Cash match

The portion of a match requirement that must be real money you spend, not donated goods or staff time. A program can require a match overall and still restrict how much of it may be met without cash.

Part of the GrantTrove grant funding glossary — one entry for every field the catalogue stores.

Also called Cash cost share · Hard match

In detail

Match requirements are usually stated as a single percentage, and the percentage is the least important part. What decides whether an organisation can accept an award is the split: a 25 percent match that may be met entirely in kind is an accounting exercise, and a 25 percent match that must be cash is a cheque you have to have.

Programs express the restriction in several ways — a cash floor within the match, a cap on in-kind, or a flat rule that volunteer time does not count. The wording matters more than the number, so we keep it.

Federal programs frequently distinguish the two and state the rule in the notice rather than in a field. That is exactly the kind of sentence that disappears when a listing service reduces a notice to a percentage.

Against an in-kind match

Cash leaves a bank account; in-kind is valued, not spent. The same 30 percent requirement is a different obligation depending on which is allowed, and a program that permits both may still cap the in-kind side. We store the requirement as a flag and keep the source’s own wording beside it, because the flag alone cannot carry a rule of this shape.

How GrantTrove stores it

  • Whether a match is required at all is a three-state field: yes, no, or the source did not say. It carries no default, because a default of no would tell you a match is not needed on a program that never addressed it.
  • The cash-versus-in-kind rule is kept verbatim in the match note rather than reduced to a percentage, since the percentage is not the part that disqualifies applicants.

Common questions

Does a match percentage tell me how much cash I need?

Not on its own. It tells you the size of the obligation, not its form. The note beside it is where the cash rule lives, and where a program is silent about the form, that silence is what the record shows.

Can other federal money count as my cash match?

Usually not, and programs say so explicitly when it matters. This is stated in the notice rather than in a structured field, which is why the wording is stored rather than summarised.

What does the record show when a program says nothing about a match?

The match field reads Not stated. It does not read no. A program that never mentioned a match has not told you there is none.