Pass-through entity
An organisation that receives a federal award and passes part of it to others as subawards — most often a state agency, sometimes a university or a large nonprofit. To a subrecipient it is the funder in every practical sense, and it is the funder our record names.
Part of the GrantTrove grant funding glossary — one entry for every field the catalogue stores.
Also called Pass-through · PTE · Prime recipient
In detail
The pass-through carries real obligations: it must assess each subrecipient for risk, monitor them, and pass down the applicable federal requirements. Those duties are why a state subaward often has more conditions than the federal award behind it, not fewer.
For an applicant the important consequence is that the money’s origin and the money’s door are different. Federal rules apply to a state subaward funded by federal money even though the notice was published by the state.
Against the funder on a record
The funder we store is the entity that published the opportunity, because that is the entity you apply to and the entity whose page we verified. Where a state agency is passing federal money through, the record names the state agency. It does not name the federal agency behind it, and it does not merge the two — a merged funder would be a body that published nothing.
How GrantTrove stores it
- Every grant carries `funder_id` pointing at the publisher of the notice, and every funder record carries its own `source_url` and `last_verified_at`.
- We do not currently model the chain from a federal award to a state subaward. That is a gap, stated here rather than implied by an empty column.
Common questions
Do federal rules apply to a state subaward?
Where the money is federal, generally yes. The pass-through is required to pass the requirements down.
Which funder does a record name?
The one that published the notice. That is the one you apply to.
Can I see the federal source of a state grant?
Not from the record. We do not model the funding chain, and we say so rather than guessing at it.