires.

Source: NSF Merit Review. Explained in Research Grants at NIH and NSF.

Introduction to Resubmission

Also known as: response to reviewers.

The page-limited section of a resubmitted application that responds to the prior review, describing what changed and why.

The introduction is read before anything else and sets the frame for the whole re-review. Effective versions acknowledge each substantive concern, state the change made, and point to where it appears. Disputing a reviewer without conceding anything reads as a failure to engage.

Example: An introduction lists each prior concern, the specific revision made in response, and the section where the change appears.

Source: NIH, Resubmission Applications. Explained in What to Do When a Grant Is Declined.

Letter of Inquiry

Also known as: LOI, letter of interest.

A short preliminary submission that a funder uses to screen a project for fit before deciding whether to invite a full proposal.

The inquiry is a screening instrument, so its job is to prove fit and eligibility quickly rather than to argue the project completely. Declines at this stage usually reflect mismatch with current priorities rather than weakness, which is why the fastest improvement is better funder research, not better prose.

Example: A foundation invites full proposals from a fraction of inquiries and states the amount requested as a screening threshold.

Source: Tinker Foundation, Why Was My Letter of Inquiry Declined?. Explained in The Letter of Inquiry.

Letter of Intent

Also known as: notice of intent to apply.

A brief notice telling a funder that an applicant plans to submit, used for review planning rather than for screening applicants out.

Intent notices and inquiry letters are different instruments that share an acronym. An intent notice is usually non-binding and does not affect eligibility, though some agencies make it mandatory. Its real function is letting the agency estimate reviewer workload and recruit the right expertise.

Example: An agency requests intent notices a month before the deadline so it can recruit reviewers with matching expertise.

Source: NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide, Chapter II. Explained in The Letter of Inquiry.

Not Discussed

Also known as: ND, unscored.

The designation for an application a review panel did not discuss, which therefore receives criterion-level critiques but no overall impact score.

The designation is often misread as disqualification. Applications carrying it can and frequently do succeed on resubmission, and the critiques are the raw material for that revision. A separate and far more serious outcome exists for applications the panel affirmatively votes not to consider further.

Example: A resubmitted application that was previously not discussed receives a fundable score after revision.

Source: NIH, Resubmission Applications. Explained in What to Do When a Grant Is Declined.

Objective

Also known as: aim, measurable objective.

A specific statement of what will change, for whom, by how much, and by when, written so that success or failure can be determined from data.

The objective is what the funder is buying. Every element must be verifiable: the population, the direction of change, the magnitude, the measurement instrument, and the deadline. Objectives that restate activities are the most common structural defect reviewers cite.

Example: Increase the share of enrolled third graders reading at grade level from a stated baseline to a stated target by the end of year two.

Source: 34 CFR 75.210. Explained in Goals, Objectives, and Activities.

Organizational Capacity

Also known as: applicant capacity, institutional capacity.

An applicant’s demonstrated ability to execute the proposed work, evidenced by prior comparable performance, qualified personnel, financial systems, and adequate facilities.

Capacity is scored on evidence, not assertion. Reviewers look for projects of similar scale actually completed, staff already in place or a credible hiring plan, financial statements showing the organization can absorb reimbursement lag, and systems that can produce the required reports.

Example: A capacity section cites a prior award of comparable size, its outcomes, and the same staff who will lead the new project.

Source: 2 CFR 200.206. Explained in Demonstrating Organizational Capacity.

Percent Effort

Also known as: level of effort, effort commitment.

The share of an individual’s total institutional working time committed to a project, expressed as a percentage or as person-months of a defined appointment period.

Effort is a commitment, not an estimate. Once written into an approved budget it becomes auditable, and reductions in the effort of key personnel typically require prior approval. Committing more total effort across projects than a person can work is a recurring audit finding.

Example: A principal investigator commits a stated share of a twelve-month appointment, and the salary charged must match that commitment.

Source: 2 CFR 200.430. Explained in Demonstrating Organizational Capacity.

Project Design

Also known as: methodology, approach.

The proposal section specifying what the project will do, with whom, in what sequence, at what intensity, and by what method, at a level of detail sufficient to be executed.

Design is where reviewers test whether the applicant has actually thought the work through. The recurring weaknesses are unspecified dosage, unspecified participant flow, and no named person responsible for each element. Design must connect backward to the need and forward to the evaluation.

Example: A design states weekly session length, group size, duration in weeks, and the staff role delivering each component.

Source: 34 CFR 75.210. Explained in Writing the Project Design.

Project Narrative

Also known as: research strategy, program narrative.

The main body of a proposal presenting need, design, capacity, evaluation, and sustainability against the announcement’s stated review criteria.

The narrative carries most of the available points and most of the page limit. Its organization should mirror the review criteria in the announcement’s order so that reviewers scoring section by section can find each answer without searching. Narratives organized by the applicant’s internal logic score worse than identical content organized by the funder’s.

Example: A narrative uses the announcement’s criterion headings verbatim so each reviewer finds the responsive text in the expected place.

Source: 2 CFR 200 Appendix I. Explained in The Anatomy of a Grant Proposal.

Project Summary

Also known as: abstract, project abstract.

The short standalone overview of a proposed project, written for readers outside the specialty and used for reviewer assignment, portfolio reporting, and public posting.

The summary is read first, read by people who read nothing else, and often published verbatim once an award is made. Agencies impose strict length and structure rules, and some require separately labeled components. Writing it last and treating it as a compressed introduction wastes the most-read passage in the document.

Example: A funded project’s abstract appears unedited in the agency’s public award database and in congressional briefing material.

Source: NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide, Chapter II. Explained in The Abstract and Project Summary.

Reconsideration

Also known as: review appeal.

A formal request that an agency re-examine a declination on the ground that the review process was flawed, rather than that reviewers reached the wrong scientific conclusion.

Most agencies provide no appeal on the merits. Where a process exists, it tests whether review was fair and procedurally proper, and it operates under a filing deadline measured from the decision notice. Success is uncommon, and pursuing it usually costs more than resubmitting.

Example: An applicant documents an undisclosed reviewer conflict of interest rather than arguing that the score was too low.

Source: NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide, Chapter IV. Explained in What to Do When a Grant Is Declined.

Responsiveness

The degree to which a proposal answers the question the funder asked, in the funder’s framing and vocabulary, at the location the funder expects to find it.

Responsiveness is graded but has cliff effects, because an unaddressed criterion scores zero rather than partially. Compliance and responsiveness are distinct: a submission can meet every formatting rule and still fail to address a criterion the announcement stated in different words than the applicant used.

Example: A proposal that discusses partnerships generally but never addresses the announcement’s named collaboration criterion loses those points entirely.

Source: NSF Merit Review. Explained in Building a Compliance Matrix.

Resubmission

Also known as: revised application, A1.

A revised version of a previously reviewed application, submitted to the same funder and formally identified as a revision of the earlier submission.

Agencies limit how many times an application may be resubmitted and require an introduction responding to the prior review. Published agency analyses show resubmitted applications succeed at substantially higher rates than fresh submissions from the same investigators, which makes revision usually the better strategy.

Example: An investigator resubmits with an introduction addressing the two concerns every reviewer raised rather than starting a new project.

Source: NIH, Resubmission Applications. Explained in What to Do When a Grant Is Declined.

Returned Without Review

Also known as: RWR, administrative rejection.

An agency decision to reject a submission before merit review because it violates a stated eligibility, formatting, or completeness requirement.

Return happens before any reviewer sees the work and is usually not appealable on the merits. Agencies apply automated checks for font size, margins, page counts, and required sections, so a formatting error can end a submission that took months to prepare.

Example: An application is returned for exceeding a page limit, and no reviewer ever reads the project design.

Source: NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide, Chapter IV. Explained in Building a Compliance Matrix.

Revenue Diversification

Also known as: funding mix.

The deliberate spreading of an organization’s income across multiple sources and types so that the loss of any single source does not stop operations.

Diversification is measured by concentration, not by count. An organization with many funders that all follow the same funding cycle and the same policy environment is less diversified than the raw number suggests. Reviewers reading a sustainability plan look for sources that behave independently.

Example: An organization tracks the share of revenue from its largest funder as a concentration metric rather than counting funders.

Source: Nonprofit Finance Fund, State of the Nonprofit Sector Survey. Explained in Writing a Sustainability Plan.

Specific Aims

A one-page statement in a biomedical research application setting out the problem, the central hypothesis, the numbered aims, and the expected contribution.

The aims page functions as the application’s controlling summary: reviewers read it first and refer back to it while scoring every other section. Aims that depend on each other sequentially are a structural weakness, because failure of the first invalidates the rest.

Example: An application states three independent aims so that a negative result in one does not defeat the other two.

Source: NIH, How to Apply Application Guide. Explained in The Anatomy of a Grant Proposal.

Statement of Need

Also known as: needs statement, problem statement.

The proposal section that establishes, with evidence, the measurable gap between current conditions and the conditions that should exist for a defined population.

A need is a distance between two data points, not a single alarming statistic. The section is about the population and the problem, not about the applicant; organizational track record belongs in the capacity section. Reviewers look for local data, a defined service area, and a gap the proposed project actually closes.

Example: A proposal states the local screening rate, the state benchmark, and the size of the gap the project will close.

Source: 34 CFR 75.210. Explained in Writing a Statement of Need.

Summary Statement

Also known as: review summary, reviewer feedback.

The written record of a panel’s evaluation of an application, containing reviewer critiques, any scores assigned, and a resume of the discussion when one occurred.

The statement is the only authoritative account of why an application fared as it did, and it is written for the applicant’s revision as much as for the record. Reading it for the recurring concern across reviewers matters more than answering each critique line by line.

Example: Two reviewers independently flag an unconvincing recruitment plan, identifying the revision priority more clearly than any single critique.

Source: NIH, Scoring System and Procedure. Explained in What to Do When a Grant Is Declined.

Sustainability Plan

Also known as: continuation plan.

The proposal section explaining how project activities, or the benefits they produce, will continue after the grant period ends.

Reviewers discount plans that amount to seeking more grants. Credible versions name a specific mechanism: absorption into an existing operating budget, a reimbursement or fee stream, a statutory or contractual commitment, or an explicit decision to sustain only the components that proved effective.

Example: A plan commits to absorbing two positions into the operating budget and states which components will be discontinued.

Source: 34 CFR 75.210. Explained in Writing a Sustainability Plan.

What are the key grant budget and cost terms?

Grant budget and cost terms come almost entirely from federal cost principles, and they are precise in ways that ordinary accounting language is not. Allowability, allocability, and reasonableness are separate tests a cost must pass individually. Indirect cost mechanics turn on the base as much as the rate, which is where most budget errors originate.

Advance Payment

Also known as: advance.

A payment method under which a recipient receives federal funds before disbursing them, limited to the minimum amounts needed to meet immediate cash requirements.

Advance payment is the preferred federal method for recipients that maintain adequate financial management systems and agree to specified cash management standards. Funds must be spent quickly rather than held, interest earned above a small allowance must be remitted, and abuse of the timing rules is a recurring audit finding.

Example: A recipient draws only the amount needed for an imminent payroll rather than the full quarterly budget.

Source: 2 CFR 200.305. Explained in Grant Cash Flow and Reimbursement.

Allocable Cost

A cost assignable to a federal award in proportion to the relative benefit the award receives, whether incurred solely for that award or shared among several.

Allocability governs how much of a shared cost may be charged, and the allocation must rest on a documented method rather than convenience. Charging a shared expense entirely to whichever award has budget remaining is the classic allocability violation and a frequent audit finding.

Example: Rent for a space used by three programs is charged to each in proportion to a documented measure such as square footage.

Source: 2 CFR 200.405. Explained in Allowable, Allocable, and Reasonable Costs.

Allowable Cost

A cost that may be charged to a federal award because it satisfies every applicable criterion in the cost principles, the award terms, and the recipient’s own consistently applied policies.

Allowability is a compound test, not a list. A cost must be necessary and reasonable, allocable to the award, consistent with policies applied uniformly to federal and non-federal activity, consistently treated as direct or indirect, adequately documented, and incurred within the budget period.

Example: A cost that is reasonable and allocable can still be unallowable if the award terms exclude it or the documentation is missing.

Source: 2 CFR 200.403. Explained in Allowable, Allocable, and Reasonable Costs.

Budget Narrative

Also known as: budget justification.

The written companion to a grant budget stating the basis of estimate, necessity, and allowability of every proposed cost and showing the arithmetic linking each amount to a scope activity.

Reviewers use the narrative as an alignment test: every activity in the project design should appear in the budget, and every budget line should be traceable to an activity. Costs with no matching activity, and activities with no matching cost, are the two failures the narrative exposes.

Example: A line reads as a stated hourly rate multiplied by a stated number of hours, tied to a named work plan task.

Source: DOJ Office of Justice Programs, Develop a Budget. Explained in Writing a Budget Narrative.

Cognizant Agency for Indirect Costs

Also known as: cognizant agency.

The single federal agency responsible for reviewing, negotiating, and approving an organization’s indirect cost rate proposal on behalf of all federal agencies.

Cognizance is usually assigned to the agency providing the most direct federal funding to the organization. The cognizant agency for indirect costs may differ from the cognizant agency for audit, and confusing the two sends rate proposals to an office that will not act on them.

Example: An organization submits its rate proposal to the agency that provides most of its direct federal funding, not to each funder separately.

Source: 2 CFR 200.1. Explained in Indirect Cost Rates and the De Minimis Option.

Cost Share

Also known as: matching, match, non-federal share.

The portion of total project costs not paid by federal funds, contributed by the recipient or a third party and documented to the same standard as the federal share.

Match can be mandatory, imposed by statute or program regulation, or voluntary and offered in the proposal. Once written into an approved budget, either type becomes legally binding and auditable. Failing to meet a committed match can require repaying a proportional share of the federal award.

Example: A recipient that commits a match and delivers only part of it may face a proportional reduction in the federal share.

Source: 2 CFR 200.306. Explained in Cost Share and Matching Requirements.

De Minimis Indirect Cost Rate

Also known as: de minimis rate.

A flat indirect cost rate that a recipient without a negotiated agreement may elect and apply to modified total direct costs without documentation, justification, or agency approval.

The election is available indefinitely rather than as a temporary measure, and no agency approval is required. The rate level is set in the Uniform Guidance and has been revised periodically, so verify the current figure at the regulation before budgeting. Electing the flat rate does not prevent later negotiating a rate.

Example: A first-time federal recipient elects the flat rate and applies it to its modified total direct cost base without submitting a proposal.

Source: 2 CFR 200.414. Explained in Indirect Cost Rates and the De Minimis Option.

Direct Cost

A cost that can be identified specifically with a particular final cost objective, or assigned to one relatively easily with a high degree of accuracy.

Direct costs are what the project consumes: project staff salaries, project supplies, project travel, subawards, and participant support. The classification must be applied consistently across all of an organization’s activities, because charging a type of cost directly on one award and indirectly on another is a recurring audit finding.

Example: Salary for staff who work only on one project is a direct cost of that project.

Source: 2 CFR 200.413. Explained in Direct vs Indirect Costs.

Disallowed Cost

A charge that a federal awarding agency or pass-through entity has determined to be unallowable through a written management decision, creating a repayment obligation.

The distinction from a questioned cost is the whole point: questioning is the auditor’s allegation, disallowance is the agency’s determination. Once a cost is disallowed the recipient owes the money, may appeal through the agency’s process, and carries the finding into future risk assessments.

Example: An agency’s management decision sustains a questioned payroll charge, converting it into a debt owed back to the award.

Source: 2 CFR 200.1. Explained in Allowable, Allocable, and Reasonable Costs.

Drawdown

Also known as: cash draw, payment request.

The transaction in which a recipient requests and receives federal funds from an agency payment system, drawing against the amount obligated on its award.

Drawdowns are the operational point where cash management rules bite. Systems track cumulative draws against cumulative expenditures, and drawing ahead of need, drawing beyond the obligated amount, or letting drawn funds sit undisbursed all generate findings.

Example: A recipient reconciles each drawdown to the expenditures it covers and retains the supporting general ledger detail.

Source: 2 CFR 200.305. Explained in Grant Cash Flow and Reimbursement.

Facilities and Administrative Costs

Also known as: F&A costs.

The term used at colleges and universities for indirect costs, separated into a facilities component covering buildings and operations and an administrative component covering institutional management.

The split matters because the administrative component is capped for institutions of higher education while the facilities component is not, which is why university rates vary widely by campus infrastructure. Comparing a university rate to a small nonprofit’s rate without accounting for the facilities component is a category error.

Example: A research university’s rate reflects depreciation on laboratory buildings that a community nonprofit does not own.

Source: 2 CFR 200 Appendix III. Explained in Direct vs Indirect Costs.

Full Cost Recovery

Also known as: true cost, pay what it takes.

A funding practice in which grants cover the complete cost of delivering a program, including the shared administrative and infrastructure costs that support it.

Full cost recovery reframes indirect costs as a real component of program delivery rather than as a deduction from it. Sector research has documented that many nonprofits report indirect rates well below their actual costs because funders cap recovery, which produces persistent underinvestment in the systems funders later audit.

Example: An organization prices a program at its full cost and declines funding that would leave the shared costs uncovered.

Source: Bridgespan, Pay-What-It-Takes Philanthropy. Explained in The True Cost of Running a Program.

In-Kind Contribution

Also known as: third-party in-kind.

The value of non-cash property or services contributed by a third party toward a project’s non-federal share, recorded at a documented and verifiable valuation.

In-kind contributions must be verifiable from records, necessary and reasonable, allowable under the cost principles, and not counted toward cost sharing on any other federal award. Volunteer services are valued at rates paid for similar work in the recipient’s organization or labor market, not at an arbitrary hourly figure.

Example: Donated professional services are valued at the rate the organization would pay for equivalent work, with hours documented on timesheets.

Source: 2 CFR 200.306. Explained in Cost Share and Matching Requirements.

Indirect Cost

Also known as: overhead, F&A, facilities and administrative costs.

A cost incurred for common or joint objectives that cannot be identified specifically with a single final cost objective without effort disproportionate to the result.

Rent, accounting, insurance, executive time, and information technology are typical examples. Indirect costs are recovered through a rate applied to a defined base rather than billed as line items. Calling them overhead is common but imprecise, since overhead has no standard regulatory definition while indirect cost does.

Example: The finance director’s salary supports every program and is recovered through an indirect cost rate rather than charged to one grant.

Source: 2 CFR 200.414. Explained in Direct vs Indirect Costs.

Modified Total Direct Cost

Also known as: MTDC.

The distribution base consisting of direct salaries and wages, applicable fringe benefits, materials and supplies, services, travel, and a capped portion of each subaward.

The base excludes equipment, capital expenditures, patient care, rental costs, tuition remission, scholarships and fellowships, participant support costs, and the portion of each subaward above the stated cap. Applying a rate to total direct costs instead of the modified base overstates recovery and is a common budget error caught at review.

Example: A budget with substantial equipment recovers far less indirect than its total direct cost figure would suggest.

Source: 2 CFR 200.1. Explained in Indirect Cost Rates and the De Minimis Option.

Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreement

Also known as: NICRA, indirect cost rate agreement.

The signed document from an organization’s cognizant federal agency stating its approved indirect cost rate or rates, the distribution base, the rate type, and the applicable period.

Federal agencies must accept a recipient’s negotiated rate unless a statute or regulation provides otherwise or an agency head approves a documented exception. A program-specific statutory cap on indirect recovery is a different mechanism and does bind, but the funding announcement must disclose it.

Example: A recipient applies its negotiated rate on a new federal award, and the agency accepts it without renegotiation.

Source: 2 CFR 200.414. Explained in Indirect Cost Rates and the De Minimis Option.

Nonprofit Starvation Cycle

Also known as: starvation cycle.

A documented pattern in which funder pressure to minimize overhead leads nonprofits to underreport and underinvest in infrastructure, reinforcing the expectation that overhead should be low.

The cycle was described in the nonprofit management literature and has been examined repeatedly since. Its mechanism is mutual: funders set unrealistic expectations, organizations report to meet them, and the reported figures then become the benchmark that justifies the expectations.

Example: An organization reports a low overhead rate to satisfy funders, then lacks the accounting capacity a later federal award requires.

Source: Gregory and Howard, The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle, Stanford Social Innovation Review. Explained in The True Cost of Running a Program.

Object Class Categories

Also known as: budget categories, cost categories.

The standard federal budget line groupings used on application forms, covering personnel, fringe benefits, travel, equipment, supplies, contractual, construction, other, and indirect charges.

The categories are how agencies compare budgets across applicants and how rebudgeting rules are written. Placing a cost in the wrong category has downstream consequences: equipment is excluded from the indirect base while supplies are not, and contractual triggers procurement rules that other categories do not.

Example: A laptop below the capitalization threshold belongs in supplies, where it remains in the indirect cost base.

Source: Grants.gov SF-424 Form Family. Explained in The Anatomy of a Grant Budget.

Operating Reserve

Also known as: unrestricted reserve.

Unrestricted net assets an organization holds in liquid form to cover operating expenses during revenue interruptions, expressed as a number of months of operating costs.

Reserves are what make reimbursement-based funding survivable. An organization operating on reimbursement must front payroll and vendor costs before drawing federal funds, and a delay in a drawdown or a report becomes a payroll problem without a reserve. Reserve adequacy is also a factor in agency risk assessments.

Example: An organization with several months of reserves absorbs a delayed reimbursement without a line of credit.

Source: Nonprofit Finance Fund, State of the Nonprofit Sector Survey. Explained in Grant Cash Flow and Reimbursement.

Participant Support Costs

Also known as: PSC.

Stipends, subsistence allowances, travel allowances, and registration fees paid to or on behalf of participants or trainees in a project, who are not employees of the recipient.

Participant support is excluded from the modified total direct cost base, so no indirect is recovered on it. Several agencies restrict moving funds into or out of the category without prior approval. Charging employee travel to the category is the most common misclassification.

Example: Travel stipends for community members attending a training are participant support; travel for the staff who deliver it is not.

Source: 2 CFR 200.1. Explained in The Anatomy of a Grant Budget.

Program Income

Income a recipient earns that is directly generated by a supported activity or earned as a result of a federal award during the period of performance.

Program income must be accounted for and used according to the method stated in the award. The default treatment is deduction from total allowable costs unless the agency specifies otherwise, and the alternative methods are addition to the project budget or use as cost sharing. Failing to track it at all is the common failure.

Example: Registration fees charged for a grant-funded conference are program income governed by the method stated on the award.

Source: 2 CFR 200.307. Explained in Grant Cash Flow and Reimbursement.

Questioned Cost

A cost that an auditor challenges because it may violate a requirement, lacks adequate supporting documentation, or appears unreasonable given the circumstances.

A questioned cost is an allegation, not a debt. The awarding agency or pass-through entity resolves it through a management decision that either sustains or rejects the finding. Auditors distinguish known questioned costs, which are specifically identified, from likely questioned costs projected from a sample.

Example: An auditor questions payroll charges lacking effort documentation, and the agency later sustains part of the amount.

Source: 2 CFR 200.516. Explained in Allowable, Allocable, and Reasonable Costs.

Reasonable Cost

A cost that does not exceed what a prudent person would incur under the circumstances prevailing at the time the decision to incur the cost was made.

Reasonableness is judged at the moment of the decision, not in hindsight, and considers whether the cost is ordinary for the organization’s operations, whether sound business practice was followed, and whether the price reflects market conditions. Documentation of the decision is what makes reasonableness demonstrable later.

Example: A sole-source purchase is defensible when the file documents why no competitive alternative existed at the time.

Source: 2 CFR 200.404. Explained in Allowable, Allocable, and Reasonable Costs.

Reimbursement

Also known as: cost reimbursement.

A payment method under which a recipient spends its own funds first and then requests federal payment for costs already incurred and paid.

Reimbursement is the default posture for organizations without strong financial systems and is the single largest cash constraint in grant-funded work. The gap between paying staff and receiving funds is measured in weeks, and it applies to every payroll cycle for the life of the award.

Example: An organization pays two months of project payroll from its own funds before its first reimbursement arrives.

Source: 2 CFR 200.305. Explained in Grant Cash Flow and Reimbursement.

Voluntary Committed Cost Sharing

Also known as: voluntary match.

Non-federal contributions offered by an applicant that the program does not require, which become binding and auditable once written into the approved budget.

Volunteering match is usually a mistake. For research proposals the Uniform Guidance bars using voluntary committed cost sharing as a merit review factor unless a statute or agency regulation authorizes it and the announcement says so, which means the offer buys no score while creating a tracking obligation.

Example: An applicant volunteers a match that earns no additional points and then must document it for the life of the award.

Source: 2 CFR 200.306. Explained in Cost Share and Matching Requirements.

What grant terms describe evidence and evaluation?

Evidence and evaluation terms in grant funding carry regulatory definitions that differ from everyday usage. Outputs are not outcomes, impact means two different things in planning and in evaluation policy, and the federal evidence tiers are written in regulation with specific study-design requirements. Precision here decides whether an evidence claim survives review.

American Community Survey

Also known as: ACS.

The Census Bureau’s ongoing survey producing annual social, economic, housing, and demographic estimates for geographies down to the census tract level.

Estimates come in period datasets of different lengths, and the choice governs both geographic coverage and precision. Shorter periods offer currency but cover only larger areas; longer periods reach small geographies at the cost of currency. Every estimate carries a margin of error that must be reported alongside it.

Example: A tract-level poverty figure comes from the multi-year dataset because the single-year dataset does not cover small areas.

Source: Census Bureau, When to Use 1-year or 5-year Estimates. Explained in Public Data Sources for Needs Statements.

Attribution

A causal claim that observed change was produced by a specific program, requiring a design that rules out plausible alternative explanations.

Attribution demands a counterfactual: a comparison condition, a randomized assignment, or a design that isolates the program’s effect. Claiming attribution from a single-group pre-post comparison is not defensible, because maturation, selection, and regression to the mean all remain live explanations.

Example: A randomized design supports attribution; a comparison of participants before and after does not.

Source: CDC Program Evaluation Framework. Explained in Outputs, Outcomes, and Impact.

Baseline

Also known as: baseline data.

The starting value of a measure, established before an intervention begins, from which change is calculated and targets are set.

Without a baseline there is no way to compute change, which is why baseline collection has to be scheduled in the first months rather than assumed. Where no baseline exists, saying so plainly and describing how it will be established is stronger than substituting a national figure for a local one.

Example: A project collects attendance and assessment data in its first quarter to establish the baseline its targets are measured against.

Source: 34 CFR 77.1. Explained in Performance Measurement and Indicators.

Demonstrates a Rationale

Also known as: Tier 4 evidence, evidence-building.

The federal evidence tier met when a key project component appears in a logic model supported by citations to high-quality research suggesting it is likely to improve the relevant outcomes.

The tier is frequently misread as requiring no evidence. It requires a logic model plus cited research behind each key component, which many proposals fail to supply. Projects meeting only this tier are typically also expected to build evidence during the grant.

Example: A proposal cites peer-reviewed studies behind each component of its logic model rather than asserting the components will work.

Source: 34 CFR 77.1. Explained in Levels of Evidence in Grant Funding.

Evaluation Plan

The proposal section specifying the questions an evaluation will answer, the design and measures used, who collects the data, when it is collected, and how results will be used.

The plan must be complete on the page. Stating that an evaluator will develop a design after award is scored as having no plan. Federal evaluation policy sets standards of relevance, rigor, independence, transparency, and ethics that a credible plan addresses explicitly.

Example: A plan names the instrument, the collection schedule, the analysis method, and the person responsible for each step.

Source: OMB Memorandum M-20-12, Phase 4 Implementation of the Evidence Act. Explained in Writing an Evaluation Plan.

Formative Evaluation

Also known as: process evaluation, implementation evaluation.

Evaluation conducted while a program operates, examining whether activities are being delivered as designed so that the program can be adjusted.

Formative work answers descriptive questions about fidelity, reach, dosage, and quality. It is the evaluation that saves projects, because it detects implementation failure early enough to fix. A summative finding of no effect cannot distinguish a bad model from a model that was never delivered as designed.

Example: A midpoint review finds that participants receive half the intended session hours, prompting a staffing change.

Source: CDC Program Evaluation Framework. Explained in Writing an Evaluation Plan.

Impact

A fundamental long-run change in organizations, communities, or systems, or in federal evaluation usage, the difference between observed outcomes and what would have occurred without the program.

The word carries two distinct meanings that regularly collide in proposals. In program planning frameworks impact denotes the longest time horizon on a pathway. In federal evaluation policy an impact evaluation is a design question requiring a counterfactual, and no time horizon makes an evaluation an impact evaluation.

Example: A pre-post comparison measures change over time but cannot establish impact in the evaluation sense because it has no counterfactual.

Source: CDC Program Evaluation Framework. Explained in Outputs, Outcomes, and Impact.

Independent Evaluation

Also known as: third-party evaluation.

An evaluation designed and carried out independently of, though in coordination with, the entities developing or implementing the activity being evaluated.

Independence protects against the conflict inherent in grading one’s own work, and several federal programs require it for higher evidence tiers. Coordination is still expected: an evaluator who cannot access implementation data or influence measurement timing produces a weaker study, not a more independent one.

Example: A university evaluation team designs the study and controls the analysis while the grantee delivers the program.

Source: 34 CFR 77.1. Explained in Writing an Evaluation Plan.

Lagging Indicator

Also known as: trailing indicator.

A measure that changes only after an intervention has had time to work, confirming results but too late to guide adjustments during implementation.

Lagging indicators are usually the outcomes funders care most about and the ones a grant period is least able to capture. Pairing them with leading indicators lets a project report meaningful progress on schedule while still committing to the outcome that matters.

Example: Employment retention at twelve months confirms a result but cannot inform a program change made in month six.

Source: 34 CFR 77.1. Explained in Performance Measurement and Indicators.

Leading Indicator

Also known as: early indicator.

A measure that changes early in a causal pathway and predicts later outcomes, used to detect whether a project is on track before final results are observable.

Leading indicators solve the mismatch between grant periods and outcome horizons. A project whose real outcome takes years to appear still needs evidence of progress within the period of performance, and attendance, engagement, and short-term skill gains typically serve that role.

Example: Session attendance and early skill assessments signal progress toward an employment outcome that will not appear for a year.

Source: 34 CFR 77.1. Explained in Performance Measurement and Indicators.

Logic Model

Also known as: program logic model, theory of action.

A framework identifying a project’s key components and describing the theoretical and operational relationships among inputs, activities, outputs, and intended outcomes.

A logic model shows what a project will do and what it expects to produce; it does not by itself explain why the sequence should work. Federal evidence definitions treat the logic model as the required artifact for the lowest evidence tier, where each component must be supported by cited research.

Example: A single-page table maps staffing and funding to activities, activities to countable outputs, and outputs to measured outcomes.

Source: 34 CFR 77.1. Explained in How to Build a Logic Model.

Margin of Error

Also known as: MOE.

The range around a survey estimate expressing sampling uncertainty at a stated confidence level, published alongside the estimate itself.

Small-geography estimates carry wide margins, and two estimates whose ranges overlap cannot be described as different. Citing a tract-level figure without its margin overstates precision, and a reviewer who checks the source table will notice. Reporting the range is more credible than reporting a point.

Example: A tract poverty estimate with a wide margin is reported as a range rather than as a single precise percentage.

Source: Census Bureau, When to Use 1-year or 5-year Estimates. Explained in Public Data Sources for Needs Statements.

Moderate Evidence

Also known as: Tier 2 evidence.

A federal evidence tier requiring at least one well-designed experimental or quasi-experimental study showing a favorable effect, with defined sample and overlap conditions.

Moderate evidence is where well-conducted quasi-experimental designs land, because the clearinghouse standards cap those designs below the level required for the top tier. The regulation states the sample size, multi-site, and population or setting overlap conditions that must be satisfied.

Example: A matched-comparison study meeting clearinghouse standards with reservations supports a moderate evidence claim.

Source: 34 CFR 77.1. Explained in Levels of Evidence in Grant Funding.

Needs Statement

Also known as: needs assessment.

The documented case that a defined population experiences a measurable shortfall relative to a standard or comparison group, supported by cited data at the relevant geography.

The strongest versions combine a national or state frame, local data at the service-area geography, and a source the reviewer can verify. Local specificity is what separates a credible statement from a generic one, and it is also the part that most often relies on non-federal sources.

Example: A statement cites a state rate, a tract-level local rate, and the source table for each before naming the gap.

Source: 34 CFR 75.210. Explained in Public Data Sources for Needs Statements.

Outcome

A change in participants or conditions that results from a project’s outputs, covering knowledge, skills, behavior, status, or circumstances, and not fully within staff control.

Outcomes are sequenced by time horizon: short-term changes in knowledge and attitude, intermediate changes in behavior and practice, and longer-term changes in condition. Reviewers score outcomes rather than outputs, and the mismatch between the two is where most proposals lose points.

Example: The share of participants employed six months after completion is an outcome; the number who completed is an output.

Source: 34 CFR 77.1. Explained in Outputs, Outcomes, and Impact.

Output

A countable product of a project activity that lies fully within staff control, such as sessions delivered, materials produced, or participants enrolled.

The test is control: if program staff can guarantee the result by doing the work, the result is an output. Outputs prove that a project happened, not that it worked. Presenting outputs where outcomes belong is the single most common structural error reviewers cite in proposals.

Example: Number of workshops held is an output; the change in participant behavior afterward is not.

Source: 34 CFR 77.1. Explained in Outputs, Outcomes, and Impact.

Performance Measure

Also known as: indicator, metric.

A quantitative indicator, statistic, or metric used to gauge program or project performance against a stated expectation.

A usable measure names the numerator, the denominator, the data source, and the collection interval. Measures that cannot move within the period of performance are common defects, which is why a mix of leading and lagging indicators is stronger than long-horizon outcomes alone.

Example: The share of enrolled participants completing the program, drawn from the attendance system quarterly, is a defined measure.

Source: 34 CFR 77.1. Explained in Performance Measurement and Indicators.

Performance Target

Also known as: target.

The level of performance an applicant commits to reach on a stated measure, during or as a result of a project.

Targets must be both ambitious and achievable, and reviewers judge that pairing against the stated baseline and the cited evidence. A target far above what the evidence base supports reads as unfamiliarity with the literature; a target barely above baseline reads as a project not worth funding.

Example: A project commits to raising completion from a stated baseline to a stated target by the end of the second year.

Source: 34 CFR 77.1. Explained in Performance Measurement and Indicators.

Project Component

Also known as: key project component.

An activity, strategy, intervention, process, product, practice, or policy included in a project, treated as the unit that evidence requirements attach to.

Federal evidence definitions apply to components, not to whole projects, which is why a proposal can claim a strong evidence tier for one component while another rests on a rationale. Identifying components explicitly in the logic model is what makes the evidence claim checkable.

Example: A proposal names tutoring and family engagement as separate components and cites different evidence for each.

Source: 34 CFR 77.1. Explained in Levels of Evidence in Grant Funding.

Promising Evidence

Also known as: Tier 3 evidence.

A federal evidence tier requiring at least one study showing a statistically significant favorable effect, including well-designed correlational studies with statistical controls for selection bias.

The tier admits correlational designs that the higher tiers exclude, provided the study controls for selection bias. It is the realistic ceiling for most community-based interventions, which rarely have experimental studies conducted on them in comparable settings.

Example: A correlational study with statistical controls showing a significant favorable effect supports a promising evidence claim.

Source: 34 CFR 77.1. Explained in Levels of Evidence in Grant Funding.

Strong Evidence

Also known as: Tier 1 evidence.

The highest federal evidence tier, requiring at least one well-designed and well-implemented experimental study showing a favorable effect, with sample, setting, and population conditions met.

The tier definitions are written in regulation and are specific about study design, sample size, multi-site requirements, and how closely the study population and setting must match the proposed one. Quasi-experimental designs cannot reach this tier under the clearinghouse standards agencies reference.

Example: A randomized trial meeting clearinghouse standards without reservations, in a comparable population and setting, supports the top tier.

Source: 34 CFR 77.1. Explained in Levels of Evidence in Grant Funding.

Summative Evaluation

Also known as: outcome evaluation.

Evaluation conducted at or near a project’s end, assessing whether stated goals and objectives were achieved against baseline and endpoint data.

Summative work requires that baseline data were collected before the intervention began, which is why evaluation planning must start at proposal stage rather than in the final year. An outcome evaluation measures whether intended outcomes occurred; establishing that the program caused them requires a comparison condition.

Example: An end-of-project analysis compares endpoint measures to the baseline collected before services began.

Source: CDC Program Evaluation Framework. Explained in Writing an Evaluation Plan.

Theory of Change

Also known as: TOC.

An explanation of how and why a change process is expected to occur, built backward from a long-term goal through the preconditions that must hold for it to be reached.

A theory of change argues causation and surfaces assumptions; a logic model displays sequence. The two terms are sometimes used interchangeably in evaluation practice, and some authoritative guides acknowledge the overlap, so the safest approach is to follow the funder’s own usage in the announcement.

Example: A pathway states that participants cannot gain employment until transportation barriers are removed, naming that as a precondition.

Source: Center for Theory of Change, What is Theory of Change?. Explained in Theory of Change vs Logic Model.

What Works Clearinghouse

Also known as: WWC.

The Institute of Education Sciences body that reviews education research against published standards and rates the strength of evidence behind studied interventions.

Clearinghouse standards are the reference point federal evidence tiers cite, and a study either meets them without reservations, meets them with reservations, or does not meet them. Several other federal clearinghouses serve other domains, so an intervention absent from one may be rated in another.

Example: An education proposal cites a clearinghouse intervention report to support its evidence tier claim.

Source: What Works Clearinghouse Handbooks and Standards. Explained in Levels of Evidence in Grant Funding.

What terms describe the different grant funding tracks?

Grant funding track terms describe how different funder types actually operate: private foundations governed by tax rules, community foundations holding funds they do not control, corporate programs with no public filings, and federal innovation programs built on statutory set-asides. Each track has its own instrument, its own timeline, and its own gatekeeper.

Activity Code

Also known as: grant mechanism.

The alphanumeric designation identifying the type of funding mechanism a research agency uses, determining the application format, budget rules, and review pathway.

The code is the practical starting point for a research application because it constrains everything downstream: page limits, allowable budget size, review criteria, and eligibility. Applying under the wrong mechanism is a structural error that no amount of writing quality corrects.

Example: A research project mechanism and a small conference mechanism carry different page limits, budget rules, and review pathways.

Source: NIH Grants Glossary. Explained in Research Grants at NIH and NSF.

Bid Protest

Also known as: protest.

A formal challenge to a federal procurement action, filed by an interested party with the agency, the Government Accountability Office, or the Court of Federal Claims.

Protest rights belong to procurement and generally do not extend to grant competitions. Timeliness rules are strict and measured in days from when the basis was known. The absence of an equivalent remedy in assistance is one of the sharpest practical differences between the two regimes.

Example: An unsuccessful offeror challenges a contract award on evaluation grounds, a remedy unavailable to a declined grant applicant.

Source: Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 33. Explained in Grants vs Contracts vs Cooperative Agreements.

Community Foundation

A public charity that pools contributions from many donors to make grants within a defined geographic area, holding both donor-advised and discretionary funds.

Community foundations occupy an unusual position: they are grantmakers and fundraisers at once. For applicants, the distinction between the discretionary funds the foundation itself directs and the donor-advised funds it merely administers determines whether a competitive application is even possible.

Example: A local nonprofit applies to a community foundation’s discretionary grant program rather than to the donor-advised funds it holds.

Source: Council on Foundations, Foundation Basics. Explained in Community Foundations and Donor-Advised Funds.

Corporate Foundation

Also known as: company-sponsored foundation.

A private foundation established and funded by a company, operating as a separate legal entity with its own board, filings, and grantmaking rules.

The separate legal entity is what distinguishes a corporate foundation from a direct giving program. Because the entity is a private foundation, its grants appear on a public annual return, which makes its actual giving pattern visible in a way that a corporate giving program’s is not.

Example: A researcher reads a corporate foundation’s annual return to see grant sizes that the company’s website never discloses.

Source: Council on Foundations, Foundation Basics. Explained in Corporate Giving and Corporate Grants.

Corporate Giving Program

Also known as: direct corporate giving.

Charitable giving made directly from a company’s own funds rather than through a separate foundation, governed by business objectives and disclosed only at the company’s discretion.

Direct programs move faster and can flex with business priorities, but they are far less transparent than foundations because no public annual return discloses the grants. Approaching one usually means approaching a business unit, a marketing budget, or a community relations office rather than a grants office.

Example: A company funds a local program from its marketing budget with no public filing recording the grant.

Source: Council on Foundations, Foundation Basics. Explained in Corporate Giving and Corporate Grants.

Donor-Advised Fund

Also known as: DAF.

A fund held at a sponsoring public charity over which a donor retains advisory privileges on grant recommendations, without holding legal control of the assets.

The sponsoring charity holds legal title and makes the final decision, though in practice recommendations are nearly always followed. Funds carry no annual distribution requirement, and grants arrive in the sponsor’s name, which means recipients often cannot identify the advising donor without being told.

Example: A grant arrives from a national sponsoring organization, and only the accompanying letter identifies the advising donor.

Source: IRS, Donor-Advised Funds. Explained in Community Foundations and Donor-Advised Funds.

Expenditure Responsibility

The procedure a private foundation must follow when granting to an entity that is not a qualifying public charity, comprising inquiry, written agreement, reports, and disclosure.

The requirement explains why many foundations decline to fund fiscally sponsored projects, for-profit entities, or foreign organizations without an equivalency determination. The procedure is workable but adds cost and time, so foundations without staff capacity often avoid it entirely.

Example: A foundation funding a for-profit social enterprise executes a written agreement and collects periodic reports on fund use.

Source: IRS, Grants by Private Foundations: Expenditure Responsibility. Explained in Foundation Grants.

Federal Acquisition Regulation

Also known as: FAR.

The primary regulation governing how executive agencies acquire goods and services by contract, covering solicitation, evaluation, award, and contract administration.

The acquisition regulation applies to procurement contracts and does not govern grants, which follow the Uniform Guidance instead. Confusing the two regimes produces predictable errors: looking for protest rights on a grant decline, or applying grant cost principles to a contract.

Example: A losing offeror on a contract may file a protest; a declined grant applicant generally has no equivalent remedy.

Source: Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 2. Explained in Grants vs Contracts vs Cooperative Agreements.

General Operating Support

Also known as: GOS, unrestricted support, core support.

A grant made for an organization’s mission as a whole rather than for a designated project, usable across any allowable organizational cost.

Operating support is the most useful form of philanthropic funding and the least commonly offered. Because it carries no project restriction, it covers the infrastructure that project grants systematically underfund. Sector research has repeatedly found a gap between funders’ stated support for the practice and their actual grantmaking.

Example: A multi-year operating grant lets an organization fund an accounting position that no project grant would cover.

Source: Center for Effective Philanthropy, New Attitudes, Old Practices. Explained in Foundation Grants.

Matching Gift

Also known as: employee matching gift.

A corporate program that contributes to a nonprofit in proportion to donations made by the company’s employees, usually up to a stated annual cap per employee.

Matching gifts convert existing donors into larger ones without new fundraising, but the revenue is invisible unless donors submit the paperwork. The practical work is telling existing supporters to check their employer’s program, since unclaimed matches are the most common form of left money.

Example: An organization asks existing donors to check employer matching eligibility rather than soliciting new gifts.

Source: Council on Foundations, Foundation Basics. Explained in Corporate Giving and Corporate Grants.

Non-Dilutive Capital

Also known as: non-dilutive funding.

Funding that does not require surrendering ownership in the receiving company, including grants, awards, prize competitions, tax credits, and certain revenue-based instruments.

Non-dilutive does not mean free of cost. The obligations are reporting, restricted use, audit exposure, intellectual property terms, and the staff time required to compete and comply. For research-stage companies the trade is usually favorable, but it should be priced rather than assumed.

Example: A company funds a technical milestone with a federal research award instead of raising a priced equity round.

Source: SBIR.gov, About. Explained in Non-Dilutive Capital for Startups.

Other Transaction Authority

Also known as: OTA, other transaction.

Statutory authority permitting an agency to enter an agreement that is not a contract, grant, or cooperative agreement, and therefore largely outside standard acquisition regulation.

The instrument exists to reach companies that will not accept standard federal terms, particularly on intellectual property and accounting systems. Access typically runs through a consortium rather than through a public solicitation, and prototype agreements can carry follow-on production authority without further competition.

Example: A defense consortium issues a prototype agreement whose successful completion permits a non-competed production follow-on.

Source: 10 U.S.C. 4022. Explained in Non-Dilutive Capital for Startups.

Overall Impact Score

Also known as: priority score, impact score.

A reviewer’s holistic judgment of an application’s likelihood of exerting a sustained influence on its field, recorded as a single rating separate from the criterion ratings.

The overall rating is explicitly not an average of criterion ratings, and a single dominant strength or weakness can drive it. The panel’s final figure is derived from the eligible members’ individual ratings after discussion, and applications the panel does not discuss receive no overall rating.

Example: An application with uneven criterion ratings receives a strong overall rating because one criterion carried decisive weight.

Source: NIH, Scoring System and Procedure. Explained in Research Grants at NIH and NSF.

Payline

Also known as: funding cutoff.

A funding component’s percentile cutoff for a fiscal year, applied to percentiled applications as a conservative threshold for making awards.

A payline is a planning tool rather than a promise, and it is typically more conservative than the eventual success rate because components fund selected applications beyond it. Not every funding component publishes one, and paylines differ by mechanism and by career stage within a component.

Example: An application scoring outside a published payline can still be funded through a component’s programmatic selection.

Source: NIH Research Project Grant Success Rates. Explained in Research Grants at NIH and NSF.

Payout Requirement

Also known as: minimum distribution requirement, five percent payout.

The obligation on a non-operating private foundation to distribute a minimum amount each year for charitable purposes, computed from the fair market value of its non-charitable-use assets.

Missing the distribution triggers an excise tax on the shortfall. Qualifying distributions include grants but also direct charitable expenditures and reasonable administrative costs, which means a foundation’s grantmaking is smaller than its stated payout. Donor-advised funds carry no comparable requirement.

Example: A foundation counts qualifying grants, program costs, and administrative expenses toward its annual distribution obligation.

Source: IRS, Taxes on Failure to Distribute Income. Explained in Foundation Grants.

Payroll Tax Offset

Also known as: research credit payroll offset, qualified small business credit.

An election letting a qualified small business apply part of its federal research credit against employer payroll taxes rather than income tax, producing cash value before profitability.

The election converts a credit that a pre-revenue company could not otherwise use into near-term cash. Eligibility rules govern gross receipts history and the number of years the election may be made, and the election must be made on a timely filed return, so the deadline is unforgiving.

Example: A pre-revenue company applies its research credit against payroll tax liability instead of carrying an unusable income tax credit forward.

Source: IRS, Qualified Small Business Payroll Tax Credit for Increasing Research Activities. Explained in Non-Dilutive Capital for Startups.

Percentile

Also known as: percentile ranking.

A ranking of an application’s score relative to other applications reviewed by the same panel over a defined recent period, used to normalize differences in panel scoring behavior.

Percentiling exists because panels score differently, and a raw score from a lenient panel is not comparable to one from a strict panel. Not every application receives a percentile; special panels and certain mechanisms are typically excluded, which changes how funding decisions are made for them.

Example: Two applications with identical raw scores from different panels receive different percentile rankings.

Source: NIH, Scoring System and Procedure. Explained in Research Grants at NIH and NSF.

Phase III

Also known as: Phase 3, commercialization phase.

The commercialization stage of the federal small business research programs, funded by non-program sources and available to the firm that performed the earlier phases.

The phase carries a sole-source authority: agencies may award follow-on work derived from earlier phases directly to the developing firm without further competition, and must justify to the Small Business Administration when they do not. The authority is unlimited in time and dollar value.

Example: An agency awards a production contract to the firm that developed the technology, citing the follow-on authority rather than competing it.

Source: SBIR.gov, About. Explained in SBIR and STTR Explained.

Principal Investigator

Also known as: PI, project director.

The individual designated as scientifically and technically responsible for a project, who directs the work and is accountable to the funding agency for its conduct.

The role carries employment and effort conditions that differ by program. Small business research awards require primary employment with the firm; technology transfer awards permit either partner. Changing the designated individual usually requires prior approval, since agencies treat the person as material to the award.

Example: Replacing the principal investigator mid-project requires the agency’s written prior approval before the change takes effect.

Source: 2 CFR 200.308. Explained in SBIR and STTR Explained.

Private Foundation

A tax-exempt charitable organization that is not classified as a public charity, typically funded by one source and making grants from an investment endowment.

Private foundation status is the default for a charitable organization that cannot show broad public support. The classification brings a mandatory annual distribution requirement, an excise tax on investment income, and restrictions on self-dealing and certain grants that public charities do not face.

Example: A family foundation funded by one donor’s endowment files an annual return listing every grant it paid.

Source: IRS, Private Foundations. Explained in Foundation Grants.

Program-Related Investment

Also known as: PRI.

A below-market loan, guarantee, or equity investment made by a foundation primarily to advance a charitable purpose rather than to produce income, counting toward its distribution requirement.

Program-related investments let a foundation recycle capital rather than spend it, which suits revenue-generating projects that cannot support commercial terms. The charitable purpose must be primary and the production of income must not be a significant purpose, which is what distinguishes it from an ordinary investment.

Example: A foundation lends at a below-market rate to a housing developer and counts the loan toward its annual distribution.

Source: IRS, Program-Related Investments. Explained in Foundation Grants.

Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide

Also known as: PAPPG.

The National Science Foundation’s consolidated policy document governing proposal preparation, submission, review, and award administration for its funding programs.

The guide is the operative rulebook for every foundation proposal and is revised periodically, with each revision carrying an effective date tied to submission deadlines. Formatting and content rules in the guide are enforced automatically, and violations lead to return without review before any reviewer sees the proposal.

Example: A proposal is checked automatically against the guide’s font, margin, and page requirements at submission.

Source: NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide. Explained in Research Grants at NIH and NSF.

Public Charity

A tax-exempt charitable organization that qualifies out of private foundation status by demonstrating broad public support or by meeting a statutory categorical test.

Public charity status is what most grant seekers hold and what most funders assume. The classification is established through a support test computed on the annual return, and losing it converts an organization to private foundation status with substantially different rules.

Example: A community nonprofit funded by many small donors and government contracts qualifies as a public charity under the support test.

Source: IRS, Public Charities. Explained in Foundation Grants.

Qualified Sponsorship Payment

Also known as: corporate sponsorship.

A business payment to a nonprofit for which the return benefit is limited to acknowledgment of the sponsor, and which is therefore not treated as taxable advertising income.

The boundary is what the sponsor receives, not what it pays. Displaying a name and logo is acknowledgment; comparative claims, price information, or endorsements convert the payment to advertising and can create unrelated business income tax exposure. The distinction should be settled in the sponsorship agreement.

Example: A program listing showing a sponsor’s logo is acknowledgment; a line stating the sponsor’s prices is advertising.

Source: IRS, Advertising or Qualified Sponsorship Payments. Explained in Corporate Giving and Corporate Grants.

Qualifying Distribution

Also known as: qualifying distributions.

A private foundation disbursement that counts toward its annual distribution obligation, including grants, direct charitable expenditures, reasonable administrative costs, and certain asset purchases.

Because administrative and program costs count, a foundation’s distribution figure overstates what reaches grantees. Reading the annual return’s distribution schedule alongside the grants paid list is the only way to see the actual grantmaking volume behind a stated payout figure.

Example: A foundation’s distribution total includes staff salaries and program expenses in addition to the grants it paid.

Source: IRS, SOI Private Foundations Study Terms and Concepts. Explained in Researching a Funder with Form 990.

Small Business Concern

Also known as: SBC.

An entity meeting the Small Business Administration’s ownership, control, size, and location requirements for participation in the federal small business research programs.

The test covers organization for profit with a place of business in the United States, majority ownership and control by United States citizens or permanent residents or by other qualifying small businesses, and an employee count that includes affiliates. Affiliation rules catch many venture-backed firms by surprise.

Example: A firm exceeds the employee limit once the employees of a majority investor’s other portfolio companies are counted as affiliates.

Source: 13 CFR 121.702. Explained in SBIR and STTR Explained.

Small Business Innovation Research

Also known as: SBIR, America’s Seed Fund.

A federal program requiring agencies above a research spending threshold to reserve a share of their extramural research budget for competitively awarded research and development by small businesses.

Awards are made in phases: a feasibility phase, a development phase, and a commercialization phase that carries no program funding. The funding is non-dilutive, the small business must perform a required minimum share of the work, and the principal investigator must be primarily employed by the firm.

Example: A firm wins a feasibility award, then competes for a development award before pursuing commercialization funding elsewhere.

Source: SBIR.gov, About. Explained in SBIR and STTR Explained.

Small Business Technology Transfer

Also known as: STTR.

A federal program parallel to the small business research program, requiring a formal partnership between a small business and a nonprofit research institution with a defined split of the work.

The distinguishing features are the required research institution partner, the mandated minimum work share for each party, and a relaxed rule allowing the principal investigator to be primarily employed by either partner. Fewer agencies participate than in the small business research program.

Example: A firm partners with a university under a written agreement allocating the required work share to each party.

Source: SBIR.gov, About. Explained in SBIR and STTR Explained.

Study Section

Also known as: scientific review group, review panel.

A standing panel of primarily non-federal scientists convened to assess the scientific and technical merit of assigned applications and assign scores.

Each panel has a defined scientific scope, and assignment to the wrong panel is a common and avoidable cause of poor scores. A federal officer manages the panel, handles conflicts, and drafts the summary statement, while the scientists supply the judgment.

Example: An application assigned to a panel outside its methodological area draws reviewers unfamiliar with the standard techniques.

Source: NIH, Peer Review Policy. Explained in Research Grants at NIH and NSF.

Substantial Involvement

The statutory criterion distinguishing a cooperative agreement from a grant, met when a federal agency expects to participate in carrying out the funded activity rather than only administering the award.

Involvement means operational participation: collaborating on technical direction, approving stages of work, or supplying agency personnel to the project. Ordinary administrative oversight, reporting requirements, and site visits do not constitute involvement, though the line is applied inconsistently across agencies.

Example: Agency scientists jointly select study sites and approve the protocol, which makes the instrument a cooperative agreement.

Source: 31 U.S.C. 6305. Explained in Grants vs Contracts vs Cooperative Agreements.

What are the post-award grant management terms?

Post-award grant management terms describe what a recipient owes after the money arrives. Reporting, prior approval, subrecipient monitoring, audit, and closeout each carry defined obligations in the Uniform Guidance, and most carry deadlines. Failures at this stage follow an organization forward into every future risk assessment a funder performs.

Budget Period

The interval from the start date of a funded portion of an award to the end date of that portion, representing the increment of funding an agency has obligated.

Funds are obligated by budget period, and prior approval requirements and carryover rules attach at the budget period boundary rather than at the end of the award. Treating the two intervals as identical is the most common misreading of an award notice.

Example: An award with a multi-year period of performance is funded in annual budget periods, each requiring a continuation action.

Source: 2 CFR 200.1. Explained in How to Read a Notice of Award.

Carryover

Also known as: carryforward.

The movement of unobligated funds from one budget period into the next, permitted automatically under some award terms and requiring prior approval under others.

Recipients frequently assume carryover is automatic. Under the Uniform Guidance the authority must be granted, either through a general expanded authority or in the award terms, and a specific condition can withdraw it. Funds not carried over are deobligated and cannot be recovered.

Example: A recipient discovers at year end that its award terms withdrew automatic carryover, and the unspent balance is deobligated.

Source: 2 CFR 200.308. Explained in Prior Approval and Changing a Grant.

Contractor

Also known as: vendor.

An entity receiving payment under a federal award to provide goods or services within its normal business operations to many purchasers in a competitive environment.

The determination matters because contractors carry no federal compliance obligations, no audit exposure, and no monitoring duty on the pass-through entity. Labeling a partner a contractor to avoid monitoring does not survive audit, since the determination rests on the substance of the relationship.

Example: A firm delivering a standard evaluation service at market rates to many clients is a contractor rather than a subrecipient.

Source: 2 CFR 200.331. Explained in Subrecipient Monitoring and Pass-Through Funding.

Debarment

A government-wide action excluding an entity or individual from receiving federal awards for a stated period, based on conduct establishing a lack of present responsibility.

Debarment is far more severe than any award-level action because it reaches every agency and every future award, and it extends to principals as well as to the organization. Recipients are required to check exclusion status before entering covered transactions with other parties.

Example: A debarred entity cannot receive a subaward from any recipient, which is why exclusion checks are required before execution.

Source: 2 CFR Part 180. Explained in Grant Termination, Suspension, and Appeals.

Federal Award Identification Number

Also known as: FAIN.

The unique identifier assigned to a federal award, used as the reference key across payments, reports, subawards, and audit records for the life of the award.

The number is the join key of the post-award world. Reports, drawdowns, subaward disclosures, and the audit schedule all reference it, and a mismatch between the number on the award and the number used in a system is a routine cause of rejected reports.

Example: Every financial report, subaward disclosure, and audit line for an award carries the same identification number.

Source: 2 CFR 200.1. Explained in How to Read a Notice of Award.

Federal Financial Report

Also known as: FFR, SF-425.

The standard government-wide form on which recipients report the financial status of a federal award, covering cash, expenditures, unliquidated obligations, program income, and indirect costs.

The report is the primary financial accountability document and its due dates are fixed by the Uniform Guidance rather than by preference. Reports that do not tie to the general ledger, or that carry unliquidated obligations forward without support, are the most frequent sources of findings.

Example: A final report reconciles cumulative expenditures to the general ledger before the recipient can complete closeout.

Source: 2 CFR 200.328. Explained in Grant Reporting Requirements.

Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act Reporting

Also known as: FFATA, subaward reporting, FSRS reporting.

The requirement that prime recipients publicly report first-tier subawards above a threshold, including subrecipient identity, amount, and place of performance.

Reporting is due shortly after the subaward is made rather than at the next periodic report, and it is a frequently missed obligation because it sits outside the normal reporting rhythm. Executive compensation reporting is triggered separately when the recipient meets defined revenue conditions.

Example: A recipient reports a new subaward in the month following execution rather than waiting for the next progress report.

Source: 2 CFR Part 170. Explained in Grant Reporting Requirements.

Finder’s Fee

Also known as: contingency fee, percentage fee.

Compensation calculated as a share of funds raised, a practice the grant profession’s ethical standards prohibit and federal cost principles do not permit as a charge to awards.

Two separate barriers apply. Professional ethical standards bar contingent compensation for grant professionals, and federal cost principles treat costs of organized fundraising as unallowable charges to federal awards. Arrangements framed as success bonuses face the same objections.

Example: A consultant proposing payment as a share of any award is proposing an arrangement the profession’s standards prohibit.

Source: 2 CFR 200.442. Explained in Hiring a Grant Writer.

Grant Closeout

Also known as: closeout.

The process of concluding an award after the period of performance ends, comprising final reports, liquidation of obligations, property disposition, and settlement of any amounts owed.

Closeout obligations are enforceable and their failure is reported as material noncompliance, which feeds future risk assessments at every agency. Government accountability reviews have repeatedly found large balances trapped in expired awards, most often because recipients did not file final reports.

Example: A recipient’s missing final financial report keeps an award open, blocks deobligation, and appears in later risk reviews.

Source: 2 CFR 200.344. Explained in Closing Out a Grant.

Grant Writer

Also known as: grant professional, proposal writer.

A professional who researches funding opportunities and prepares applications, working as an employee, a contractor, or a consultant to an applicant organization.

The role varies widely in scope, from writing narrative sections to managing the full pursuit process. Professional standards in the field prohibit compensation contingent on award, which rules out percentage fees and commissions and shapes how engagements are priced.

Example: A consultant is engaged at an hourly or fixed project rate rather than at a percentage of any resulting award.

Source: Grant Professionals Certification Institute, Competencies Tested. Explained in Hiring a Grant Writer.

Grants Officer

Also known as: grants management officer, GMO, grants management specialist.

The agency official with delegated authority to obligate federal funds, sign award documents, and approve changes to the business terms of an award.

Only the grants officer can bind the agency. A program officer supplies technical guidance and may endorse a request, but an approval that matters must come in writing from the business official. Acting on verbal program officer assurance is a recurring source of disallowed costs.

Example: A program officer’s verbal agreement to a budget change does not authorize the change until the grants officer approves it in writing.

Source: 2 CFR 200.1. Explained in Prior Approval and Changing a Grant.

Key Personnel

Also known as: senior personnel.

The individuals identified in an award as essential to the project, whose replacement or substantial reduction in effort requires the awarding agency’s prior approval.

Naming personnel as key is a commitment that constrains staffing for the life of the award. Agencies typically require approval for a change in the designated project leader and for effort reductions beyond a stated share, and departures discovered at reporting rather than disclosed in advance draw scrutiny.

Example: Reducing a named investigator’s effort below the stated threshold requires written approval before the reduction occurs.

Source: 2 CFR 200.308. Explained in Prior Approval and Changing a Grant.

Major Program

A federal program an auditor selects for compliance testing in a single audit, identified through a risk-based process using size thresholds and prior findings.

Selection follows a defined sequence: classify programs by size, assess risk, and cover a required minimum percentage of total expenditures. Because prior findings raise a program’s risk, a finding in one year mechanically increases the chance the same program is tested again in the next.

Example: A program with a prior-year finding is selected for testing again even though its dollar volume did not change.

Source: 2 CFR 200.518. Explained in The Single Audit.

Management Decision

The written determination by an awarding agency or pass-through entity stating whether an audit finding is sustained, the reasons, and the expected repayment or corrective action.

The decision is what converts a questioned cost into a debt or clears it. It must reference the auditor’s finding numbers, state the action required, and describe any available appeal. It is due within a defined period after the audit report is accepted by the clearinghouse.

Example: A pass-through entity issues a written decision sustaining part of a finding and requiring repayment of that portion.

Source: 2 CFR 200.521. Explained in The Single Audit.

Material Weakness

A deficiency, or combination of deficiencies, in internal control severe enough that a material noncompliance could occur without being prevented or detected in a timely manner.

The classification is about severity of the control gap rather than about whether an error actually occurred. A material weakness disqualifies an entity from low-risk auditee status, raises its risk profile with every funder, and typically triggers a specific condition on new awards.

Example: An auditor reports a material weakness in payroll controls even though no incorrect charge was identified.

Source: 2 CFR 200.516. Explained in The Single Audit.

No-Cost Extension

Also known as: NCE.

An extension of an award’s period of performance without additional funds, granting more time to complete the approved scope of work.

Some agencies allow a recipient to take a first extension unilaterally with advance notice, while others require approval, and award terms can withdraw the flexibility. Extensions are for completing work, not for spending unspent funds on new activity, and requests made after the end date are generally refused.

Example: A recipient notifies the agency before the end date to take a first extension permitted by its award terms.

Source: 2 CFR 200.308. Explained in Prior Approval and Changing a Grant.

Notice of Award

Also known as: NOA, Notice of Grant Award, NGA.

The official legally binding document, signed by a grants officer, that notifies a recipient of an award, states or references all terms and conditions, and records the obligation of funds.

The award notice, not the funding announcement or a selection letter, is what obligates money and authorizes work to begin. Terms arrive in two layers: agency-wide general terms incorporated by reference, and award-specific conditions printed on the notice itself that override the general ones.

Example: A recipient who begins spending on a selection letter rather than a signed award notice has no authority to charge those costs.

Source: NIH Grants Policy Statement, Standard Terms of Award. Explained in How to Read a Notice of Award.

Pass-Through Entity

Also known as: PTE.

A recipient or subrecipient that provides a subaward to a subrecipient to carry out part of a federal program, assuming oversight duties for the funds it passes down.

Pass-through status brings specific duties: making the subrecipient determination, disclosing required data elements in the subaward, assessing subrecipient risk, monitoring performance, issuing management decisions on audit findings, and verifying that subrecipients meeting the threshold are audited.

Example: A state agency passing federal funds to local nonprofits must assess each one’s risk and monitor accordingly.

Source: 2 CFR 200.332. Explained in Subrecipient Monitoring and Pass-Through Funding.

Performance Progress Report

Also known as: PPR, progress report.

The periodic report describing what a project accomplished against its approved objectives, including comparison of actual results to goals and explanation of any shortfall.

The Uniform Guidance sets both the maximum and minimum reporting frequency and the due dates after each reporting period. Substantively, the report must compare actual accomplishment to the objectives established for the period and explain why targets were not met when they were not.

Example: A report states the target, the actual result, and the reason for the difference rather than narrating activities.

Source: 2 CFR 200.329. Explained in Grant Reporting Requirements.

Period of Performance

Also known as: POP, project period.

The interval between the start and end date of a federal award, during which costs must be incurred to be allowable, and which may contain one or more budget periods.

Costs incurred before the start or after the end are unallowable absent specific authority, and testing whether costs fall inside the period is a standard audit procedure. The interval is distinct from the budget period, which is the funding increment inside it.

Example: An invoice dated after the end of the period of performance is unallowable even if the work was ordered earlier.

Source: 2 CFR 200.1. Explained in How to Read a Notice of Award.

Prior Approval

Written authorization a recipient must obtain from the awarding agency before taking specified actions that would otherwise be outside the approved terms of an award.

The Uniform Guidance lists the actions requiring approval, and agencies may waive some of them in award terms. Retroactive approval is not generally available, so an action taken first and disclosed later usually produces a disallowed cost rather than a late approval.

Example: A change in the designated principal investigator requires written approval before the change takes effect, not after.

Source: 2 CFR 200.308. Explained in Prior Approval and Changing a Grant.

Rebudgeting

Also known as: budget revision, line-item transfer.

Moving approved funds between budget categories during a project, subject to agency thresholds above which prior written approval is required.

Thresholds are expressed as a share of the total budget and vary by agency and by award terms, and some categories carry their own rules regardless of amount. Movements into or out of participant support and changes affecting equipment commonly require approval at any level.

Example: A transfer within a category needs no approval, while moving funds out of participant support does regardless of amount.

Source: 2 CFR 200.308. Explained in Prior Approval and Changing a Grant.

Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards

Also known as: SEFA.

The schedule listing all federal awards expended by an entity during its fiscal year, organized by program and identified by Assistance Listing Number and pass-through identifier.

The schedule drives the entire audit: it determines whether the threshold is met, which programs are selected for compliance testing, and what the auditor tests. An incomplete schedule, most often from omitted subawards, invalidates the program selection that follows from it.

Example: An omitted pass-through award changes which programs the auditor would have selected for compliance testing.

Source: 2 CFR 200.502. Explained in The Single Audit.

Single Audit

Also known as: Uniform Guidance audit, A-133 audit.

An organization-wide audit of a non-federal entity’s financial statements and federal award compliance, required when its federal expenditures in a fiscal year reach a stated threshold.

The trigger is total federal funds expended across all awards in the entity’s fiscal year, not receipts and not any single award. The audit covers financial statements plus compliance testing on programs selected through a risk-based process, and the reporting package is submitted to a public clearinghouse.

Example: An entity crossing the threshold across several small awards owes an audit even though no single award is large.

Source: 2 CFR 200.501. Explained in The Single Audit.

Specific Conditions

Also known as: special conditions, specific award conditions.

Additional requirements an agency imposes on an individual award, printed on the award document and overriding the agency’s general terms where they conflict.

Conditions may be imposed based on a risk assessment, prior performance, audit history, or program-specific need, and they can withdraw flexibilities the recipient would otherwise have. Agencies must notify the recipient of the nature of the condition and what is required to remove it.

Example: A condition withdraws automatic carryover authority, so unspent funds require prior approval that other recipients do not need.

Source: 2 CFR 200.208. Explained in How to Read a Notice of Award.

Subaward

Also known as: subgrant.

An award a pass-through entity provides to a subrecipient so the subrecipient can carry out part of a federal program by contributing to the project’s goals and objectives.

A subaward transfers program responsibility, not merely money for goods or services. The pass-through entity remains accountable to the agency for the subrecipient’s compliance, must disclose specified information in the subaward, and must monitor performance throughout.

Example: A prime recipient subawards to a partner delivering a program component and remains answerable for that partner’s compliance.

Source: 2 CFR 200.1. Explained in Subrecipient Monitoring and Pass-Through Funding.

Subrecipient

An entity receiving a subaward from a pass-through entity to carry out part of a federal award, with its own program decision-making responsibility and compliance obligations.

Subrecipient status follows substance rather than the label on the agreement. The distinguishing markers are program decision-making, measurement against program objectives, responsibility for compliance with federal requirements, and use of the funds to carry out a program rather than to provide goods.

Example: A partner that decides which participants to enroll and is measured on program outcomes is a subrecipient regardless of the document title.

Source: 2 CFR 200.331. Explained in Subrecipient Monitoring and Pass-Through Funding.

Subrecipient Risk Assessment

Also known as: risk evaluation.

A pass-through entity’s evaluation of each subrecipient’s risk of noncompliance, used to set the intensity of monitoring applied to that subrecipient.

The Uniform Guidance names the factors to consider, including prior experience with the same or similar subawards, results of previous audits, new personnel or systems, and the extent of agency monitoring. The assessment must be documented, and monitoring intensity must actually vary with its results.

Example: A pass-through entity increases site visits for a subrecipient with recent audit findings and reduces them for one with none.

Source: 2 CFR 200.332. Explained in Subrecipient Monitoring and Pass-Through Funding.

Termination

The ending of a federal award, in whole or in part, before the end of the period of performance, by the agency, by the recipient, or by mutual agreement.

Grounds and procedures are set in the Uniform Guidance and in the award terms, and the permitted grounds narrowed in recent revisions. Termination requires written notice stating the reason and the effective date, and costs incurred after that date are unallowable except for permitted closeout costs.

Example: An agency terminates for noncompliance with a written notice stating the reason and the effective date.

Source: 2 CFR 200.340. Explained in Grant Termination, Suspension, and Appeals.

Time and Effort Documentation

Also known as: effort reporting, personnel activity report.

Records supporting the salaries and wages charged to federal awards, showing how each employee’s compensated time was distributed across activities.

The standard is performance-based rather than form-based: records must be supported by the organization’s internal controls, reflect total activity rather than only the federally funded portion, and account for all compensated activities. Budget estimates alone are not sufficient support for charges.

Example: An employee split across three awards certifies actual distribution of total effort rather than the budgeted percentages.

Source: 2 CFR 200.430. Explained in Time and Effort Documentation.

Unliquidated Obligation

Also known as: ULO.

An obligation a recipient has incurred but not yet paid, reported as such on the financial report and distinguished from funds never obligated at all.

The distinction from an unobligated balance drives closeout. Unliquidated obligations must be paid during the liquidation period and disappear from the final report; unobligated balances are returned or deobligated. Reporting one as the other is a common error that delays closeout for months.

Example: A recipient reports an executed but unpaid vendor commitment as an unliquidated obligation, not as an unobligated balance.

Source: 2 CFR 200.1. Explained in Closing Out a Grant.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a grant and a contract?

A grant transfers value to carry out a public purpose the recipient pursues with its own discretion (31 U.S.C. 6304). A procurement contract acquires goods or services for the government’s own use (31 U.S.C. 6303). Contracts carry protest rights and acquisition regulation; grants carry neither.

What is the difference between an output and an outcome?

An output is a countable product of an activity that staff fully control, such as sessions delivered. An outcome is a change in participants or conditions that results from outputs and lies outside full staff control (34 CFR 77.1). Reviewers score outcomes; outputs only prove the work happened.

What is the difference between a subrecipient and a contractor?

A subrecipient carries out part of a federal program, makes program decisions, and is measured against program objectives. A contractor supplies goods or services in a competitive market. The determination rests on substance, not on the agreement’s title (2 CFR 200.331), and only subrecipients trigger monitoring duties.

What is the difference between allowable, allocable, and reasonable?

Reasonable asks whether a prudent person would have incurred the cost (2 CFR 200.404). Allocable asks whether the award benefits in proportion to what is charged (2 CFR 200.405). Allowable is the compound test including documentation and award terms (2 CFR 200.403).

What is the difference between a questioned cost and a disallowed cost?

A questioned cost is an auditor’s allegation that a charge may violate a requirement or lacks documentation (2 CFR 200.516). A disallowed cost is the agency’s written determination in a management decision (2 CFR 200.521). Questioning is the claim; disallowance is the debt.

What is the difference between period of performance and budget period?

The period of performance is the full interval of a federal award and may contain several budget periods (2 CFR 200.1). A budget period is one funded increment inside it. Funds are obligated by budget period, and carryover and prior-approval rules attach at that boundary.

What is the difference between a goal and an objective?

A goal is a broad directional statement with no number, deadline, or measurement method. An objective states what will change, for whom, by how much, and by when, so success can be determined from data (34 CFR 75.210). Objectives are what a funder is buying.

What is the difference between a logic model and a theory of change?

A logic model displays the sequence from inputs through activities and outputs to outcomes (34 CFR 77.1). A theory of change argues why the sequence should work, built backward from the goal through named preconditions (Center for Theory of Change). Follow the funder’s own usage.

Related topics

• Grant Funding Fundamentals
• Finding and Qualifying Funding
• Eligibility and Organizational Readiness
• Writing the Proposal
• Budgets and Grant Finance
• Evidence, Evaluation, and Data
• Funding Tracks by Funder Type
• Managing the Award

Sources

Every definition above cites its own source inline. The full list of sources used across this glossary follows, accessed 2026-08-11.

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2. 2 CFR 200.1. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.1
3. 31 U.S.C. 6305. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/6305
4. 31 U.S.C. 6303. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/6303
5. 2 CFR 200.201. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.201
6. 2 CFR Part 200. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/part-200
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43. 2 CFR 200.405. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.405
44. 2 CFR 200.404. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.404
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49. 2 CFR 200.307. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.307
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77. 2 CFR 200.331. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.331
78. 2 CFR 200.332. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.332
79. 2 CFR 200.521. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.521
80. 2 CFR 200.328. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.328
81. 2 CFR 200.329. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.329
82. 2 CFR Part 170. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/part-170
83. 2 CFR 200.344. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.344
84. 2 CFR 200.501. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.501
85. 2 CFR 200.502. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.502
86. 2 CFR 200.518. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.518
87. 2 CFR 200.340. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.340
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