QUICK START GUIDE 
FOR PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENTS

• Contacts
  – Michael Orlove, Director of State, Regional, Local Partnerships 
     and International Activities
  – Lara Holman Garritano, State and Regional Partnerships Manager 
  – For additional NEA Program Office staff in Arts Education, Folk and 
    Traditional Arts, Poetry Out Loud, and Accessibility, see contact
    details in the Partnership Guidelines.

Welcome!  Put these items near the top of your to-do list:

• Contact Michael Orlove and Lara Holman Garritano in the State & Regional Partnerships Office at NEAStateRegional@arts.gov.  They’ll put you in the loop on all things Partnership and add you to relevant communication lists.
• If you’re a person who will help manage the award, contact the Office of Grants Management (OGM) at grants@arts.gov.  OGM can assist you in getting access to awards in REACH (the NEA’s grants management system) and talk you through any upcoming reporting requirements.  You must not use someone else’s Login.gov credentials to access REACH or other government systems.
• Once you’re in REACH, get caught up on your open offers and awards.  Application, offer, and award files can be found in the Documents tab.  For active awards, check out the award balance in the Payments tab and report due dates in the Forms and Reports tab.

• Check your organization’s SAM expiration date (you can view it on the Payment Requests tab in REACH) and make sure someone at your organization still has SAM.gov access for your entity registration. An expired SAM registration will hold up grant payments and prevent you from applying for new awards at Grants.gov.

  Pro Tip: We recommend that you have at least two people with SAM access at all times. Having more than one entity administrator can help ensure that your organization retains access to your SAM account, even during staff vacations, retirements, or other transitions. Learn more about how to update your account with additional entity administrators here.

• Login.gov: A secure sign-in service used by the public to sign in to government websites like Grants.gov, SAM.gov, and REACH. Go to Create an account to set up your Login.gov account. Login.gov accounts are tied to an individual, not an organization. The email account you use when registering should be unique to you, and not an account shared by multiple people. Your email address in Login.gov must match the email address the NEA has on record in REACH so the two systems link up properly.
• SAM.gov: The System for Award Management (SAM) is a registry of all entities doing business with the federal government. All SAAs and RAOs must maintain an active registration with SAM and renew it annually.  It is critically important to ensure that someone at your agency has access to the SAM account for this purpose; we recommend that you have at least two people with access at all times, in the event of staffing changes. Start the SAM renewal process at least a month before expiration and build in extra time if your organization has had a name change or moved to a new address.
• Grants.gov: A federal website used across agencies for grant application submission. Annual Partnership Agreement applications are submitted through the Grants.gov portal. You will need to have an active registration with Login.gov, and your organization will need to have an active SAM registration, to submit an application through Grants.gov.  If your SAM registration is expired, you will be unable to submit your Partnership Agreement application. 
• REACH: The NEA’s grants management system. Staff who are “participants” on an NEA award (the Authorizing Official, Grant Administrator, and Project Director) will receive REACH access when the grant offer is made. See the How to Manage Your NEA Award Handbook for details on how to change the participants on an award. 
• Manage Your Award: One-stop shopping on the NEA website for grant management resources and forms, including a page just for State & Regional Partnership Agreements. 

The Partnership Agreements Award Cycle

While the specific dates may differ slightly year to year, below is a sample timeline demonstrating the typical life of a Partnership Agreement annual award.

Partnership Agreement Program Details and Application Instructions:

Partnership Agreement guidelines are revised annually. Find the most recent guidelines

Pro Tip 1: You may notice that the NEA fiscal year of your award doesn’t match your agency’s fiscal year. The NEA operates on an October 1 – September 30 fiscal year. SAAs and RAOs generally operate on a July 1 – June 30 fiscal year, meaning that your agency fiscal year may be ahead of the NEA fiscal year.

Pro Tip 2: Volunteer to serve as an NEA panelist. Grant review offers a unique opportunity to learn more about the NEA's application review process. It can also provide an informative overview on current trends and priorities throughout the field. Learn more.

Starting with the offer notification, your award will be managed through REACH.

Once your Partnership Agreement grant is awarded, questions about the award should go through the Office of Grants Management (OGM), via REACH or by email to grants@arts.gov or finalreports@arts.gov.  OGM is the only office with authority to make changes to your award and will bring other agency offices into the conversation as needed.

Forms and additional guidance, including information about the Poetry Out Loud component of your Partnership Agreement award, can be found in the Manage Your Award section of the NEA’s website.  These two resources will be mission critical:

• The How to Manage Your NEA Award Handbook explains how to use REACH to request payment or amendments to your awards (and the timeline for approval), update personnel, and submit required reports. 
• General Terms & Conditions for Partnership Agreements (GTCs) are the rules, regulations, and policies that govern Partnership Agreement awards, many of which extend down to your subgrants.  Select the GTCs that apply to the year your grant was awarded.

Be aware that Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA) reporting is due to FSRS.gov one month after any subaward is made totaling $30,000 or more of federal funds. FFATA FAQs

FY25 and later awards with a period of performance greater than one year will have financial and performance reports due annually.  The financial report will be an interim Federal Financial Report.  The performance report will be a brief narrative summary of accomplishments to date and future activities.  These will be submitted through REACH; requirements will be included on the Report Schedule for those awards.

Final reporting is a significant aspect of managing a Partnership Agreement. The NEA’s website provides detailed information and guidance on reporting, in Manage Your Award. Final report instructions vary by the fiscal year of the NEA Partnership Agreement award; select the instructions that are relevant to your award.

When submitting NEA final reports, SAAs and RAOs must also submit copies of their FDRs (not FFRs or the Folk Arts Narrative) to NASAA for inclusion in the NEA’s national database of state and regional grant making.  A final report is not considered submitted until NASAA has the FDR data.

The NEA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) annually selects award recipients for audit, usually including several State Arts Agencies or Regional Arts Organizations.  (And no, we don’t know when you will rise to the top of their list; the order is generally random.)  Audits may seem intimidating and mysterious, but there’s actually a ton of information to be found on the OIG page of the NEA website.  In particular, view the Frequently Asked Questions and Guidance links. 

This powerpoint from a previous NASAA Assembly session walks you through the audit process.

Looking over previous audits might help you identify things to consider in your own systems.

Do our subrecipients need a SAM registration?

As of April 4, 2022, subrecipients of federal and cost share funds must have a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) from SAM.gov.  Getting a UEI does not require a full SAM registration.  See Federal Government-Wide Unique Identifier Transition for more details.

It may be more efficient for SAAs and RAOs to collect this information at the application stage rather than at the grant making stage. However, that is each agency’s decision to make independently.

A month after subawards are made, SAAs and RAOs are required to report to FSRS.gov subrecipients who receive $30,000 or more in federal funds, in compliance with the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA). The UEI number of the grantee is  required for this process.  FFATA FAQs can be found at Manage Your Award.

Final Descriptive Reports require the UEI for all awards closed out after April 4, 2022.

When do I need to request changes to my award?

SAAs and RAOs can request the following types of amendments through REACH:

• Scope: To add different initiatives and subgranting programs to the scope of your Partnership Agreement award, in tandem with a budget amendment.  Only programs included in your approved budget are considered part of the NEA grant project.
• Budget: To add new line items to your approved award budget.
• Time extension: To add additional time to your period of performance to carry out the activities in your Partnership Agreement supported by the approved award budget.  All subawards reported on the Federal Financial Report must have an end date within your period of performance.
• Final report extension: To add additional time to complete and submit the required final reports for the award.

Please note: It is not appropriate to request an extension to "roll over" unused funds for future-year activities or to otherwise reallocate grant funds or the required cost share to support programs that were not anticipated during the original period of support. If a grant is approved for an extension, Partnership funds must “tie back” to programs or activities that carry out the state or regional plan associated with the original start and end dates of the grant period.

Can I subgrant to individual artists?

Support to individual artists is allowable only if the award funds programs and activities and is not a one-time monetary recognition award. Awards to individuals should include requirements for presentations to the public, training, research, or creation of an artwork. The award is considered a stipend to the artist for the work undertaken and completed. Because neither the NEA Partnership Agreement funds nor the cost share funds can support a fellowship based on the artist’s past body of work (also known as “honorific” awards), costs for this type of award must not be included in the Partnership Agreement budget and cannot be funded with NEA funds or your cost share.

Can I subgrant to fiscal agents?

No, NEA and cost share funds must not be subgranted to a non-eligible organization through a fiscal agent. An organization may not serve as a pass-through for federal funding; subgranted funds must be for the subrecipient’s own activities.  Eligible recipients of NEA and cost share funding are 501(c)3 non-profit organizations, units of state or local government, and federally recognized tribal communities or tribes.

National Policy Requirements
State Arts Agencies and Regional Arts Organizations must ensure that they and their subrecipients are in compliance with National Policy Requirements that flow through with  the federal financial assistance.  (See GTCs, Appendix A.) These include nondiscrimination policies related to civil rights, as well as the National Environmental Policy Act and National Historic Preservation Act (NEPA/NHPA). Visit the State & Regional Partnership Agreements page of Manage Your Award for access to additional resources on these topics. Questions  can also be directed to these offices:

• Office of Civil Rights: civilrights@arts.gov
• Office of Accessibility: accessibility@arts.gov
• Office of Grants Management (NEPA/NHPA): grants@arts.gov

SAA/RAO Profiles
Interactive maps on the NEA website provide insight into the impact of NEA and SAA/RAO support of the arts nationwide. State Profiles and Regional Profiles

Research
The NEA’s Office of Research and Analysis posts valuable studies, including the most  recent (2022) Survey of Arts Participation conducted with the U.S. Census Bureau.

Recent Grants
The Recent Grant Search on the NEA’s website allows you to search NEA grants to organizations since 1998. You can filter by multiple criteria.

SAAs and RAOs generally are not permitted to request support through NEA grant programs other than the Partnership Agreement, the rare exception being that RAOs are occasionally asked to serve as our partner in implementing national initiatives. SAAs and RAOs are allowed and encouraged to work in partnership with organizations applying to the NEA for direct support, but may not serve as the official NEA applicant and may not receive or use any of the funds awarded to the applicant. In addition, these grantees cannot claim SAA or RAO support (cash or in-kind) as cost share to their NEA award if it’s already accounted for in your Partnership Agreement budget.

Annual NEA grant programs for organizations include Grants for Arts Projects, Challenge America (focus on underserved communities), Our Town (creative placemaking), and Research awards.

Individuals can apply to the NEA for Creative Writing Fellowships and Translation Project Fellowships.

Your constituents may also be interested in learning about opportunities through NEA Initiatives carried out with other federal agencies and Regional Arts Organizations partners. Go to https://www.arts.gov/initiatives for details.