How to Read a Call for Proposals

A call for proposals is not a description of what a donor wants. It is a contract of constraints — a document that tells you, if you read it closely, exactly what you must be, what you may spend, what you must prove, and what will disqualify you. Almost all of it is decided before the narrative is written.

This guide works through a call in the order a call should actually be read — which is not front to back. It ends with a fifteen-question quiz you can use to check whether your team reads calls the same way.

Read in this order

Eligibility → budget rules → award criteria → scope → everything else. If you fail eligibility, nothing else matters. If the budget rules make the project unfundable, nothing else matters. If the scoring grid does not reward what you are good at, nothing else matters.

Most teams read front to back, which means they read the inspiring context paragraphs first and the disqualifying rules last — often after they have already started writing.

Module 01

What a call actually is#

The same thing has eight names, and the name tells you how the money moves.

The humanitarian and development sector uses a confusing number of terms for what appear to be similar documents. They are not interchangeable. The term tells you who may apply, how competitive the process is, and how much of the design is already fixed.

Term	Used by	What it means in practice
Call for Proposals (CFP)	EU, foundations, most donors	Open competition against published guidelines. Usually scored against a grid.
NOFO — Notice of Funding Opportunity	U.S. federal agencies	The controlling document for a U.S. federal award. Published on Grants.gov. Everything in it is binding.
APS — Annual Program Statement	U.S. federal agencies	A standing invitation over a longer window, often with rolling or multiple closing dates.
RFA / RFP	Various	Request for Applications (grant, assistance relationship) vs Request for Proposals (usually procurement, contract relationship). The distinction matters — a contract has deliverables and a supplier relationship, a grant has an award relationship.
CFEI — Call for Expression of Interest	UN agencies, via the UN Partner Portal	A shortlisting step. You submit a concept note; selected partners are then taken forward into agreement negotiation.
EOI — Expression of Interest	UNHCR, QFFD, foundations	A light first step. Often no budget required at this stage.
Allocation paper / strategy	OCHA Country-Based Pooled Funds	Sets the priorities, sectors, locations and envelope for a specific allocation round in one country.
HIP — Humanitarian Implementation Plan	DG ECHO	Not a call in the open sense. It sets operational priorities per crisis; only organizations with a Framework Partnership Agreement can respond.

Solicited and unsolicited#

Some of the largest funds in the sector do not accept unsolicited applications at all. Education Cannot Wait is explicit about this: proposals for its Multi-Year Resilience Programme window are coordinated at country level and the decision on which organizations receive funds is made in-country by a designated coordinating entity. The Global Fund works the same way — funding requests are built by the Country Coordinating Mechanism, not submitted by individual organizations.

For these mechanisms, the useful work is not proposal writing. It is being in the room where the consortium is assembled, months earlier.

What this changes

Before you read any further into a document, establish which of these you are holding. A team that spends three weeks preparing an unsolicited concept note for a fund that does not accept them has not made a small mistake.

Module 02

The documents in the package#

The guidelines are rarely where the disqualifying detail lives.

A call is almost never one file. A typical EU package contains the guidelines for applicants, a concept note template, a full application form, a budget workbook, a logical framework template, a declaration by the applicant, and a checklist. The rules are distributed across all of them, and they are not always consistent with each other.

What each document is for#

Guidelines for applicants

The controlling narrative document. Contains eligibility, scope, the scoring grid, the timetable and the submission rules. Read this twice.

Technical annex

Where the specificity lives. In DG ECHO's HIPs, the technical annex defines the operational priorities, the eligible countries and the funding envelope in a level of detail the HIP narrative does not. In EU calls, the annexes often carry the lot descriptions and the country ceilings.

Budget template

Not a formatting convenience. The line structure of the budget workbook is the donor's cost eligibility rule expressed as a spreadsheet. If a cost has no line, that is usually a decision, not an oversight.

Logframe or results framework template

Frequently contains a pre-populated list of the donor's own indicators. Where it does, using them is not optional in spirit even if it is in letter — see Module 7.

Declarations and annexes

Signed statements on exclusion criteria, conflict of interest, safeguarding, counter-terrorism and data protection. Administratively fatal if missing, and they often require a signature from a legal representative who is not in the office the week the deadline falls.

FAQ addenda and clarifications

Published after the call opens, usually as a separate file or web page, in response to applicant questions. They are binding and they routinely change requirements.

The clarification trap

Set a calendar reminder to re-check the call page in the final week. Teams download the package on day one, work from it for six weeks, and never see the clarification note that changed the page limit or extended the annex list. This is one of the most common avoidable failures in the sector.

Build a requirements register, not a reading list#

Before drafting, extract every requirement across every document into a single register with four columns: the requirement, the document and page it came from, who owns it, and whether it is done. Anything a reviewer could check should be a row.

This sounds bureaucratic. It takes about ninety minutes and it is the difference between an administrative rejection and a scored proposal.

Module 03

Eligibility: the first filter#

Eligibility is binary and it is checked before anything is read.

In most donor processes, an administrative and eligibility check happens before technical review. A proposal that fails it is never scored. The person who checks it is not looking for merit — they are working through a list.

The five eligibility axes#

1. Who you are

Legal status, place of registration, non-profit status, minimum years of existence, and audited accounts. Some calls require registration in a specific country or region; some require a minimum annual turnover as a proxy for absorption capacity.

2. Where you work

Eligible countries are usually listed explicitly and are usually narrower than the sector you work in. A regional call may exclude the one country where you have the strongest presence.

3. What you do

Eligible actions and, critically, ineligible actions. The ineligible list is consistently more informative than the eligible one — it tells you what has gone wrong before.

4. Who you apply with

The distinction between a lead applicant, a co-applicant and an affiliated entity is a legal one with different eligibility and different registration obligations. In EU calls, the lead applicant must register in PADOR at the concept note stage, while co-applicants and affiliated entities must be registered by the full application stage.

5. Exclusion criteria

Bankruptcy, unpaid taxes, grave professional misconduct, fraud, terrorist financing, sanctions listing. Signed as a declaration, verified later. Sanctions screening of partners and suppliers is increasingly a live obligation rather than a formality.

Prerequisites that are not in the eligibility section#

The hardest eligibility barriers in this sector are structural relationships, not statements. They cannot be acquired inside a deadline window.

Prerequisite	Donor	Realistic lead time
Framework Partnership Agreement	DG ECHO	Months. A separate project entirely.
Due diligence + capacity assessment	OCHA Country-Based Pooled Funds	Weeks to months, before any allocation opens
UN Partner Portal profile	All UN agencies	Days to weeks, and must be kept current
SAM.gov entity registration and UEI	U.S. federal (Grants.gov)	Commonly quoted at 2–6 weeks; first-time registrants should allow longer
PADOR registration	EU / international partnerships	Days, but required at a specific stage
CCM representation	The Global Fund	A cycle, not a deadline

The single highest-value habit

Treat registrations as standing infrastructure, maintained continuously, not as tasks triggered by a call. Organizations that keep every profile current can respond to a three-week CFEI. Organizations that start registering when a call appears cannot, and the gap is invisible until the moment it costs them.

Pooled funds: eligibility has a grade#

OCHA's Country-Based Pooled Funds do not treat eligibility as a yes/no. Each fund carries out a due diligence review and a capacity assessment of prospective NGO partners, and the Humanitarian Financing Unit assigns a risk level — high, medium, low, or ineligible. The principle is straightforward: the higher the risk, the more stringent the assurance mechanisms that apply. Low-risk partners are subject to fewer controls, and typically to higher grant ceilings.

Your risk rating is a financial-systems outcome, not a fundraising outcome. It is set by how well you can evidence what you already did.

Module 04

Reading the scope#

What the donor will fund, and what the numbers quietly tell you.

The scope section reads like context. It is actually a set of boundaries, and several of them are expressed as numbers rather than sentences.

Read the numbers as design instructions#

The grant size band

A band of, say, €200,000–500,000 is not just a budget ceiling. Divided by the expected duration and the stated target caseload, it tells you the cost-per-beneficiary the donor considers reasonable. If your model costs three times that, you are not going to win on narrative quality.

The indicative number of grants

Envelope divided by expected number of awards gives you the average award the donor is planning for. Proposing at the very top of the band when the envelope implies eight awards at the midpoint is a choice you should make deliberately, not accidentally.

The duration limits

Minimum and maximum duration constrain what results are honestly achievable. A twelve-month ceiling makes outcome-level change claims difficult to defend, and reviewers know it.

The co-financing requirement

If the donor funds a maximum percentage of eligible costs, the remainder is a hard prerequisite, not an aspiration. Education Above All, for example, operates a co-funding model in which partners carry 50% of project costs, with the possibility of a further share raised in co-financing. That single line decides whether the rest of the document is relevant to your organization.

The priorities paragraph is a scoring instrument#

Where a donor lists thematic priorities, those words tend to reappear in the scoring grid. DG ECHO's 2026 priorities, for instance, centre on the humanitarian consequences of conflict and violence, forced displacement, and the food and nutrition crisis — delivered as emergency multi-sector assistance including food, protection, health, nutrition, education in emergencies, WASH and shelter.

A proposal that uses the donor's own framing is easier to score, because the reviewer is looking for those concepts and finds them without effort. This is not keyword stuffing; it is removing translation work from the person assessing you.

Cross-cutting requirements hide here

Gender, disability inclusion, protection mainstreaming, environmental impact, localization and accountability to affected populations are usually introduced in the scope section as expectations, then scored somewhere else. Note every one of them and check where it is assessed. DG ECHO, for example, applies a fair-partnership expectation which means proposals involving national partners need to demonstrate genuine risk and cost sharing rather than sub-contracting.

Module 05

Award criteria and scoring#

The grid is the marking scheme. Write to the weights.

Most competitive calls publish an evaluation grid with weighted criteria. It is the single most underused document in the package. It tells you, in numbers, how much each part of your proposal is worth — and teams routinely spend equal effort on a section worth 5 points and one worth 25.

A typical grid#

Criterion	Typical weight	What it is actually testing
Relevance	20–30	Needs evidence, alignment with donor priorities, targeting logic
Design / methodology	25–40	Whether the activities plausibly produce the results, and whether the logframe holds together
Capacity / experience	10–20	Track record, staffing, systems, financial management
Sustainability / exit	10–15	What survives after the grant, and handover logic
Budget / value for money	10–20	Cost realism, cost per beneficiary, ratio of support to program costs

Three mechanics that decide outcomes#

Sub-scores and knockout thresholds

Many grids apply a minimum on a sub-criterion or a total. A proposal can score highly overall and be eliminated for falling below a threshold on one section. Find these before you allocate writing effort.

Two-stage processes change what you write

Under the EU's restricted procedure, applicants submit a concept note first; only those pre-selected are invited to submit a full application using the grant application form annexed to the guidelines. At concept note stage, lead applicants provide only an estimate of the requested EU contribution and an indicative percentage of eligible costs — not a full budget.

Writing a detailed budget at concept note stage is wasted effort. Writing a vague methodology is fatal, because that is what is actually scored.

The evaluator is a person with a workload

Reviewers assess many proposals against the same grid, often under time pressure. Structuring your narrative with headings that mirror the grid's criteria, in the grid's order, is not a stylistic choice. It means the reviewer finds each answer where they expect it, which materially affects scores.

Practical technique

Before drafting, build a two-column table: every scoring criterion on the left, and on the right the specific evidence you will use to satisfy it. Any criterion with an empty right-hand cell is either a gap to close or a reason to reconsider applying. Do this at go/no-go stage and it doubles as your bid decision.

Module 06

The budget rules#

Where most avoidable damage is done, usually silently.

Budget rules are read last and cause the most trouble. They determine not only what you can charge but whether the project is viable for your organization at all.

Direct and indirect costs#

Direct costs are attributable to the action. Indirect costs — head office, senior management, audit, legal, finance, institutional systems — are recovered through a rate, and that rate is almost always capped.

Donor	Indirect cost treatment
DG ECHO	Flat rate of 7% of direct eligible costs
UN-managed pooled funds	Programme support costs, commonly capped at 7%
U.S. federal awards	A negotiated indirect cost rate agreement, or the de minimis rate where applicable

A 7% ceiling is a hard constraint on organizational overhead recovery, and it is already carrying functions that cannot be cut. Anything additional you place inside it competes with audit and finance.

Where institutional systems belong#

Most organizations bury software and systems costs in the indirect rate by default. Where the system is directly attributable to delivering the action, most donors permit direct charging — provided you apply a defensible allocation method, consistently. Three that hold up:

Share of beneficiaries reached under the grant, against total beneficiaries across the portfolio
Share of budget, where the system supports the organization proportionally
FTE of staff charged to the grant who actually use the system

Document the method in the budget narrative before the audit rather than during it, and apply the same key across every grant. Inconsistency between grants is questioned far more often than the method itself.

The rules that catch people out#

Ineligible cost lists — commonly exclude debts, provisions for losses, currency losses, costs incurred before the eligibility start date, and purchases of land or buildings.
Retroactivity — costs incurred before the contractual start date are almost always ineligible, even if the work was essential.
Procurement thresholds — donors impose their own thresholds and require competitive tendering above them. The EU's Practical Guide to Contract Procedures for EU External Actions (PRAG) is the reference document for EU-funded procurement, with chapter 6 covering grants.
Exchange rate rules — which rate applies, on which date, and who carries the loss. On a multi-year grant in a volatile currency this is not a technicality.
Asset rules — what happens to vehicles and equipment at the end of the action.
Audit requirements — an expenditure verification may be required above a threshold. It is an eligible cost, and it must be budgeted.

The most expensive line in any budget

The salary allocation of staff who work across several grants. Get the methodology right once, document it, apply it identically everywhere, and keep timesheets that support it. Almost every serious audit finding in this sector traces back to shared staff costs allocated in a way nobody wrote down at the time.

Module 07

Logframe and indicators#

The part of the proposal you will live with for three years.

The logframe is written in a week and reported against for the life of the grant. Every indicator you commit to is a data collection obligation, and every disaggregation is a data structure decision.

Use the donor's indicators where they exist#

Where a call provides a standard indicator list, use it. Donors aggregate across their portfolio, and a custom indicator that measures the same thing in a slightly different way cannot be aggregated. It makes your results invisible in the donor's own reporting, which is not a good position to be in at renewal.

Add custom indicators for what the standard set does not capture — but as additions, not replacements.

Means of verification are a commitment#

The means of verification column is the one most often filled in casually and the one an auditor reads most carefully. If you write "distribution lists and post-distribution monitoring reports", you have committed to producing, storing and retrieving both, for every reporting period, for the life of the grant and its retention period afterwards.

Disaggregation is a system requirement#

Sex and age disaggregation is now near-universal. Disability disaggregation increasingly uses the Washington Group Short Set — six questions on functional difficulty covering seeing, hearing, walking or climbing steps, remembering or concentrating, self-care and communication, each with four response options ranging from no difficulty to cannot do at all. The internationally comparable threshold is "a lot of difficulty" or "cannot do at all" in at least one domain.

The most common way this data is destroyed

Collecting the six graded responses and then storing them as a single yes/no disability flag at intake. The threshold can never be recalculated, the data is no longer comparable to anyone else's, and the decision is irreversible.

Two related failures: asking the set once about a whole household, when it is designed to be answered per individual; and collecting it in the assessment tool without carrying it into the beneficiary registry, so the analysis and the record never meet again.

Baselines, targets and assumptions#

A baseline of "to be determined" is acceptable in some calls and scored down in others — check. Targets should be defensible arithmetic, not round numbers: reviewers who work in the sector can tell the difference between a caseload calculation and a number chosen because it looked ambitious.

The assumptions column is where you record what must remain true. It is also your protection: a risk recorded at proposal stage is a shared understanding, while the same risk raised at reporting stage is an excuse.

Module 08

Compliance annexes#

Policies you must already have, not policies you can promise.

Compliance requirements are typically expressed as a requirement to have a policy, attach it, and confirm it is implemented. A policy written the week of the deadline is usually detectable and, in a due diligence review, verifiable against practice.

What is commonly required#

Safeguarding and PSEA — a policy, a reporting mechanism, staff training records, and often a named focal point. Frequently a hard eligibility requirement rather than a scored item.
Child protection — where the action involves children, usually including recruitment vetting procedures.
Counter-terrorism and sanctions screening — screening of staff, partners, suppliers and in some contexts beneficiaries, against designated lists.
Anti-fraud and whistleblowing — a policy and a confidential reporting channel.
Data protection — increasingly explicit for beneficiary personal data, covering lawful basis, retention, access control and cross-border transfer.
Environmental and do-no-harm screening — a growing requirement, sometimes a scored criterion.

Quality standards#

Many calls require a commitment to recognized standards. The Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability sets out nine commitments describing what people and communities in crisis can expect from those who support them. It was revised in 2024 following global consultation with more than 4,000 people across 90 countries, producing a more people-centred structure and clearer language. The Sphere Handbook provides minimum technical standards in WASH, food security and nutrition, shelter and health.

Data protection is becoming a scored item

Beneficiary personal data is not customer data — the consequences of exposure are not commercial. Donors increasingly ask where data is hosted, who can access it, whether access is logged, and what happens at the end of the retention period. "It is in a shared drive" is an answer that now costs points, and in some due diligence processes costs eligibility.

Module 09

Submission mechanics#

Where good proposals die for reasons that have nothing to do with quality.

Every major donor now submits through a portal, and each portal has its own registration path, its own failure modes, and its own definition of "submitted".

Portal	Donor	Note
APPEL / eSingle Form	DG ECHO	The Single Form is Annex 1 to the Model Grant Agreement and comprises 13 chapters. It is only accessible through APPEL, for which an EU login account is needed first.
PROSPECT / Funding & Tenders Portal	EU	Requires a PIC. PADOR registration required at defined stages.
OneGMS	OCHA pooled funds	Submission follows due diligence and capacity assessment, not the other way round.
Grants.gov	U.S. federal	Requires an active SAM.gov registration and a UEI.
UN Partner Portal	UN agencies	Profile must be complete before you can apply to a CFEI.
Grantelope	Gavi	Used for CSO funding calls, which are country-specific.
Fluxx	Grand Challenges Canada	Stage-based intakes; closed windows do not reopen.

The five mechanical failures#

Registration lead time. SAM.gov registration is commonly quoted at two to six weeks, and longer for first-time registrants or where entity validation fails. Begin well before you intend to apply.
Time zone. A deadline of 16:00 is 16:00 in the donor's stated zone, and portals close automatically. Convert it, write it down, and treat the real deadline as 24 hours earlier.
File constraints. Format, maximum size, naming conventions, and whether scanned signatures are accepted. Portals reject silently more often than they warn.
Page and character limits. Check what counts — some limits include annexes and references, some exclude them. Over-length sections are sometimes truncated rather than rejected, which is worse, because the reviewer scores what remains.
Authorized signatory. Portals often require submission by a registered legal representative. If that person is travelling on the deadline, you have a problem that cannot be solved by working harder.

Submit early, deliberately

Most portals allow resubmission until the deadline, with the last valid submission counting. Upload a complete draft two days early. It converts every remaining mechanical risk into a manageable one, and it is free.

Module 10

Why proposals get rejected#

Most rejections happen before anyone assesses the idea.

Rejections fall into three groups, and they are not equally common.

1. Administrative — never scored#

A missing required form, an unsigned declaration, an outdated template version, a missing registration, a file in the wrong format, an exceeded character limit, a late submission. These are the most common rejections and the only category that is entirely within your control.

2. Eligibility — checked, not judged#

Wrong country, wrong applicant type, insufficient operating history, ineligible action, missing prerequisite relationship, consortium composition that does not meet the rules.

3. Technical — actually scored#

Weak needs evidence. A results chain that does not connect activities to outcomes. Targets that are not arithmetically supported. A budget that does not match the narrative. No credible sustainability logic. Capacity that does not evidently match the scale proposed.

The first two categories are administration. The third is craft. Teams routinely invest in the third while losing to the first.

Ask for the feedback

Many donors provide scores or an evaluation summary on request, and some provide it automatically. Ask every time. Two or three of these will tell you more about how you are read than any amount of internal review, and the request itself costs one email.

Module 11

The go/no-go decision#

Deciding not to apply is a skill, and it is undervalued.

A full proposal consumes senior program, finance and MEAL time — often several weeks of it, drawn from people with delivery responsibilities. Applying for everything is not ambition. It is an unpriced transfer of capacity away from current grants.

A ten-question go/no-go#

Are we eligible on every stated criterion, with evidence?
Do we hold every prerequisite relationship and registration today?
Can we satisfy every scoring criterion with real evidence, not intention?
Is our cost model within the implied cost-per-beneficiary of the band?
Can we meet any co-financing requirement from committed funds?
Do we have the delivery capacity if we win, without damaging current grants?
Can we collect and report every indicator we would commit to?
Do we hold every required policy already, implemented and evidenced?
Is the person who must sign available before the deadline?
If we win, is this grant strategically ours — or does it pull us somewhere we did not choose?

Two or more clear "no" answers is usually a no-bid. Write the decision down with the reasons. It stops the same discussion recurring, and it builds an institutional record of what you declined and why, which is far more useful at strategy time than a list of what you won.

The strongest position

Organizations that decline well apply to fewer calls, prepare each one properly, and win a higher proportion. Organizations that apply to everything produce weaker proposals across the board and exhaust the exact staff they would need if they won.

Module 12

Donor reference#

Worked notes on the mechanisms most humanitarian organizations meet.

DG ECHO#

Priorities are set through Humanitarian Implementation Plans with technical annexes. Only holders of a Framework Partnership Agreement can respond. Proposals are made on the Single Form, which is Annex 1 to the Model Grant Agreement and comprises 13 chapters, submitted through the APPEL system. Indirect costs are a 7% flat rate. As of January 2026 the contractual templates in use are MGA_2025 and HACA_2025.

European Union (international partnerships)#

Calls published on the Funding & Tenders Portal, frequently as a restricted two-stage procedure: concept note first, full application for pre-selected applicants. The lead applicant registers in PADOR at concept note stage; co-applicants and affiliated entities by full application stage. At concept note stage only an estimate of the requested EU contribution and an indicative percentage of eligible costs are required. The PRAG is the reference manual, with chapter 6 covering grants. Country-level calls are frequently published by EU Delegations rather than centrally.

OCHA Country-Based Pooled Funds#

Standard allocations follow a published allocation strategy; reserve allocations respond to sudden onset needs. Eligibility requires due diligence and a capacity assessment, after which the Humanitarian Financing Unit assigns a risk level of high, medium, low or ineligible. Higher risk means more stringent assurance mechanisms. Submission is through OneGMS. Grant ceilings are set per country by risk level and duration in that fund's Operational Manual — read it before designing a budget.

U.S. federal awards#

Opportunities are published on Grants.gov as NOFOs, APSs and RFAs. An active SAM.gov registration and a UEI are prerequisites, commonly taking two to six weeks and longer for first-time registrants. Note that the architecture changed substantially in 2025–26: USAID was dissolved and humanitarian functions consolidated into the State Department's Bureau of Disaster and Humanitarian Response. Verify against the current NOFO rather than prior-year guidance.

UN agencies#

Partnerships are advertised as Calls for Expression of Interest on the UN Partner Portal. A complete organizational profile is a prerequisite for applying, and deadlines are frequently two to four weeks — short enough that only pre-registered organizations can realistically respond. Non-formal coalitions may apply, but every member must be separately registered.

Mechanisms with no open application#

Education Cannot Wait accepts no unsolicited applications; decisions are made at country level through a coordinating entity. The Global Fund's requests are developed by Country Coordinating Mechanisms, which are required to run transparent and documented processes engaging members and non-members. Green Climate Fund Readiness support is submitted by the National Designated Authority, not by organizations directly. For all three, engagement happens in the country process, long before anything resembling a call appears.

Reference

Glossary#

Affiliated entity: An organization with a structural link to an applicant, with its own eligibility and registration obligations distinct from a co-applicant.
APS — Annual Program Statement: A U.S. federal standing invitation over an extended window, often with multiple closing dates.
CCM — Country Coordinating Mechanism: The national multi-stakeholder body that develops Global Fund requests and oversees implementation.
CFEI — Call for Expression of Interest: The UN mechanism through which agencies identify implementing partners, published on the UN Partner Portal.
Co-financing: The share of eligible costs an applicant must fund from other sources. A prerequisite, not an aspiration.
Concept note: A short first-stage submission in a two-stage process, assessed before a full application is invited.
Due diligence: A donor's verification of an organization's legal, financial and governance standing before it can receive funds.
Expenditure verification: An independent check of reported costs against the grant's eligibility rules, often required above a value threshold and itself an eligible cost.
FPA — Framework Partnership Agreement: The standing agreement required before an organization can receive DG ECHO humanitarian funding.
HIP — Humanitarian Implementation Plan: DG ECHO's document setting operational priorities for a crisis or region, with a technical annex carrying the detail.
Indirect costs: Costs not attributable to a single action — head office, audit, legal, finance, institutional systems — recovered through a capped rate.
Logframe: The logical framework: the matrix linking activities to outputs, outcomes and impact, with indicators, means of verification and assumptions.
Means of verification: The evidence source for each indicator. A commitment to produce, store and retrieve that evidence for the life of the grant.
NOFO — Notice of Funding Opportunity: The controlling document for a U.S. federal award, published on Grants.gov.
PADOR: The EU's online registration system for organizations applying to external action calls.
PIC — Participant Identification Code: The identifier required to submit through the EU Funding & Tenders Portal.
PRAG: Rules governing procurement and grant award procedures under EU external action instruments. Chapter 6 covers grants.
PSEA: Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse. Usually requires a policy, a reporting mechanism, training records and a focal point.
PSC — Programme Support Costs: The indirect cost recovery term used by UN-managed funds, commonly capped at 7%.
Reserve allocation: A rapid pooled-fund allocation responding to sudden onset or deteriorating needs, distinct from a planned standard allocation.
Single Form: DG ECHO's proposal and reporting document, Annex 1 to the Model Grant Agreement, comprising 13 chapters and submitted through APPEL.
Sub-grant: An onward grant from a primary recipient to another organization, carrying its own compliance obligations.
UEI — Unique Entity Identifier: The identifier assigned through SAM.gov, required to apply for U.S. federal funding.
Washington Group Short Set: Six questions on functional difficulty used to disaggregate data by disability, with a comparable threshold of "a lot of difficulty" or "cannot do at all" in at least one domain.