Glossary
Abstract: A brief summary of a proposed project, research study, or program, usually highlighting its purpose, significance, methods, outcomes, and expected impact.
Accessibility: The degree to which a proposal, project, communication, or resource can be used by people with diverse abilities, circumstances, and needs.
Accountability: The responsibility of a grant recipient to use funds appropriately, follow funding requirements, document activities, and report results.
Allowable Cost: A project expense that is permitted under the funder’s rules and applicable regulations.
Applicant: An individual or organization submitting a request for funding.
Application Guidelines: The funder’s instructions specifying eligibility, required components, formatting, deadlines, submission procedures, and evaluation criteria.
Award: Funding formally provided by a funder to support an approved project or program.
Award Letter: The formal document notifying an applicant that funding has been awarded and specifying relevant terms and conditions.
Budget: A financial plan that estimates the costs required to complete a proposed project.
Budget Justification: A narrative explanation describing why each significant budget expense is necessary and reasonable for accomplishing the proposed work.
Capacity: The personnel, expertise, infrastructure, resources, partnerships, and organizational systems available to accomplish a proposed project.
Capacity Building: Activities designed to strengthen an organization’s ability to plan, implement, evaluate, sustain, or expand programs.
Challenge Grant: Funding that is awarded contingent on the recipient raising additional funds, often from other donors or sources.
Charitable Foundation: A nonprofit organization established to provide financial support for charitable, educational, research, cultural, or community purposes.
Clarity: The degree to which a proposal communicates its ideas directly, precisely, and understandably to its intended readers.
Closeout: The administrative process through which a funded project is formally completed, including final financial and programmatic reporting.
Collaboration: A coordinated effort among individuals or organizations that contribute expertise, resources, responsibilities, or other forms of support to a project.
Community-Engaged Research: Research conducted in meaningful partnership with communities, often emphasizing shared decision-making, relevance, reciprocity, and practical benefit.
Community Need: A documented condition, problem, gap, or opportunity affecting a population or community that a proposed project seeks to address.
Concept Paper: A short document that summarizes a proposed project and its significance, often used to obtain preliminary feedback from a funder.
Competitive Grant: Funding awarded through a competitive process in which applications are evaluated against established criteria.
Compliance: The process of meeting the rules, requirements, policies, and conditions established by a funder or regulatory authority.
Cost Share: The portion of project costs contributed by the applicant or another source rather than paid by the requested grant.
Credibility: The degree to which an applicant, project, evidence base, or proposal is perceived as trustworthy, qualified, and capable of delivering its promised results.
Data Management Plan (DMP): A document describing how project data will be collected, organized, stored, protected, shared, preserved, and eventually disposed of.
Deliverable: A tangible product, service, report, dataset, training, resource, or other item that a funded project is expected to produce.
Dissemination: The intentional distribution of project findings, products, knowledge, or resources to relevant audiences.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA): An approach emphasizing meaningful participation, equitable opportunity, representation, inclusion, and accessibility in programs and organizations.
Due Diligence: The process of carefully investigating a funder, applicant, partner, project, or proposed expenditure before making a funding decision.
Eligibility: The conditions an applicant, organization, project, or proposed activity must satisfy to apply for a particular funding opportunity.
Evaluation: The systematic collection and analysis of information to determine the quality, effectiveness, outcomes, or impact of a project.
Evaluation Plan: The section of a proposal explaining how project activities and outcomes will be assessed.
Evidence Base: The body of research, data, experience, or other credible information supporting the need for and proposed approach to a project.
Evidence-Based Practice: An approach grounded in credible research evidence and adapted appropriately to a particular population, context, or problem.
Executive Summary: A concise overview of a proposal designed to communicate its central purpose, approach, significance, outcomes, and funding request to decision makers.
External Funding: Financial support obtained from sources outside an organization, institution, or project’s internal budget.
Funder: An individual, organization, foundation, corporation, government agency, or other entity that provides financial support.
Funding Opportunity: A specific invitation from a funder for eligible applicants to submit proposals for financial support.
Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA): A formal announcement describing a government or other funding opportunity, including eligibility, priorities, requirements, deadlines, and submission procedures.
Gap: A missing resource, service, knowledge base, research finding, capacity, or opportunity that a proposed project seeks to address.
Goals: Broad statements describing what a project ultimately intends to accomplish.
Grant: Financial support provided by a funder to accomplish an approved purpose without the expectation that the recipient will repay the funds, provided grant conditions are satisfied.
Grant Cycle: The sequence of activities through which a funding opportunity is announced, applications are developed and submitted, proposals are reviewed, awards are made, projects are implemented, and results are reported.
Grant Development: The broader process of identifying funding opportunities, developing partnerships, designing projects, preparing proposals, submitting applications, and managing funder relationships.
Grant Management: The administrative and programmatic processes involved in managing an awarded grant and fulfilling its requirements.
Grant Narrative: The written portion of a grant application that explains the proposed project, its need, objectives, methods, outcomes, evaluation, and significance.
Grant Prospecting: The process of searching for and identifying potential funders and funding opportunities.
Grant Proposal: A formal request for financial support that presents a problem or opportunity, proposed solution, implementation strategy, budget, outcomes, and rationale for funding.
Grant-Seeking: The broader activity of pursuing financial support from external funders for programs, research, organizations, or other purposes.
Grantmaker: An organization or individual that provides grants to support specified purposes.
Impact: The broader and often longer-term effects of a project on individuals, organizations, communities, systems, knowledge, or other relevant conditions.
Impact Statement: A concise explanation of the significance and expected effects of a proposed project.
Implementation: The process of carrying out the activities, strategies, and procedures described in an approved proposal.
Indirect Costs: Costs associated with operating an organization that support a project but cannot be readily attributed to a single project activity.
In-Kind Contribution: Noncash support contributed to a project, such as donated equipment, facilities, personnel time, supplies, or services.
Innovation: A new, improved, or unusually effective approach to addressing a problem, opportunity, population, or process.
Institutional Support: Financial, administrative, personnel, infrastructure, or other resources contributed by an applicant’s organization.
Intellectual Merit: The potential of a proposed project to advance knowledge, understanding, theory, methods, or other intellectual contributions.
Internal Funding: Financial support provided from within an organization or institution rather than from an external funder.
Key Personnel: Individuals whose expertise, responsibilities, or contributions are essential to the successful completion of a proposed project.
Logic Model: A visual or conceptual representation connecting resources and inputs to activities, outputs, outcomes, and longer-term impacts.
Matching Funds: Funds that an applicant must provide to complement a funder’s contribution, often according to a specified ratio.
Measurable Objective: An objective stated in terms that allow progress or achievement to be observed, documented, or assessed.
Milestone: A significant point or accomplishment used to track progress toward completing a project.
Mission: The fundamental purpose or organizational commitment that guides an organization’s activities and priorities.
Needs Assessment: A systematic process for identifying, documenting, and analyzing problems, gaps, conditions, or priorities affecting a population or community.
Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO): A formal government announcement inviting eligible applicants to submit applications for funding.
Notice of Award (NOA): An official document establishing the terms, conditions, and amount of a grant award.
Objective: A specific statement describing what a project intends to accomplish within a defined period.
Outcome: A measurable change or result produced by a project, such as a change in knowledge, behavior, condition, capacity, or practice.
Output: A tangible product or activity produced directly by a project, such as workshops delivered, participants served, reports produced, or materials developed.
Partnership: A formal or informal relationship among organizations or individuals who contribute to a shared project or goal.
Pilot Project: A limited-scale project conducted to test, refine, or demonstrate an approach before broader implementation.
Population Served: The individuals, groups, organizations, or communities expected to benefit from a proposed project.
Program Officer: A representative of a funding organization who provides guidance about funding priorities, application requirements, and project fit.
Project Director: The individual responsible for leading and overseeing a funded project.
Project Period: The defined period during which grant-funded activities may occur.
Proposal Development: The process of designing, organizing, drafting, revising, budgeting, and preparing a grant proposal for submission.
Proposal Fit: The degree to which a proposed project aligns with a funder’s mission, priorities, eligibility requirements, and funding opportunity.
Proposal Review: The process through which submitted applications are assessed according to a funder’s established criteria.
Proposal Review Criteria: The standards or factors reviewers use to evaluate and score grant applications.
Prospect Research: The systematic investigation of potential funders, including their priorities, previous awards, eligibility requirements, geographic focus, and funding patterns.
Public Benefit: A positive effect or contribution that extends beyond an individual applicant to a broader community, population, field, or society.
Qualitative Data: Non-numerical information, such as interviews, observations, narratives, focus groups, or textual materials, used to understand experiences, meanings, and contexts.
Quantitative Data: Numerical information that can be measured, counted, compared, or statistically analyzed.
Rationale: The reasoning that explains why a proposed project is necessary, appropriate, timely, and likely to address the identified need.
Request for Applications (RFA): A funding announcement inviting applications for projects addressing specified priorities or areas of interest.
Request for Information (RFI): A solicitation used by an organization, often a government agency, to gather information before developing or revising a funding opportunity or program.
Request for Proposals (RFP): A formal solicitation asking organizations or individuals to submit proposals responding to specified requirements.
Research Question: A clearly defined question that a research project is designed to investigate.
Resources: The personnel, expertise, facilities, equipment, funding, partnerships, data, technology, and other assets available to support a project.
Risk Management: The process of identifying potential problems, assessing their consequences, and developing strategies to reduce or respond to project risks.
Scalability: The potential for a successful project or intervention to be expanded to serve additional participants, organizations, locations, or contexts.
Scope of Work: A detailed description of the activities, responsibilities, deliverables, timelines, and boundaries of a proposed or funded project.
Sustainability: The capacity of a project, program, partnership, or benefit to continue beyond the initial grant period.
Target Population: The specific group of people or communities a project is designed to serve or affect.
Theory of Change: An explanation of how and why a sequence of activities is expected to produce desired outcomes and longer-term change.
Timeline: A chronological schedule showing when major project activities, milestones, deliverables, and outcomes will occur.
Unallowable Cost: An expense that cannot legally or contractually be charged to a particular grant.
Work Plan: A structured description of project activities, responsibilities, timelines, milestones, and expected results.
Audience Analysis: The process of identifying and analyzing the knowledge, expectations, values, needs, interests, and decision-making authority of a proposal’s readers.
Audience Awareness: The ability to make deliberate communication choices based on the characteristics, expectations, and needs of an intended audience.
Kairos: The rhetorical concept of responding appropriately to the particular circumstances, opportunities, constraints, and timing of a communication situation.
Pathos: A rhetorical appeal that engages an audience’s emotions, values, experiences, or sense of concern.
Persuasion: The intentional use of communication to influence an audience’s beliefs, judgments, decisions, or actions.
Rhetorical Agency: The capacity to make purposeful choices within the constraints and possibilities of a particular rhetorical situation.
Rhetorical Situation: The combination of purpose, audience, exigence, context, constraints, and available means that shapes a communication.
Ethos: A rhetorical appeal based on credibility, character, expertise, trustworthiness, or authority.
Logos: A rhetorical appeal based on reasoning, evidence, logic, relationships among ideas, and credible claims.
Exigence: A problem, opportunity, need, or circumstance that creates a reason for communication and invites a response.
Genre: A recognizable type of communication shaped by recurring purposes, audiences, conventions, and situations.
Genre Knowledge: Understanding how a particular type of communication works, including its conventions, purposes, audiences, structures, and expectations.
Kairotic Fit: The degree to which a proposal responds appropriately to the particular moment, circumstances, priorities, and opportunities represented by a funding opportunity.
Rhetorical Fit: The degree to which a proposal’s content, organization, evidence, language, design, and persuasive strategies respond effectively to its rhetorical situation.
Stasis: A framework for identifying the central point of disagreement, uncertainty, or decision that must be addressed in an argument.
AI-Assisted Grant Writing: The use of artificial intelligence tools to support activities such as brainstorming, research organization, drafting, revision, analysis, or editing during grant development.
AI-Assisted Research: The use of AI tools to help locate, organize, summarize, analyze, or interrogate information while retaining human responsibility for verification and interpretation.
AI Evaluation: The process of assessing AI-generated content for accuracy, relevance, bias, credibility, completeness, and appropriateness.
AI Literacy: The knowledge and skills needed to understand, evaluate, use, question, and communicate about artificial intelligence responsibly and effectively.
AI Transparency: The practice of appropriately disclosing when and how artificial intelligence has contributed to the development of a proposal or other communication.
Algorithmic Bias: Systematic patterns in an automated system that can produce unfair, inaccurate, or unequal results.
Artificial Intelligence (AI): Computer-based systems designed to perform tasks that typically require forms of human intelligence, such as language processing, prediction, classification, generation, or decision support.
Augmentation: The use of technology or AI to extend human capabilities rather than simply replace human activities.
Chain of Thought: The internal reasoning process through which an AI system arrives at an answer; users should generally evaluate an AI system’s outputs rather than assume its internal reasoning is reliable or available.
Context Window: The amount of information an AI system can consider within a particular interaction.
Ethical AI Use: The intentional use of AI that considers accuracy, privacy, bias, transparency, intellectual property, accountability, human agency, and potential harms.
Generative AI: AI systems capable of generating new text, images, audio, video, code, or other content in response to prompts or other inputs.
Hallucination: An AI-generated statement, citation, fact, or other output that appears plausible but is inaccurate, unsupported, or fabricated.
Human-in-the-Loop: An approach in which humans remain actively involved in reviewing, directing, correcting, or approving AI-generated outputs.
Large Language Model (LLM): An AI model trained on large collections of language data to generate, transform, summarize, classify, or otherwise process text.
Media Awareness: The ability to recognize how media and technological systems shape information, communication, perception, and decision making.
Media Access: The ability to locate, obtain, use, and participate effectively with relevant media and technological resources.
Media Evaluation: The ability to assess the credibility, accuracy, relevance, bias, limitations, and implications of media and information.
Media Production: The ability to create, adapt, and distribute meaningful communication using media and technological tools.
Prompt: An instruction, question, context, or set of constraints provided to an AI system to elicit a response.
Prompt Engineering: The deliberate design and refinement of instructions and contextual information to improve the usefulness of an AI system’s output.
Prompting Purposefully: An approach to AI use that treats prompting as a rhetorical activity involving intentional consideration of purpose, audience, context, constraints, evidence, and desired outcomes.
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG): An AI approach in which a system retrieves relevant external information and uses it as context when generating a response.
Source Verification: The process of checking AI-generated or human-generated claims against reliable primary or authoritative sources.
Synthetic Content: Content generated or substantially modified by an automated or AI-based system.
Alignment: The relationship between a proposed project and the priorities, mission, goals, criteria, and interests of a funder.
Application Architecture: The overall structure and relationship among the components of a grant application, including the narrative, objectives, activities, outcomes, evaluation, timeline, and budget.
Competitive Advantage: A distinctive strength, capability, resource, partnership, experience, or approach that makes an applicant or project particularly compelling.
Funder Fit: The degree to which an applicant’s project and organizational characteristics correspond with a particular funder’s interests and requirements.
Narrative Arc: The logical progression through which a proposal establishes a need, presents a response, provides evidence, explains implementation, and demonstrates expected results.
Problem Statement: A concise description of the condition, problem, gap, or opportunity that motivates the proposed project.
Project Design: The planned structure of a project, including its objectives, activities, participants, methods, timeline, resources, and evaluation.
Strategic Alignment: The intentional connection between a proposed project and the strategic priorities of an organization, funder, community, institution, or larger initiative.
Theory of Action: A statement or model describing how specific actions are expected to produce particular outcomes.
Value Proposition: A concise explanation of the distinctive value, benefit, or contribution a proposed project offers to its intended beneficiaries or funder.
Budget Category: A classification used to organize project expenses, such as personnel, travel, equipment, supplies, or contractual services.
Budget Period: A defined period for which grant funds are authorized and budgeted.
Capital Expense: A significant expenditure for an asset or resource expected to have substantial or continuing value, such as equipment or facilities.
Fringe Benefits: Employer-paid costs associated with personnel compensation, such as health insurance, retirement contributions, or payroll-related expenses.
Fiscal Agent: An organization that manages financial or administrative responsibilities for a project on behalf of another organization or group.
Fiscal Sponsor: An established nonprofit organization that provides administrative, financial, and legal infrastructure for a project or organization that may not have its own tax-exempt status.
Personnel Costs: Expenses associated with salaries, wages, stipends, and related compensation for project staff.
Reasonable Cost: An expense that a prudent person would consider appropriate and necessary under the circumstances.
Subaward: A portion of a grant awarded by the primary recipient to another organization to carry out part of the funded work.
Travel Budget: The portion of a project budget allocated to transportation, lodging, meals, registration, and related travel expenses.
Continuation Funding: Additional funding requested or received to continue a project beyond its initial funding period.
Institutionalization: The process through which a project, practice, or innovation becomes integrated into an organization’s regular structures, policies, programs, or operations.
Knowledge Translation: The process of converting research findings or specialized knowledge into forms that can be understood and used by relevant audiences.
Long-Term Impact: Effects that persist or develop beyond the immediate period of project implementation.
Replication: The process of implementing a project or intervention in another setting or with another population to determine whether its approach or results can be reproduced.
Sustainability Plan: A strategy explaining how project activities, benefits, partnerships, staffing, or resources will continue after grant funding ends.
Systems Change: A significant change in the relationships, structures, policies, practices, or conditions that shape a broader social, institutional, or organizational system.
Transferability: The degree to which a project’s methods, findings, products, or lessons can be applied appropriately in other contexts.
Authorized Organizational Representative (AOR): An individual officially authorized to submit grant applications and legally commit an organization to the terms of an award.
Certification: A formal statement confirming that an applicant or organization meets specified requirements or that submitted information is accurate.
Letter of Commitment: A letter from a project partner or participating organization confirming its intention to contribute specified resources or participate in the proposed project.
Letter of Intent (LOI): A preliminary document indicating an applicant’s intention to submit a proposal and briefly describing the proposed project.
Letter of Support: A letter from an individual or organization expressing support for a proposed project, applicant, partnership, or intended outcomes.
Matching Requirement: A funder requirement that applicants contribute a specified amount or percentage of additional resources.
Reporting Requirement: A funder requirement to provide financial, programmatic, evaluation, or other information during or after a grant period.
Submission Deadline: The date and time by which an application must be successfully submitted to a funder.
Technical Review: An initial review to determine whether an application satisfies submission, formatting, eligibility, or administrative requirements.
Baseline Data: Information collected before project implementation that provides a point of comparison for measuring subsequent change.
Benchmark: A reference point or standard against which progress or performance can be measured.
Formative Evaluation: Evaluation conducted during project development or implementation to provide information that can improve the project.
Indicator: A measurable sign used to determine whether progress toward an objective or outcome is occurring.
Key Performance Indicator (KPI): A specific metric used to monitor progress toward an important organizational or project goal.
Mixed Methods: An approach combining qualitative and quantitative methods to develop a more comprehensive understanding of a research question or project.
Summative Evaluation: Evaluation conducted after or near the completion of a project to determine its effectiveness, outcomes, or overall results.
Performance Measure: A defined metric used to assess progress, outputs, outcomes, efficiency, quality, or effectiveness.
Process Evaluation: Evaluation examining how a project is implemented, including whether activities occur as planned and reach the intended population.
Program Evaluation: Systematic assessment of a program’s implementation, effectiveness, outcomes, and value.
Success Metric: A specific measure used to determine whether a project has achieved a desired result.
Ask: The specific amount of funding requested from a funder.
Case for Support: The overall argument explaining why a project deserves financial support and why a particular funder should invest in it.
Compelling Need: A clearly documented and persuasive problem, gap, opportunity, or condition that warrants intervention.
Funder Priorities: The issues, populations, geographic areas, approaches, or outcomes a funder currently emphasizes.
Grant Readiness: The degree to which an individual or organization has the capacity, documentation, project design, partnerships, infrastructure, and resources needed to pursue funding successfully.
Investment: A rhetorical framing of grant funding as a contribution expected to produce meaningful benefits, outcomes, or impact rather than simply as an expense.
Narrative Evidence: Stories, quotations, observations, case examples, or other qualitative material used to illustrate the human significance of a problem or project.
Proposal Strategy: The deliberate set of decisions governing which opportunities to pursue, how to position a project, what evidence to emphasize, and how to respond to a funder’s priorities.
Reviewer: An individual selected to evaluate a grant application according to a funder’s established criteria.
Reviewer Lens: The particular perspective, expectations, priorities, and criteria through which a proposal is likely to be interpreted and evaluated.
Return on Investment (ROI): The value or benefit expected to result from an investment relative to its cost; in grant writing, the concept can encompass social, educational, research, community, or organizational returns rather than financial profit.
Risk: A condition or event that could prevent a project from achieving its objectives or complying with its requirements.
Story of Change: A narrative explanation connecting a problem, intervention, participants, activities, outcomes, and broader significance.
Timeliness: The degree to which a proposed project responds to a current problem, opportunity, priority, policy environment, or moment.
Unfunded Proposal: A submitted application that does not receive an award.
Winning Proposal: An informal term for a proposal that successfully persuades a funder to provide financial support; successful proposals generally demonstrate strong fit, credible evidence, clear design, feasible implementation, and persuasive communication.