Program officer
The person at a funder who manages a portfolio of grants and can tell you, before you write anything, whether your project is in scope. On a foundation programme that conversation is worth more than any amount of research.
Part of the GrantTrove grant funding glossary — one entry for every field the catalogue stores.
Also called Programme officer · Grant officer · Program manager
In detail
Federal programme officers are named in notices and expect technical questions; foundation programme officers are frequently not named at all, and a general enquiry address is the only route.
What they can tell you that no database can is whether a programme’s stated priorities match this year’s intent, which drifts between cycles without the published text changing.
Against the contact information we hold
We hold funder records with a `website` and a `source_url`, and no personal contact details. That is a deliberate boundary: contact data ages fast, and publishing a stale name attached to a programme is a way of sending people to someone who left. The funder’s own page is the current answer.
How GrantTrove stores it
- Funder records link the funder’s own site through `website`, and the record’s `source_url` links the page a field came from.
- `last_verified_at` on a funder says when we last confirmed those links resolved, so a dead link is a dated fact rather than a surprise.
Common questions
Do you list programme officer contacts?
No. That data ages quickly and a stale name sends people to someone who has left.
Should I call before applying?
For foundation programmes, usually yes. For federal ones, ask technical questions rather than seeking an edge.
Where do I find them?
On the funder’s own page, which the record links.