The lifecycle of grants and cooperative agreements consists of four phases: Pre-Award, Award, Post-Award, and Close Out. NIFA’s Office of Grants and Financial Management provides support and guidance for award recipients during each of these phases.
Pre-Award
The Pre-Award phase begins with the announcement of funding opportunities for grants and involves the preparation, submission, and review of proposals to those announcements.
- Search — Search for grants and cooperative agreements
- Apply — Apply for a grant at Grants.gov
- Review — NIFA reviews your application
Award
The Award phase involves making funding decisions and notifying awardees of their selection for a grant.
- Response — Applicants are notified of the funding decision
- Processing — NIFA reviews, approves, and sends award documents to awardees
Post-Award
The Post-Award phase involves setting up accounts in the financial payment system and monitoring awardees for compliance with applicable laws, regulations, policies, and submission of required reports.
- Payments — Awardee sets up an account in the Automated Standard Application for Payments (ASAP) system to receive funding
- Monitoring — Awardee and NIFA each monitor grant activities to ensure compliance with specific program policies, regulations, and required reporting, including annual accomplishments reports
Close Out
The close-out phase of the grant lifecycle involves the submission, review, and approval of all final reports as required by specific program policies and regulations.
- Reporting — Awardee submits the final federal financial report and final technical report
- Review and Approval — NIFA reviews and approves final financial and technical reports for regulatory compliance and quality of final technical accomplishment descriptions
