Challenge grant
A grant paid only if the recipient raises a stated amount from other sources, usually at a stated ratio and by a stated date. It is a fundraising tool as much as a gift: the offer is what the recipient uses to raise the rest.
Part of the GrantTrove grant funding glossary — one entry for every field the catalogue stores.
Also called Matching challenge · Conditional grant
In detail
The money is conditional in a way an ordinary match is not. A cost-share requirement is a budget rule; a challenge is a trigger, and failing to meet it can mean receiving nothing at all.
Terms vary in ways that matter enormously — whether prior gifts count, whether pledges count, whether partial performance pays out proportionally — and those are in the award letter rather than in the announcement.
Against matching funds
A match is money you must contribute to a funded project. A challenge is money you must raise before the grant is paid at all. `match_required` records that a notice states a match requirement, with `match_note` holding the wording — and where the wording describes a challenge, that wording is what the record carries, because collapsing it into a boolean would lose the trigger.
How GrantTrove stores it
- `match_note` keeps the source sentence verbatim, which is the only way a challenge structure survives extraction intact.
- `match_required` is tri-state with no default, so a programme nobody has read does not print "no match needed".
Common questions
What if we only raise half?
It depends entirely on the terms. Some pay proportionally and some pay nothing.
Do pledges count?
Sometimes. The award letter is what governs.
Is it the same as a match?
No. A match is a budget rule; a challenge is a condition of payment.