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A common understanding of grant data

There are approximately 24 federal agencies that manage grants ranging from health to disasters to education and many other issue areas. Each of these agencies may use one or more grant management systems. These systems use terms such as “grantor,” “grantee,” “award process,” “adjudication,” etc.; the definitions of these terms (and the terms themselves) may vary greatly between systems.

A team within the NIEM community, led by the NBAC co-chair Kamran Atri, is working to modernize grants management within a federal agency. They are identifying the common terms, standardizing them, and harmonizing/unifying the grants management systems. This is where NIEM comes.

To date, the team has reviewed over 34,000 grant-related data fields scattered across several government systems and narrowed the data fields down to approximately 3,200. This set has been further edited down and categorized into 114 of the most common data subjects. Of the 114 data subjects, some have been down-selected for consideration as common core for grant data.

The list of data definitions and the conceptual model on this page provide the data subjects that were reviewed with the aim of building initial consensus.

The team is ready to share their work to advance the grant reporting need as well as help other grant stakeholders work through a unified structure for building standardized data exchanges. If you are interested in joining a tiger team to work with stakeholders on creating a NIEM grant domain, please email Kamran Atri.

Data Definitions for Grants

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Entity Name Definition
ADDRESSES Addresses is the subject area collection of Address information for applicants, organizations and recipients. Address information is collected for physical location and mailing purposes.
ALLOCATIONS Allocation is a financial transaction in which funds for a grant program or a grant become available. Establishes amount of funds that can be obligated for a project.
AMENDMENTS The collection of information detailing post-award changes to be incorporated into a Grant or project.
APPEALS Appeals are the formal requests from the applicant or recipient /sub-recipient that have been made for Disaster and Project related determinations. Substantiation appeals may be related to expense, income, lease or rentals. Project appeals may be associated with funds or expense payments.
APPLICANTS Applicant is the non-Federal (Public Entity or Non-Profit), commercial organization or individual requesting mitigation or disaster assistance through one of the Federal grant programs.
APPLICATIONS Applications is the subject area collection of required information for requesting assistance. Pre-Applications, Grant Application, Subgrant Application are types of Application.
ASSURANCES Assurance is a listing of agreements to which applicants certify to maintain and uphold in writing before they are deemed eligible for grant funding.
AUDITS Audits are reviews that occur after an Award is approved and reviews the details of contracted work, compliance, financial and performance efforts.
AUTHORITIES The statutes, regulations and policy guidance used by federal agencies and States to establish processes for managing Disasters, Grants, Programs and Projects.
AWARD PACKAGE Stores the information provided to a grantee upon award of their grant, including: An award letter, Signed application and Agreement Articles.
AWARDS Awards is the phase of the Grant lifecycle consisting for determining and approving awards and notifying applicants of the award decision.
BUDGETS The process by which programs and projects create and manage approved funds and expenditures within a fiscal timeframe. Federal Cost Share is the percentage of total application budget costs that will be provided by agency funding.
CASE MANAGEMENT Case management is the activity used to manage applicant information, correspondence log, address book, projections and kickoff meeting notes.
CLOSEOUTS Closeouts is the phase of the Grants life-cycle containing a set of actions conducted to verify and conclude an awarded application, project or Grant’s activities and funding.
COMMITMENTS Commitments is the collection of Commitment information. Commitment is a financial agreement or pledge of assistance for funding.
COMMUNICATIONS Interactions between Grant Management and Customers or other Agencies for information provided by grant programs regarding disasters, emergencies and assistance efforts or responses from Customers or Providers.
CONTACTS Contacts is the collection of Contact information. Contact information identifies individual persons or departments as a designated first contact source to an agency, organization or stakeholder.
CONTRACTORS Contractors provide resources to programs and projects.
CUSTOMERS Information about people and organizations (survivor, business, whole community, state/local government, and Indian tribal) affected by disaster/incident, therefore receiving assistance from the providers or grantors.
DATA EXCHANGES Information sent to or received from internal and external partners by various program functions using the Internet or Network connections.
DISBURSEMENTS Disbursements are records of payments made to Sub-recipients by Recipients to reimburse them for work done on obligated projects. Financial Office makes disbursement payment to Recipient through Treasury.
ELECTRONIC MESSAGES Information (emails, faxes, notices) sent to an Individual or Organization by various program functions using the Internet.
ELIGIBILITY DETERMINATIONS Eligibility reviews and evaluations are required for applications and programs. Applications are scored against criteria defined by disaster and nondisaster grant programs.
FILES Files contain associated information for a particular grants specific document and attachments, import and export information, backups and archivals needed for sending, receiving and processing grants related information.
FUNDING OPPORTUNITY Funding Opportunities are the collection of Notice of Funding Opportunity announcement that applications for a federal grant may now be submitted.
FUNDS Fund is the approved/appropriated collection of monies to be used to support portfolio and program execution. Financial resources allocated to or for a specific task.
GEOGRAPHIC LOCATIONS Geographical Location is information about a designated physical geographic area within the business service, tribal or Non-US areas.
GEOSPATIAL LOCATIONS Geospatial location is a position of things relative to the Earth’s surface. Geospatial Locations subject area contains all Geospatial related entities and is based on capturing Latitude and Longnitude attribute usage.
GRANTS Grants are the primary funding mechanism for building and sustaining national preparedness capabilities, assistance for rebuilding or mitigation efforts and relief funds for disaster survivors. Each grant has specific eligibility criteria for applicants to meet.
INSPECTIONS Inspections may be required for Sub-recipient’s facilities or for Registrants’ real and personal property by assigned inspectors in order to receive certain types of assistance or confirm work completion and compliance.
INSURANCE INFORMATION Insurance Information is any insurance policy and/or coverage that may apply to an item for which a grant is requested. The registrant’s or applicant’s insurance policy for their vehicle(s), personal property, real property or site/facility.
OBLIGATIONS An obligation of funds is a financial transaction to disburse funds immediately or at a later date as a result of a series of actions. All of these actions must occur to obligate funds for the formula-based grant programs authorized by the Acts.
OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE Official Correspondence (Letters and Notifications) sent to an Individual or Organization by various program functions using the US Mail Service or the Internet.
PAYMENT REQUESTS Payment Request is a request for awarded funds and may include invoice details and specific line of accounting codes to apply charges or credits to. Information regarding requests for reimbursement of funds spent by Recipients and Sub-recipients on obligated projects.
PHONE CALLS Phone calls is the collection of Cellular and landline communications with individuals, organizations or other resources in support of assistance efforts.
PLANS Plans is a collection of Information specific to a project, program or Grant that details the goals, objectives and milestones.
POST-AWARDS Post Award is the phase of the Grant lifecycle consisting of executing grant and subgrant award documents, funding, and monitoring. This phase is the operational process of executing grant award documents and obligations and releasing funds for recipient use.
PROGRAMS Program is a grouping of predefined tasks and procedures managed in a coordinated way in response to a specified type of disaster or future hazard.
PROJECT COST ESTIMATES Cost estimate Information supporting the eligibility requirements of a project, program or grant.
PROJECTS Projects is the collection of information supporting project scoping, project setup, and project management.
PROPERTIES Properties (real or personal property) owned by an individual or organization that may be impacted or damaged by a disaster or require mitigation assistance.
RECIPIENTS Recipient/Awardee is the non-Federal (Public Entity, Private-Non-Profit, or Commercial organization or Individual) receiving mitigation or disaster assistance through a grant program.
REPORTS A collection of information required by programs and awards to be gathered on a periodic basis.
REQUESTS A request is submitted by a Recipient or Sub-recipient for changes to a Grant or Sub-grant, award, funds or disbursement.
RESOURCES Resources include the people, materials, knowledge, studies, technologies, and money required to develop plans or implement mitigation strategies.
REVIEWS Reviews are the activities that contain the review information provided by the various reviews at various grant lifecycle stages including Pre-Award, Award, Post-Award and Closeout.
SITES Site is one or more facilities that were damaged by a disaster or require mitigation in some way.
STATES Governmental entities and Tribes requesting and administering grants. Includes the 50 states identified by Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) codes along with their names and associations.
SUBGRANTS Subgrants is the collection of information supporting subawards. A Subaward is provided by the pass-through entity to a Sub-recipient to carry out part of the Federal award received by the pass-through entity.
SYSTEMS AND SERVICES Systems and services is the technology involving the development, maintenance, and use of computer systems, software, data stores, and networks for the processing and distribution of Grants data.
TECHNOLOGY Technology is the hardware infrastructure, software processes and delivery services used to support business activities and the supporting data for each business activity.

Conceptual Model

The conceptual model is currently too large to display on this page. View the conceptual model.

grant domain initial candidates

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