Advance
A disbursement method where funds are paid to the recipient before the spending happens. Some programs mix advances and reimbursements across phases, and a record stores the arrangement the notice describes rather than the simpler of the two labels.
Part of the GrantTrove grant funding glossary — one entry for every field the catalogue stores.
Also called Advance payment · Up-front disbursement
In detail
Advances are more common in foundation grants than in government ones, and more common in capacity-building and general operating support than in capital projects.
An advance usually carries reporting obligations that a reimbursement does not — periodic spend-down reports, or a requirement to return unspent funds — and those obligations are part of what the award actually costs to administer.
Against reimbursement
The pair is the whole point. Two awards of identical size, one advance and one reimbursement, place completely different demands on an organisation’s balance sheet. Because the difference is invisible in the amount, the disbursement method is stored as its own field and shown on the record rather than left inside a description.
How GrantTrove stores it
- Advance and reimbursement are values of one stored field, so a search for awards an organisation can actually pre-finance is a filter rather than a reading exercise.
Common questions
Is an advance better than a reimbursement?
For cash flow, almost always. For reporting burden, not necessarily. The award size does not change either way.
What happens to unspent advance funds?
Most programs require them back. The specific rule is in the notice, which the record links to.
Do foundations advance funds more often?
In general practice, yes — but we do not publish a rate we have not measured across our own corpus. Each record states its own method or reads Not stated.