Quiz — Chapter 26: Managing the Grant After You Win
Answer from memory, then check. These test the post-award world: the notice of award, setup, delivery, reporting, money management, compliance, and stewardship.
1. Which best captures the threshold concept of this chapter? a) Once the grant is won, the grant-seeking work is done. b) Stewardship of this grant is the strongest application for the next one. c) Grant management is purely clerical and separate from fundability. d) Reports are a formality funders rarely read.
Answer
(b). How you manage a funded award is the most persuasive evidence a funder has about whether to fund you again, and it builds the results and track record that anchor future proposals.
2. What is the notice of award, and how does it change your proposal?
Answer
The funder's official award document, specifying amount, period of performance, terms and conditions, and reporting/compliance requirements. It transforms your proposal from a persuasive argument into a binding contract of promises you must now deliver and report on. Read it carefully.
3. Why does the award date start the setup, not the work?
Answer
The work usually can't begin until setup is done — staff hired, required approvals (IRB/IACUC) secured, accounts established, subawards executed. Setup takes time (approvals alone can take weeks to months), so a project that starts setup late loses period-of-performance time it can't recover.
4. Why does delivering what you promised matter so directly for future funding?
Answer
Because a grantee who delivers builds a track record of trustworthiness — direct evidence, not promises — that becomes the most persuasive part of the next application, along with the concrete results and relationships the grant produces. Funders fund proven deliverers.
5. What are the three main report types?
Answer
Programmatic/progress reports (what you did and achieved vs. proposed objectives — the NIH's is the RPPR), financial reports (spending vs. approved budget categories), and final reports (what the whole grant accomplished, part of closeout).
6. Name three principles of reporting well.
Answer
Any three: report on time; report honestly (including challenges, not just successes); report specifically (concrete outcomes and evidence); and connect to the promises (progress against what you proposed). Your reports are, in effect, your next application.
7. What is prior approval, and what's the risk of skipping it?
Answer
The funder's advance written permission required before certain changes (significant rebudgeting, scope change, key-personnel change, timeline extension). Making such a change without it is a compliance violation — even if reasonable — that can lead to disallowed costs (repayment) or audit findings, and damages trust. When in doubt, ask before acting.
8. What is a no-cost extension, and when is it used?
Answer
An extension of time to finish the project without additional funds, used when you reach the end of the period with work remaining and unspent funds but no need for more money. It usually must be requested before the period ends and may require approval — a common, routine tool, not an admission of failure.
9. What is carryforward?
Answer
The process of moving unspent funds from one budget period into the next. Rules vary — sometimes automatic, sometimes requiring approval — so know whether your unspent funds carry forward freely or need permission.
10. Why does diligent compliance and record-keeping affect future funding?
Answer
Because it's the clearest evidence of whether the organization can be trusted with money. A funder is accountable for funds it distributes; clean records, consistent compliance, and a clean audit remove the funder's biggest risk (a grantee who mismanages or can't account for funds), making the organization demonstrably safe to fund again.
11. What is closeout, and why run it carefully?
Answer
The formal process of completing a grant — final reports, financial reconciliation, returning unspent funds, meeting final deliverable/records requirements. It's the funder's final, lasting impression and the gateway to the next award, so a clean, on-time closeout (vs. a sliding, disorganized one) shapes whether they fund you again.
12. Why should the knowledge that "the proposal becomes a contract" change how you write proposals?
Answer
Because everything you promise, you'll have to deliver. So you should write proposals you can actually fulfill — ambitious but achievable, honest budgets and outcomes. Over-promising to win sets up under-delivering on the contract, damaging the relationship; matching proposal to delivery is what earns renewals and a track record.
13. (Synthesis) Two organizations' projects went comparably well, but only one is invited to apply for a renewal. Give one stewardship reason.
Answer
Either reporting and communication (one reported on time, honestly, specifically, and communicated openly; the other was late, vague, or went dark), or compliance and money management (one spent within the rules, got prior approval, kept clean records, closed out tidily; the other had compliance problems or couldn't document spending). The funder funds the proven, trustworthy deliverer — stewardship, not just project success, is what's observed and rewarded.