Subaward
Money a first recipient passes on to another organisation to carry out part of the funded work. The original funder’s rules travel with it, which is why a state grant can carry federal obligations.
Part of the GrantTrove grant funding glossary — one entry for every field the catalogue stores.
Also called Pass-through funding · Subgrant · Subrecipient award
In detail
Pass-through is how most federal money reaches small organisations. A federal agency awards a state agency, and the state runs its own competition — so the opportunity a small applicant sees is a state notice funded by federal dollars and governed by federal rules.
The consequence people miss is compliance. Audit thresholds, procurement standards and reporting requirements normally follow the funds to the subrecipient, so an award that looks like a modest state grant can carry the obligations of a federal one.
The distinction between a subrecipient and a contractor is a real legal test rather than a labelling choice: a subrecipient carries out part of the program, a contractor sells goods or services into it, and only the first inherits the compliance obligations.
Against a direct award
A direct award comes from the funder that published the rules. A subaward comes from an intermediary, and the rules come from further upstream than the page you are reading. The application burden is set by the pass-through entity; the compliance burden is often set by the original funder. Our records carry the level of the publisher and keep the notice’s own disclosure of the funding origin.
How GrantTrove stores it
- The funding level records who published the opportunity, so a state notice is never silently presented as a federal one.
- Where a notice discloses that its funds are federal, that wording is kept rather than summarised away, because it is the clause that determines the compliance obligations.
Common questions
Am I a subrecipient or a contractor?
It depends on whether you carry out part of the program or sell into it. The distinction decides which compliance rules apply to you and it is determined by the substance of the work, not by what the agreement is called.
Do federal rules really apply to a state grant?
When the state money originated federally, they normally do. This is the single most common surprise in pass-through funding.
Does the catalogue mark pass-through programs?
It records the level of the publisher and keeps the notice’s own statement about the origin of the funds. It does not infer a pass-through from a program that did not disclose one.