Maintenance
Part of Arts institution reporting: a practical framework
Arts institution fact-check checklist for grants
Check a grant claim about an arts institution: name the recipient, separate award stages, trace public money, and match the award to the audited accounts.
What to take away
- Name the legal entity that received the money before you trace a figure.
- Separate authorized, obligated, received, recognized, spent, and remaining amounts.
- Match the award record to the financial statements, entity by entity.
- Label each line verified, qualified, not applicable, or unresolved.
- Recheck charts, captions, metadata, and distribution copies after any change to the text.
Mark each line verified, qualified, not applicable, or unresolved. Save the evidence page and calculation for every published number.
Name the entity that received the money
A grant belongs to one legal entity, so name it before you trace a dollar. Owner, operator, tenant, presenter, parent, and foundation roles are separate, and a claim about who received or controls money has to land on the right one.
Map the institution's legal structure
- Legal name, brand, tax status, location
- Venue owner, operator, tenant, presenter
- Parent, subsidiary, foundation, fiscal sponsor
- Board roster and officer roles dated
- Bylaws, committee authority, decision path
- Conflicts and compensation checked
- Legal name, registration, and tax status of each entity recorded
- Tax-exempt status confirmed in the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search and the latest IRS Form 990
- UK entities matched in the Charity Commission or OSCR register, or in Companies House
- Any claim about control, oversight, or affiliation traced to a filing or minute
Record the institution's answer beside each item, plus the document, observation, or interview that tests it. The Charity Commission and OSCR checks cover the UK register side in more detail.
Separate the six stages of a grant
A grant moves through stages, and each stage is a different number: authorized, obligated, received, recognized, spent, and remaining. Name the stage whenever a figure appears, or a press release gets compared with the wrong financial figure.
Trace grant money stages
- Authorized
- Obligated
- Received
- Recognized
- Spent
- Remaining
- Funder, program, recipient, award ID, and project period verified
- Authorized, obligated, received, recognized, spent, and remaining amounts separated
- Match, amendment, restriction, and reporting period checked
- Press release compared with award and financial records
A claim that a museum received a grant is verified if the award record names the recipient, the program and the period, and the financial statements recognize it. The same claim is unresolved if the only source is a press release with no period. For the wider habit of reading money claims, see how to read arts finance reporting.
Trace public money to its source record
Federal, state, local, and pass-through funding must each be identified accurately. Trace federal awards in USAspending.gov and in the funder's own award list, such as IMLS, NEA, or NEH grants, and note which level of government the institution actually dealt with.
The NEA says its Partnership Agreement grants go to state and jurisdictional arts agencies and to regional arts organizations. So ask whether an institution's award came from the funder directly or through one of them, and record the answer.
Check Single Audit findings in the Federal Audit Clearinghouse under 2 CFR 200, and locate the report there where federal awards require one. The Federal Audit Clearinghouse says an audit report prepared by an independent auditor presents both an organization's financial statements and its compliance with federal award requirements.
For UK public funders, see how the arts councils fund the arts in England, Scotland and Wales.
Match the award to the financial statements
Compare the award record with the audited statements before you write that an institution holds the money. Consolidated and entity-only statements treat revenue, expenses and net assets differently, so label which one a figure comes from.
Financial statement boundaries
Consolidated
- Fiscal year
- All entities
- Restricted funds
- Combined
- One-time gifts
- Included
- Capital activity
- Blended
- Audit notes
- Read
Entity-only
- Fiscal year
- One entity
- Restricted funds
- Separated
- One-time gifts
- Identified
- Capital activity
- Isolated
- Audit notes
- Read
- Reporting period start and end dates stated
- Fiscal year and document issue date recorded
- Consolidated and entity-only statements distinguished
- Restricted and unrestricted resources separated
- One-time gifts, capital activity, donated goods, and investment changes identified
- Latest IRS Form 990, including its schedules, compared with the audited financial statements
- Accounting basis identified, including US GAAP and FASB ASC 958 for not-for-profits
A grant is only one line in these accounts. The institution reporting framework follows the other money categories, so use it when the story is the whole budget rather than one award.
Put the same questions to funder and institution
Ask the funder and the institution the same questions: recipient, award ID, project period, and which stage a figure describes. If the two answers differ, report the difference or hold the claim until a record settles it.
A venue's owner, the company that runs it, and the foundation that raises money for it can all trade under one brand name. A grant to the foundation is not a grant to the venue, so check the award's recipient line against the registration record before you write who got what.
Any allegation about how money was used goes to the institution first, with the documents you hold. Record its answer beside the line, and say in the text what it answered and what it did not.
Publish with the evidence attached
Recompute every table and calculation independently, and keep the evidence page beside each published number. A grant figure that cannot be traced to a stage, a period and a record stays unresolved, however plausible it sounds.
- Tables and calculations independently recomputed
- Chart axis, base, period, inflation status, and source labeled
- Headline, meta, captions, pull quotes, and social copy rechecked
- Correction plan includes newsletters, feeds, partners, and downloadable files
Common questions
Is a grant award the same as program cost?
No. It may cover part of a project, span years, require a match, or remain partly unspent.
Does a press release prove a grant was received?
No. Authorized, obligated, received, recognized, and spent are separate stages, so compare the release with the award and financial records.
Must a missing document be described as withheld?
No. It may not exist, may not be public, or may not have been provided. State what was requested and answered.
What unresolved fact should stop publication?
One that controls the central conclusion, identifies a person, or creates material legal, safety, or reputational risk without honest qualification.
