Matching funds
Money the recipient must contribute alongside the award, expressed as a ratio or a percentage. A program requiring no match stores "No" rather than an empty field, because "no match required" and "the notice did not say" are different facts and only one of them is safe to plan around.
Part of the GrantTrove grant funding glossary — one entry for every field the catalogue stores.
Also called Cost share · Match requirement · In-kind match
In detail
"Cost share" and "match" are used interchangeably by most agencies, and where a portal distinguishes them it usually means cost share for the broader budget contribution and match for a specific dollar-for-dollar requirement. We store one field and keep the source’s own wording beside it.
A match can often be met in kind — staff time, donated space, volunteer hours valued at a published rate — and whether it can is a program-by-program rule that changes the requirement from impossible to routine. Where a notice states its in-kind rule, that wording is stored.
A match requirement is the field most likely to disqualify a small organisation after it has already written the application, which is why it is one of the fields we refuse to leave ambiguous.
Against an empty field
This is the clearest case for the three absence states. "No" means the source said no match is required. Not stated means the source was silent, and you must read the notice before budgeting. Not linked yet means the notice says something and we have not connected it — our gap, not theirs. A single blank cell would collapse all three into one guess.
How GrantTrove stores it
- The match field is stored as a tri-state — required, not required, or unstated — with no default. A default of "false" would print "no match needed" for every record we simply have not read.
- The matching wizard treats an unstated match as unknown rather than as satisfied, so a record never clears a filter on a field nobody confirmed.
Common questions
Is cost share the same as matching funds?
In everyday use, yes — most agencies use the two words for the same requirement. Where a specific notice draws a distinction, the record carries the notice’s own wording so you read it in the agency’s terms.
Does an empty match field mean no match is required?
No, and this is the most important thing on this page. Empty means the source did not state it. A program with no match requirement reads "No".
Can volunteer time count as a match?
For many federal and state programs, yes, at a published valuation rate. It is a per-program rule; the notice governs, and the record links to it.