The USM Foundation administers grants and contracts that are philanthropic in nature, as well as other contracts.

 

Acceptance of grants and contracts that would create burdensome administrative requirements on the USM Foundation, such as additional audit requirements tied to the grants or significant reporting or monitoring, will be accepted only under special circumstances and only if arrangements have been made with the unit to cover the additional anticipated administrative costs via overhead from the grant or from another source. This arrangement must be documented in advance.

 

Please contact the USM Foundation Grant Administrator prior to submitting a proposal if there are any questions about the process


 

  • All University guidelines must be followed before the USM Foundation can accept a grant or contract, including compliance with policies on faculty consulting, patent policy, human subjects, affirmative action, conflicts of interest, and any other such policy governing grant and contract activities.
  • The appropriate academic administrators and the Office of Sponsored Programs (or its counterpart) must review and approve all proposals before submission to the USM Foundation for processing.
  • Grants/Contracts to be administered by the USM Foundation must explicitly name the University System of Maryland Foundation, Inc. as the administrative agent.

 

To submit a proposal, please complete the following steps:

 

  1. Prepare and send the paperwork identified below to the USM Foundation:
    1. Letter of approval from the Office of Sponsored Programs or equivalent department
    2. One copy of the proposal for the USM Foundation
  2. When the above are received, a transmittal letter, signed by an officer of the USM Foundation, will be prepared. The USM Foundation will forward the letter, the proposal, and other required documents to the funding agency or return the packet to the department for submission, depending on the agreed upon arrangements between the parties involved.

 

Follow-up to Notification of Acceptance from the funding agency:

 

The USM Foundation establishes a separate account for each grant/contract to assure that financial reports can be prepared and that grant/contract funds are not co-mingled with other funds.

Through attributes on the grant record in the financial software the USM Foundation maintains key elements of the grant for tracking and monitoring purposes. These include:

 

  • Granting Organization
  • Grant Start and End Dates
  • Grant Award Amount
  • Grant Reporting Dates
  • Grant Funding Dates

 

The USM Foundation maintains electronic files of all documentation for each grant/contract administered by the USM Foundation. Documents maintained include the following:

 

  • The grant/contract proposal paperwork (see items listed under Submitting the Proposal above)
  • Documentation supporting receipts from the funding agency
  • Documentation supporting disbursements (these documents are attached to the disbursement record in the financial software)


  • Copies of filed reports or confirmation that the principal investigator has filed reports or other documentation indicating the narrative reports have been filed
  • Copy of financial reports filed with the funding agency. These reports are prepared by the department, but must be submitted to the USM Foundation for review prior to submission
  • Copy of the transmittal letter that accompanies technical reports prepared and submitted to the funding agency by the principal investigator for the grant/contract.

 

Grant backs:

The USM Foundation has the ability to sub-grant a portion of the grant to an institution, formalizing the roles/responsibilities each party has in the execution of the grant agreement. This enables the department to use university employees and to purchase goods and services using university funds and provides assurance to the university that those expenditures will be reimbursed.

Requests for grant backs are submitted to the Grants Administrator and must include the following information:

 

  • USM Foundation account number
  • Campus account number
  • $ amount requested
  • Person requesting the grant back

 

Disbursements for Grants/Contracts: See Cash Disbursements for more information.

Fees: Upon review of documentation, the USM Foundation may charge an administrative fee.