Administrative and National Policy Requirements

This term and condition applies to all Administration for Children and Families (ACF) discretionary grant recipients except as noted otherwise within this term and condition. The following types of ACF programs are exempt from this term and condition: programs where subawards are prohibited by statute or regulation and mandatory grant programs. However, please note that all mandatory programs at ACF are subject to 45 CFR §§ 75.351-.353Visit disclaimer page. Should any of the requirements in this term and condition conflict with a statute or regulation, the requirements in the statute or regulation must be followed.

According to 45 CFR § 75.2Visit disclaimer page, “Subaward means an award provided by a pass-through entity to a subrecipient for the subrecipient to carry out part of a Federal award received by the pass-through entity. It does not include payments to a contractor or payments to an individual that is a beneficiary of a Federal program. A subaward may be provided through any form of legal agreement, including an agreement that the pass-through entity considers a contract.” A subaward is determined by the substance of the agreement and characteristics specified in 45 CFR § 75.351Visit disclaimer page. Subawards also do not include consultant agreements (see 45 CFR § 75.459Visit disclaimer page) or unfunded collaborators. Unfunded collaborators are individuals involved in collaborations on the grant project, but not funded through the grant; typically, this may occur on research grants.

The prime recipient is the entity that receives a Federal award directly from ACF. The prime recipient is responsible for oversight of all programmatic, financial, and administrative matters, including reporting, related to the grant. This responsibility includes oversight of these matters as they relate to the subrecipient(s). Prime recipients opting to use subawards are required to adhere to the requirements noted in 45 CFR § 75.352Visit disclaimer page and be in compliance with 45 CFR § 75.351Visit disclaimer page and § 75.353Visit disclaimer page.

In addition, the prime recipient must maintain a substantive role in the project. ACF defines a substantive role as conducting activities and/or providing services funded under the award that are necessary and integral to the completion of the project. Subrecipient monitoring activities alone as specified in 45 CFR § 75.352Visit disclaimer page do not constitute a substantive role. Furthermore, ACF does not fund awards where the role of the applicant is primarily to serve as a conduit for passing funds to other organizations unless that arrangement is authorized by statute. In the absence of such statutory authority, each prime recipient’s primary role must be to ensure the delivery of the statutorily authorized services, whether provided directly or through collaborative involvement with their subrecipient(s). Per 42 USC 9832(3), Head Start or Early Head Start agencies with delegate agencies are exempt from the requirements in this paragraph.

Subrecipient(s) must meet the eligibility requirements identified in the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), Section III.1. Eligible Applicants, or as otherwise specified in the FOA. Additionally, all subrecipient(s) must obtain a DUNS number, or after government-wide implementation, a Unique Entity Identifier assigned by the System for Award Management (SAM), if they do not already have one. Prime recipients are required to check the SAM to verify that the subrecipient(s) is/are not debarred, suspended, or ineligible.

If the grant program requires cost sharing or matching, subrecipients may provide cost sharing or matching towards the prime recipient’s requirement, if their contribution meets requirements at 45 CFR § 75.306Visit disclaimer page.

The prime recipient must conduct a risk assessment of subrecipient(s) in accordance with 45 CFR § 75.352(b). Visit disclaimer pagePrime recipients may be required to report under the Federal Financial Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA). Please refer to FFATA for more information.

Should a subrecipient perform unsatisfactorily, the prime recipient is responsible for remedying subrecipient issues. Prime recipients of an award will be legally accountable to ACF for performance of the project or program. Prime recipients will be held solely responsible in the event of non-compliance by a subrecipient. The prime recipient will be held accountable for cost disallowances regarding subawarded funds. Subrecipient performance will also be considered during review of applications for non-competing continuations. If requirements of the program cannot be met due to subrecipient issues, ACF may need to take one or more of the actions listed under 45 CFR § 75.371-.375Visit disclaimer page.

Prime recipients who propose to issue subaward(s), but had not yet identified the subrecipient organization(s) by the time of application submission must submit a prior approval request with the name of the subrecipient organization(s), updated description(s) of the work to be performed, and updated subaward budget(s) and budget justification(s). This information must be submitted within 90 days from the start date of the grant or as otherwise specified in the award-specific terms and conditions. If a subaward was not originally proposed in the application, but later becomes necessary, ACF prior approval is required before any activities in the subaward request begin.