Speaker 1: Let's start our overview of the grant process by looking at the term grant. A grant is a form of financial assistance that supports a public purpose. A grant must be in the form of money or property in lieu of money. The term grant can be used to describe both grants and other types of agreements, such as cooperative agreements. Grants are made by the federal government to an eligible recipient. Perhaps the grant terminology will make more sense when we look at what a grant is not. A grant is not technical assistance, which is a service and doesn't contain a financial assistance component. A grant is not a loan, loan guarantee, subsidy, or form of insurance. For the purposes of the federal grants management regulations, a grant would not include direct payments to individuals. This may be confusing as the term grant is also commonly used to describe individual grants, such as Pell grants to students. Finally, a grant is not a contract administered under procurement laws and regulations. The grant cycle starts each year with the U.S. Congress passing laws which make federal funds for grants and other types of spending available once the federal budget is approved. The budget process enables federal grants to become available in three primary steps. First, the Congress appropriates budget funds. Next, the agencies obtain the budget and review their needs. And finally, the agencies solicit and award funding to accomplish their projects through federal grants and other types of agreements. Now let's overview the life cycle of a grant. Once federal funds become available, the agency will post the grant information on sites such as Grants.gov. As grant applications are received, they are evaluated in some of the following ways. The grant application is screened to verify completion. The applicant may go through various reviews to test for technical merit, business controls, and other potential issues such as conflicts of interest. And the cost proposal will be reviewed and verified. When a grant proposal has been funded, the grant recipient will receive a notice of the grant award. The notice will alert the grantee that an award has been made and that funds may be available. The notice will also contain such items as the terms and conditions of the award, an account number for the grant, the period of performance to accomplish the work, and the dollar amount of the award. The grant will also require regular financial status reports, or FSRs, to report expenditures. Significant variances to the original agreement must be reported and explained. Now let's look at some of the things that happen during the life cycle of the grant. Progress reports and other types of required reporting need to be managed through the life of the program. Sometimes a grant recipient may need to extend the time period of the grant from one time period to the next. This may be done through a request for carryover or an application for continuation. Finally, closeout is the term used to describe the completion of the funding process. Extensions may be requested for cost, which includes additional funds, or no cost, which involves a time extension without additional funds. Extensions generally require agency approval. A supplemental application may be used when additional funds are requested for the purpose of expanding scope on a new or competitive award, or administrative increases for increased costs or scope. So the grant life cycle can be summed up as a process that includes the application process, simplification of funding to the award recipient, a period of performance to manage the grant, which may include extensions and other exceptions to the original grant, and finally, the grant closeout. The life cycle requires quality real-time documentation and reporting to effectively manage federal funds.