Open date

The date a program begins accepting applications. It matters most on forecasted programs, where a deadline is announced before the window exists, and on short cycles where opening and closing are only weeks apart.

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

Also called Opens · Applications open · Posting date

In detail

A deadline alone describes a program badly. A notice posted six months ahead with a two-week application window is a different planning problem from one open continuously for a year, and only the open date tells them apart.

Federal windows have been getting shorter, which raises the cost of finding out about a program late. Where the open date is published, it is often the more actionable of the two dates.

Forecasted programs are the case this field exists for: they frequently carry an expected deadline and no open date at all. The record shows the deadline and reads Not stated for the opening rather than inventing a window.

Against a deadline

A deadline is when the window shuts; the open date is when it exists at all. A program can be posted and not yet open, which is what a forecasted record usually is — and a planner that treats a forecast as an open program will schedule work against a date nobody has committed to. The two dates are stored separately and a missing open date is never back-filled from the deadline.

How GrantTrove stores it

  • Open date and deadline are separate columns, and the deadline type records whether a program is fixed, rolling, forecasted, or unknown.
  • A forecasted record with no open date says so in words rather than showing a date derived from anything else.

Common questions

Why is the open date so often missing?

Because forecasts are published before the window is set. The absence is real information about the program’s stage rather than a gap in the record.

Can I plan against a forecasted deadline?

You can plan, but not commit. A forecast is an intention, and the honest treatment is to mark any schedule built on one as resting on an assumption.

Does a rolling program have an open date?

Sometimes it has one and no deadline at all, which is the mirror image of a forecast and equally worth seeing.