Some granting organizations will require, as a condition of the grant, that we share, or match, a certain portion of the total cost of the project. In other cases, an organization or agency may not require any cost-sharing whatsoever. Do not include cost-sharing commitments in your budget if they are not required. Making a financial cost-sharing agreement in that instance does not improve your project. But it does cost real money that will have to come from other sources in your Division's operating budget.
Federal rules prohibit using federal funds to match or cost-share other federal funds .
We have a large, standing, annual matching requirement for the West Virginia Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. It is the annual match of our Hatch and McIntire-Stennis programs. The degree to which each state exceeds the match requirement is one of the components used in the formula by which Hatch and McIntire-Stennis are distributed. It is, therefore, in our financial interest to show as much as we can of state appropriations being committed to these programs. Because once funds are cost-shared, they cannot be used for matching again.