Geographic eligibility
Where an applicant must be located, or where the funded work must happen. These are two different tests, and a program can apply either or both — being based in a state is not the same as serving it.
Part of the GrantTrove grant funding glossary — one entry for every field the catalogue stores.
Also called Eligible states · Service area · Where you must be based
In detail
The distinction between applicant location and project location is the one that causes trouble. A national funder may accept applicants anywhere but fund work only in named counties; a state program may require the applicant to be registered in-state regardless of where the work lands.
Granularity varies from nationwide down to a list of counties or census tracts, and a program can be nationwide in principle while its scoring criteria strongly favour a region. Only the stated rule goes in the record.
Nationwide is itself a value worth storing rather than an absence of one. A program that explicitly says it funds nationally is making a claim; a program that says nothing about geography is not.
Against a funding level
Geography says where; funding level says who is paying. A federal program is usually nationwide but not always, and a state program is not automatically limited to its own state — some fund out-of-state applicants doing in-state work. The two are separate dimensions and are filtered separately, because collapsing them makes the nationwide federal case and the single-state case look identical.
How GrantTrove stores it
- States are stored in a relational dimension rather than as free text, so a filter is exact and a state named only in prose does not silently become a filter value.
- Where a program states no geographic restriction, the field reads Not stated rather than being recorded as nationwide, which would be a claim the source never made.
Common questions
Does "nationwide" mean every state?
It means the program said it funds nationally. Territories are frequently treated separately, and where a notice names them we keep that naming rather than folding them into a blanket value.
Do I have to be based where the work happens?
Sometimes. Applicant location and project location are separate requirements and a program may test either. Where a notice distinguishes them, the record keeps the distinction.
Why is a state program showing for my out-of-state search?
Because some state programs fund out-of-state applicants doing in-state work. Where that is what the notice says, filtering it out would hide a real opportunity.