Note:  "Cash match" (at least under federal cost principles) is any
matching/cost sharing you can show on your books, as opposed to an "in
kind" match which cannot be shown on your books as an exact $ amount (and
in my experience, is always a third party match).  "Cash match" does NOT
mean identifying some specific revenue for match purposes (though you can
do that if you wish).

Anything which is spent from some account in the institution in direct
support of the project is a cash match.  Faculty time and associated
benefits and imputed F&A reported on the project.  Graduate Research
Assistant salary for time on the project.  Equipment paid by institutional
funds and assigned to the project.  And don't forget the imputed
F&A.  Space is NOT an in kind match, because space is in your F&A -- but
waived or reduced F&A is a cash match (unless, like U.S.DeptEd, the sponsor
is too cheap to allow it!).

Many of these costs are already operational costs of parts of the
institution, they just have to be identified as being devoted to the
project and tracked.  This is NOT supplanting current activities, it is
just deciding to use some of your ongoing efforts for activity "A", which
is an activity that someone will give you some funds to expand upon, rather
than for activity "B", which does not attract any outsider's interests.

If your institution can set aside some funds explicitly for cost sharing
purposes, that's great!  "Pump priming" works!  Any source will do.  A
portion of recovered F&A is often a good source because there is a
politically saleable relationship.  Getting your foundation to seek funds
for this discretionary purpose is a great idea.

Fringe benefits, when the sponsor requires you match with that, can be a
little tricky because they are taxes or contracted compensation in addition
to salary.  Therefore, there is often not a "routine" source (especially
for a state school!); so you have to find funding over which you have a
little discretionary control.

Never forget:  External sponsors want to influence the direction in which
you expend your energies, and you want to find external sources who will
help in the directions you want to go, and good grantsmanship is finding
matches between those two forces.

Chuck

At 02:36 PM 11/1/00 -0600, you wrote:
>Resadm-ers--
>
>I have proposed to our chancellor that my institution establish an
>institutional grant fund to pay cash matches, fringe benefits when the
>sponsor doesn't, and other such expenses.  She asked me 'what do other
>universities do?'  Good question.  It contains two, more specific, questions:
>
>1. For those institutions that have some sort of fund from which you can
>draw cash matches and such, how much is in it?  Do you size your fund
>based on past experience?  On what's available?  On some percentage of
>external funds collected per year?
>
>2. Where does the money come from?  I've suggested two sources: indirect
>costs and our university foundation.  Are there any other likely candidates?
>
>We're a small institution with only between $2M and 3M external funds
>received per year, but grant activity is increasing.  And we'd like it to
>increase faster.  We've reached the point where we have to think twice
>about submitting proposals with cash matches, hence my proposal to
>establish a fund.
>
>Reply either to the list or to me (but note that if you simply punch
>reply, your message goes to everyone--that still surprises me, sometimes).
>If I receive a significant number of private replies, I'll summarize to
>the list.
>
>Regards, Bill
>
>Bill Campbell
>Director, Grants & Research
>University of Wisconsin-River Falls
>
>
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Herbert B. Chermside, CRA
Director, Sponsored Programs Administration
Virginia Commonwealth University
PO BOX 980568
Richmond, VA  23298-0568
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 Richmond, VA  23219
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http://views.vcu.edu/ospa/

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