Grant Basics

Glossary of Terms

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - I - L - M - N - O - P - R - S - T - U - Y

Access: Creates environments in which any individual or group can be and feel welcomed, respected, supported, and valued to fully participate.

ADA: The NHSCA supports universal access to the arts. Each grantee is required to assure that they are in compliance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). Click here to learn more.

Adults Engaged Online: Number of adults (age 18 and over) who directly engaged with the arts through online attendance at arts events or participation in arts learning or other types of activities in which people were involved with artists or the arts via an Internet platform.

Applicant Cash: funds that the applicant plans to provide toward the activities proposed in the grant. Funds may be from present or anticipated resources.

Artists Directly Involved: the total number of artists directly involved in providing art or artistic services specifically identified with the project or organization. Include living artists whose work is represented in an exhibition regardless of whether the work was provided by the artist or an institution.

Authorized Official: the person with the legal authority to obligate the organization in a contractual relationship with the State Arts Council. Characteristically, this is the Executive Director or President of the board of directors.

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Beneficiaries: the total audience, participants, students, etc. (excluding employees or paid performers) that are expected to benefit directly from the arts activity. Estimates are acceptable for large public events such as festivals in parks. Broadcasts and online programming should not be included in these numbers.

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Children/Youths Engaged Online: Number of children/youths (under age 18) who directly engaged with the arts through online attendance at arts events or participation in arts learning or other types of activities in which people were involved with artists or the arts via an Internet platform.

Community Arts Organization: an organization or local government agency based in and serving a particular limited geographic area within the state (such as one city or a rural area including several small towns) that promotes, serves, produces, and/or presents the arts on a regular basis for people living in that geographic area. Community Arts Organizations generally share a common goal of supporting diverse art forms in their local community and making them accessible to the entire community.

Contracted Services Revenue: fees paid for the sale of services provided by the applicant to other community organizations, government agencies, businesses, etc.

Contributed Support: unearned income such as grants, cash donations from individuals and businesses, etc.

Cultural Facility: the physical structure where arts activities (e. g., exhibitions, performances, literary readings, film/video viewings) regularly take place.

Cultural group or community: any group of people who share a common heritage or identity (ethnicity, religion, family, occupation, geographic region, language, age, gender).

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Disabilities: The ADA defines a person with a disability as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity which may include mobility, sensory and psychological impairments.

Discipline: another word to describe a category of art form, e.g., Visual Arts is the discipline that includes painting, sculpture, printmaking, etc.

Diversity: Encompasses all the dimensions of human identity and difference recognizing that individuals affiliate with multiple identities.

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Equity: Strives to identify and eliminate barriers to full participation. This is achieved through implementation of policies and practices without bias, thereby allowing all people to realize fair and just engagement, treatment, benefits, and opportunities.

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Fiscal Agent: an eligible, tax-exempt organization through which nonprofit organizations or coalitions of individuals, who do not have tax-exempt status through the IRS, may apply. The eligible organization becomes the legal applicant of record, redistributes funds to the group actually carrying out the project, and becomes responsible for seeing that all required documents are filed with the Council. Anyone considering using a fiscal agent should contact the appropriate program coordinator.

Fiscal Year (FY): the year-long period representing the organization's accounting period. The State of New Hampshire fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.

Folk Arts: An art form passed down from one generation to the next within families and communities. Folk arts are most often learned informally within a community or family. In folk arts, the sense of what is beautiful, meaningful, and well done is defined by the community from which the tradition emerges.

Full-time Personnel: the total number of persons employed 35 or more hours per week on work specifically identified with the arts activities to be funded by a grant.

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General Support: funds that can be used for an organization's year-round administrative and programming functions.

The following ALLOWABLE expenses may be included in your general operating support budget:

• Salaries, wages, and fringe benefits for personnel, administrative and artistic, who are paid on a salary basis. Note: Costs related to fundraising events and personnel are unallowable.
• Fees for artists and contractual personnel
• Facilities costs, such as rent and utilities
• Office supplies, computer software/hardware, etc.
• Generally, equipment costs. If the equipment exceeds the $5,000 per unit cost threshold with a useful life of more than one year, you must specify the type of equipment being purchased, the unit cost, and a justification of the necessity of the purchase.
• Marketing and promotion costs
• General overhead/administrative costs

Government Support - Local: cash support derived from grants or appropriations by city, county, and other local government agencies.

Grant Agreement: the legal contract between the State of New Hampshire and the grantee that specifies the conditions under which Council funds may be spent, (e.g., the requirements to acknowledge State Arts Council funding and submit a Final Report.)

Grant Period: the time during which grants may be used to fund the arts activities specified in the application.

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Inclusion: Actively and effectively engages diverse individuals, communities, and perspectives to ensure participation, representation, and belonging for all.

In person art experiences: In person attendance at events such as students in a residency, artists in a project. Viewing an opera at a theater, other broadcasts or online programming does not qualify for this definition.

Individuals in institutions: Persons who are in secured or non-secured care of an organization for an extended period (e.g., correctional facility, hospital, veteran’s home). This does not include an educational facility.

Individuals with Low Income: Persons who are income eligible within the New Hampshire guidelines for income assistance programs.

Ineligible Costs: The following costs are not eligible for funding and should not be included in the application’s budget:

• previously incurred debts or deficits;
• lobbying or fundraising expenses;
• non-consumable equipment;
• endowments, fellowships, scholarships, academic research financial aid to individual or degree grant opportunities;
• capital projects;
• funding of a new, permanent position or replacement of lost funding for existing staff;
• contracted services of an organization's staff; (unless contract pertains to duties explicitly outside of their current job description); 
• contracted services of an organization’s board member;
• regularly contracted services such as a grant writer, accountant, attorney, advertising firm or district curriculum supervisor;
• revenue producing activities or commercially viable "for-profit" enterprises;
• cost of goods for resale. This includes the sale of concessions, promotional merchandise, including clothing, or items purchased for sale, even if related to your programming;
• alcohol;
• food and beverage expenses are ineligible using requested grant funds. If you have concerns, please contact the grants coordinator; [Traditional Arts Foodways Projects: food may be allowable if it has a programmatic purpose and if authorized either in the approved budget or with prior written approval of the grant coordinator.]
• any expenses listed as miscellaneous, contingency funds, donations, prize money, other, additional expenses, discretionary expenses, slush fund, etc;
• activities that are principally recreational, therapeutic or rehabilitative;
• activities not open to the general public.

In-kind Contributions: goods (space used by applicant, equipment, supplies, materials, etc.) and services (volunteer time, transportation, printing, etc.) donated to the applicant organization. Note: The dollar value of these contributions (what it would cost if the organization had to pay for them) must be reported separately from the cash columns in the budget section.

Interdisciplinary: an art form that integrates two or more disciplines to create a single work, not to be confused with multi-disciplinary which simply presents two or more arts disciplines each retaining its own identity.

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Location of Project Activity: The physical address or geo coordinates of every location where in person art activities occur.

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Marketing: all costs for marketing, publicity, promotion. Do not include fees for firms or consultants that belong under outside fees and services section. Do include costs of advertising, printing and mailing brochures, etc.

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New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) Grants: cash support derived from regional performing arts and/or visual arts/media touring grants. Note: Include these funds in the line item, Government Support-State/Regional.

NISP Codes: NISP refers to the National Standard for Arts Information Exchange Project, a set of documentation codes established by the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies to help track trends in public arts funding. Please enter the appropriate codes in spaces marked on your application, which can be found here. If you receive a grant, you will also be required to fill appropriate NISP codes on your Final Report Form.

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Outside Fees and Services: refers to payments to firms or persons who are not normally considered employees of the organization, but are independent contractors.

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Peer Panel Review: The peer panel review process is based upon the concept of public input on the expenditure of public funds. The NHSCA uses this process to adjudicate grant applications. Individuals with relevant art form and/or arts practice expertise are identified and asked to serve as panelists for each grant category. Panelists review grant applications and work samples submitted, discuss applications, evaluate them based upon published criteria, and utilize a numeric system to rank them. Rankings are compiled by staff and used to determine funding levels for grants. Panel rankings are conveyed to State Arts Councilors who approve grants for funding. Cumulative grants to individuals over $5,000 and to non profit organizations over $10,000 go the Governor and Executive Council for final approvals. Click here if interested in nominating yourself or another individual to serve on a NHSCA panel.

Personnel: refers to all those who are actual part- or full-time employees of the organization. Note: In reporting line items under personnel include fringe benefits (FICA, Workman's Compensation, health insurance, etc.).

Presenter: a nonprofit organization that engages touring or local artists or touring exhibitions, pays artist fees, and handles all aspects of the local presentation.

Primary Populations: Categories that make up 25% or more of the populations that directly benefited from an in person art experience. Broadcasts and online programming do not qualify under this definition.

Professional Artists: people who devote a majority of their time to practicing, performing, and/or teaching an arts discipline and who receive payment for their work in that discipline.

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Report to the New Hampshire Community: a public event by an Apprenticeship recipient that could be as simple as an open studio day, a presentation in the local library, or as complex as premiering a new work on stage. The selection of the event is left up to the artist. However, plans for the event should be coordinated with the Grants Coordinator who may elect to combine the public events in one location or during one time period to better market the State Arts Council's work for that year. All events should be held in handicapped accessible locations.

Resident: "A resident or inhabitant or both of this state and of any city, town or other political subdivision of this state shall be a person who is domiciled or has a place of abode or both in this state and in any city, town or other political subdivision of this state, and who has, through all of his actions, demonstrated a current intent to designate that place of abode as his principal place of physical presence for the indefinite future to the exclusion of all others." RSA 21:6

Revenue: earned income such as ticket sales, sale of advertising space in program brochures, gift shop income, tuition, etc.

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SASE: self-addressed, stamped envelope.

Space Rental: payments for rental of office, rehearsal, theatre, hall, gallery, or other such spaces. Note: If space is used without charge, indicate rental value as an in-kind contribution.

Special Constituencies: individuals or groups whose access to the arts may be limited due to age, disabilities, confinement in institutions, poverty, etc.

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Teaching Artist: A practicing professional artist who helps educators and community leaders achieve a wide variety of learning goals in, through, and about the arts, with a wide variety of learners.

Traditional Arts: An art form passed down from one generation to the next within families and communities. Folk arts are most often learned informally within a community or family. In a traditional art form, the sense of what is beautiful, meaningful, and well done is defined more by the community than by an individual.

Travel costs: Travel costs should be calculated at the current federal rate which can be found here: www.gsa.gov/mileage

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Underserved: The National Endowment for the Arts defines an underserved community as “those whose opportunities to experience the arts are limited by geography, ethnicity, economics, or disability.”

Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): A unique 12-character identifier (a combination of letters and numbers) assigned to all entities by the federal government through registration at the federal System for Award Management website (SAM.gov). Every entity applying for NHSCA funding must have a UEI. Tutorial - Get a Unique Entity ID (SAM) - YouTube

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Youth at Risk: Children under the age of 18 who lack access to safe environments and appropriate emotional or physical care; are homeless or in foster care; living in economic disadvantage; abusing substances; have been adjudicated; or living in secure or non-secure detention.

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Last updated: January 31, 2023