Welcome to the Grant Resource Center - Grant Writing Glossary

Both the Government and business use a very precise and technical language to communicate. Below are some terms to be familiar with as you prepare to compose your grant proposal or communicate with any Government agency.

Accrued Expenditures	Charges incurred by a recipient during a given period requiring the provision of funds for: (1) goods and other tangible property received; (2) services performed by employees, contractors, subrecipients, and other payees; and (3) other amounts becoming owed under programs for which no current services or performance is required.
Accrued Income	Sum of: (1) earnings during a given period from (i) services performed by the recipient, and (ii) goods and other tangible property delivered to purchasers; and (2) amounwts becoming owed to the recipient for which no current services or performance is required by the recipient.
Acquisition Cost of Equipment	Net invoice price of the equipment, including the cost of modifications, attachments, accessories, or auxiliary apparatus necessary to make the property usable for the purpose for which it was acquired. Other charges, such as the cost of installation, transportation, taxes, duty or protective in-transit insurance, shall be included or excluded from the unit acquisition cost in accordance with the recipient’s regular accounting practices.
Advance Payment	A payment made to a recipient upon its request either before outlays are made by the recipient or through the use of predetermined payment schedules.
Agency Specific Data Sets	Data that an agency collects in addition to data on any of the SF-424 series forms.
Application Package	A group of specific forms and documents for a specific funding opportunity which are used to apply for a grant.
Application Package Template	One or more forms and documents which can be reused for multiple opportunity-specific application packages.
Authorized Organization Representative (AOR)	An AOR submits a grant on behalf of a company, organization, institution, or government. AORs have the authority to sign grant applications and the required certifications and/or assurances that are necessary to fulfill the requirements of the application process.
Award	Financial assistance that provides support or stimulation to accomplish a public purpose. Awards include grants and other agreements in the form of money or property in lieu of money, by the Federal Government to an eligible recipient. The term does not include: technical assistance, which provides services instead of money; other assistance in the form of loans, loan guarantees, interest subsidies, or insurance; direct payments of any kind to individuals; and contracts which are required to be entered into and administered under Federal procurement laws and regulations.
Cage Code	A five-character code which identifies companies doing, or planning to do business with the Federal Government and is assigned through the CCR.
Cash Contributions	A recipient’s cash outlay, including the outlay of money contributed to the recipient by third parties.
Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA)	An online database of all Federal programs available to state and local governments, federally-recognized Indian tribal governments, territories and possessions of the United States, domestic public, quasi-public, and private profit and nonprofit organizations and institutions, specialized groups, and individuals.
Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number	The identifying number that a Federal program is assigned in the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA).
Central Contractor Registry (CCR)	The Central Contractor Registry (CCR) is the primary vendor database for the U.S. Federal Government. CCR validates applicant information and electronically shares the secure and encrypted data with the Federal agencies' finance offices to facilitate paperless payments through Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). The CCR stores your organizational information, allowing Grants.gov to verify your identity and to pre-fill organizational information on your grant applications.
Closeout	Process by which the awarding agency determines that all applicable administrative actions and all required work of the award have been completed by the recipient and the awarding agency.
Competition ID	A grantor selected ID that allows further distinction of the funding opportunity number which allows applications with the same funding opportunity number to be assigned unique identifiers.
Context-Sensitive Help	Online help which provides detailed information and instruction on a specific topic.
Contract	A procurement contract under an award or subaward, and a procurement subcontract under a recipient's or subrecipient’s contract.
Cookie	A piece of information sent by a Web Server to a Web Browser that the Browser software is expected to save and to send back to the Server whenever the browser makes additional requests from the Server. Depending on the type of Cookie used, and the Browsers' settings, the Browser may accept or not accept the Cookie, and may save the Cookie for either a short time or a long time.
Cooperative Agreement	An award of financial assistance that is used to enter into the same kind of relationship as a grant; and is distinguished from a grant in that it provides for substantial involvement between the Federal agency and the recipient in carrying out the activity contemplated by the award.
Cost Sharing or Matching	The portion of project or program costs not borne by the Federal Government.
Credential Provider	The organization that validates the electronic identity of an individual through electronic credentials, PINS, passwords and PKI certificates for Grants.gov.
Current Accounting Period	The period of time the recipient chooses for purposes of financial statements and audits.
Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS)	A unique nine-character identification number provided by the commercial company Dun & Bradstreet (D&B).
Date of Completion	The date on which all work under an award is completed or the date on the award document, or any supplement or amendment thereto, on which awarding agency sponsorship ends.
Disallowed Costs	Charges to an award that the awarding agency determines to be unallowable, in accordance with the applicable Federal cost principles or other terms and conditions contained in the award.
Discretionary Grant	A grant (or cooperative agreement) for which the Federal awarding agency generally may select the recipient from among all eligible recipients, may decide to make or not make an award based on the programmatic, technical, or scientific content of an application, and can decide the amount of funding to be awarded.
Download	Transferring data (usually a file) from another computer to the computer you are using.
E-Authentication	A gateway which provides access to numerous Credential Providers.
E-Business Point of Contact	An E-Biz POC is responsible for the administration and management of grant activities in his/her organization. E-Biz POCS grant representatives of their organization the privilege to submit grant applications through Grants.gov.
Equipment	Tangible nonexpendable personal property, including exempt property, charged directly to the award and having a useful life of more than one year and an acquisition cost of $5,000 or more per unit. However, consistent with recipient policy, lower limits may be established.
Excess Property	Property under the control of an awarding agency that, as determined by the head of the awarding agency or his/her delegate, is no longer required for the agency's needs or the discharge of its responsibilities.
Exempt Property	Tangible personal property acquired in whole or in part with Federal funds, where the awarding agency has statutory authority to vest title in the recipient without further obligation to the Federal government. An example of exempt property authority is contained in the Federal Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act, 31 U.S.C. 6306, for property acquired under an award to conduct basic or applied research by a nonprofit institution of higher education or nonprofit organization whose principal purpose is conducting scientific research.
Federal Share of Real Property, Equipment, or Supplies	The percentage of the properties or supplies acquisition costs and any improvement expenditures paid with Federal funds. This will be the same percentage as the Federal share of the total costs under the award for the funding period in which the property was acquired (excluding the value of third party in-kind contributions).
Federally Recognized Indian Tribal Government	The governing body of any Indian tribe, band, nation, or other organized group or community (including any Native village as defined in section 3 of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act certified by the Secretary of the Interior as eligible for the special programs and services provided by him through the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Fedgrants.gov	A web site that has been shut down. When it was live, its purpose was to enable users to search for grant opportunities.
Financial Assistance	The transfer of a thing of value from a Federal agency to a recipient to carry out a public purpose of support or stimulation authorized by a law of the United States (see 31 U.S.C. 6101(3)). An agency may provide financial assistance through various types of transactions, including grants, cooperative agreements, loans, loan guarantees, interest subsidies, insurance, food commodities, direct appropriations, and transfers of property in place of money.
Funding Opportunity Announcement	A publicly available document by which a Federal agency makes known its intentions to award discretionary grants or cooperative agreements, usually as a result of competition for funds. Funding opportunity announcements may be known as program announcements, notices of funding availability, solicitations, or other names depending on the agency and type of program. Funding opportunity announcements can be found at Grants.gov/FIND and on the Internet at the funding agency’s or program’s website.
Funding Opportunity Number	The number that a Federal agency assigns to its grant announcement.
Funding Period	The period of time when Federal funding is available for obligation by the recipient.
Government	A State or local government or a federally recognized Indian tribal government.
Grace Period	This period reflects the number of days after the closing date that Grants.gov will continue to accept applications for a grant opportunity. It also represents the day (Closing Date + Grace Period) that applicants will no longer be able to download the application package. This value is entered by an agency when creating a grant opportunity and is not visible to grant applicants.
Grant	An award of financial assistance, the principal purpose of which is to transfer a thing of value from a Federal agency to a recipient to carry out a public purpose of support or stimulation authorized by a law of the United States (see 31 U.S.C. 6101(3)). A grant is distinguished from a contract, which is used to acquire property or services for the Federal government's direct benefit or use.
Grants.gov	A storefront web portal for use in electronic collection of data (forms and reports) for Federal grant-making agencies through the Grants.gov site. (www.grants.gov).
Grants.gov Tracking Number	A number set used by Grants.gov which is used to identify each application it receives.
Individual	An Individual submits a grant on their behalf, and not on behalf of a company, organization, institution, or government. Individuals sign the grant application and its associated certifications and assurances that are necessary to fulfill the requirements of the application process.
Intangible Property and Debt Instruments	Includes trademarks, copyrights, patents and patent applications, and such property as loans, notes and other debt instruments, lease agreements, stock and other instruments of property ownership, whether considered tangible or intangible.
Inter-Agency Electronic Grants Committee (IAEGC)	An organization which encourages and assists federal agencies in developing electronic grants systems and standardizing electronic commerce methodologies throughout the Federal government. The IAEGC is chartered to Grants.Gov Program Management Office.
Local Government	A local unit of government, including specifically a county, municipality, city, town, township, local public authority, school district, special district, intra-state district, council of governments (whether or not incorporated as a nonprofit corporation under State law), any other regional or interstate entity, or any agency or instrumentality of local government.
Login	The act of connecting to a computer system by giving your credentials (usually your "username" and "password").
Mandatory Grant	A grant (or cooperative agreement) awarded under a program where the authorizing statute requires the head of the agency or designee to make an award to each eligible entity under the conditions and in the amount (or based on the formula) specified in the statute.
Marketing Partner ID (MPIN)	A personal code that allows you to access other government applications such as the Past Performance Automated System, DoDBusOpps and TeDS. The MPIN may act as your password in these other systems. You make up the code and register it in CCR. The MPIN must have 9 digits containing at least one alpha character (must be in capital letters) and one number (no spaces or special characters permitted).
North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code	A code with a maximum of six digits used to classify business establishments. This code will be replacing the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code.
Obligations	The amounts of orders placed, contracts and grants awarded, services received and similar transactions during a given period that require payment by the recipient during the same or a future period.
Operational Research Consultants (ORC)	The organization that Grants.gov has selected to validate the electronic identity of an individual through electronic credentials, PINS, passwords and PKI certificates.
Opportunity Category	A field located on the Grant Opportunity Properties screen within Grants.gov. The Opportunity Category field values include Discretionary, Mandatory, Earmark, and Continuation. The Opportunity Category field was added to the site to assist Grants.gov with aggregating opportunities and application packages for public and private displays on the site. For example, there are links which show grant opportunities and packages recently posted to the site. Those opportunities and packages with a category type of Earmarked or Continuation will not show up on these public listings.
Organization	A grant applicant who is submitting a grant on behalf of a company, state, local or tribal government, academic or research institution, not-for-profit, or any other type of institution.
Outlays or Expenditures	Charges made to the project or program, which may be reported on a cash or accrual basis.
Password	A code used to gain access to Grants.gov along with a username. Good passwords contain