Total project cost
Everything a funded project will cost, from every source, including the award and whatever the recipient contributes. It is a property of an application rather than of an opportunity, and no amount field on an opportunity record is one.
Part of the GrantTrove grant funding glossary — one entry for every field the catalogue stores.
Also called Total budget · Project budget
In detail
The figure matters because most cost-share rules are expressed against it rather than against the award. A 25 percent cost share on a project whose total is $400,000 is $100,000; the same rule read against a $300,000 award is $75,000. The difference is real money and it is decided entirely by which denominator the notice named.
Some programmes cap total project cost as well as the award, which quietly caps the size of project the programme is willing to be part of. That cap lives in prose in the notice, not in a structured field on any portal we read.
Against the award ceiling
A ceiling limits what the funder gives. A total project cost is what the work costs. On a matched programme the second is always larger than the first, and reading `amount_max` as a project budget will understate what you have to raise by exactly the cost-share amount. We store `amount_max` and never compute a project total from it.
How GrantTrove stores it
- The money columns are `amount_min`, `amount_max`, `amount_typical` and `amount_total_pool`. None of them is a project budget, and none is derived from another.
- Where a notice caps total project cost, that sentence is kept in `amount_note` rather than turned into a fifth number we would then be asserting.
Common questions
Do you calculate a total project cost for me?
No. It depends on your budget, which we do not have. The award size checker will compare a budget you enter against the ceilings we hold, which is the nearest honest thing.
Is the award ceiling ever the total project cost?
Only on an unmatched programme where you spend exactly the award. On anything with a cost share the two differ by definition.
Why is there no total-cost field?
Because an opportunity has no total project cost. Only an application does, and we hold opportunities.