The vocabulary, defined plainly
What do all these grant terms mean?
Most grant jargon is a plain idea in expensive clothing. An indirect cost rate is the share of overhead you are allowed to charge. A period of performance is the window in which money may be spent. A logic model is a diagram of how your activities lead to your outcomes. Below is the working vocabulary, defined the way someone would explain it out loud, not the way a regulation defines it.
Last reviewed 6 August 2026.
Money words
- Direct and indirect costs
- Direct costs are attributable to the project: the staff time on it, its materials, its travel. Indirect costs are the organization existing at all: rent, accounting, IT, the executive director's attention. Both are real costs of doing the work.
- Indirect cost rate
- The percentage of overhead you may charge. If you have negotiated a federal rate you generally use it. If you have not, federal awards allow a de minimis rate you can take without negotiating anything, and many organizations do not know it exists and charge nothing.
- Cost share or match
- The portion of project cost you must supply from non-federal sources. Frequently the deciding constraint.
- Single audit
- An organization spending above a federal threshold in a year must have a specific audit performed. It costs real money, so it belongs in your planning before you pursue large federal awards, not after.
- Supplanting
- Using new grant money to replace funds you were already spending on the same thing, instead of adding to them. Generally prohibited, and a real audit finding, not a technicality.
Process words
- Letter of inquiry, or LOI
- A short screening document a foundation asks for before inviting a full proposal. It is a filter, and treating it as a compressed proposal is how people fail it.
- Period of performance
- The window during which costs may be incurred. Spending before it starts or after it ends is generally unallowable, however sensible the spending.
- Prime and subrecipient
- The prime holds the award and the compliance obligation. A subrecipient carries out part of the work under it and inherits many of the same rules, which people passing money through to partners often discover late.
- Set-aside
- A contract reserved for a category of business: small, disadvantaged, veteran-owned, woman-owned, HUBZone. A significant advantage if you qualify and a closed door if you do not.
- No-cost extension
- Additional time to spend money already awarded, without additional money. Usually easy to obtain and worth asking for early, not in the final month.
Proposal words
- Logic model
- A diagram connecting inputs to activities to outputs to outcomes. Its real value is that filling it in exposes the step where your reasoning is thin.
- Outputs and outcomes
- Outputs are what you did: 400 people served. Outcomes are what changed: 60% of them still housed a year later. Reviewers ask for outcomes and receive outputs constantly, and that gap is where scores are lost.
- Sustainability plan
- How the work continues when this money stops. Answering "we will seek further grant funding" is the answer everyone gives and nobody scores well on.
- Boilerplate
- The reusable organizational description, history and capability text. Not a dirty word. Having it written properly once is worth more than any single proposal.
- Responsiveness
- In procurement, whether your bid met the stated requirements. A non-responsive bid is not scored at all, however good it is.
Who asks this most
The answer above is the same whoever you are. What Quillify does about it is not.
Related
- How to read a funding announcementHow do I read a NOFO or funding announcement properly?
- What to have ready before you need itWhat documents do I need to apply for a grant?
- How a reviewer actually reads your proposalHow do grant reviewers actually read proposals?
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