Reporting Guidelines and Post-award Procedures
Narrative Reporting Guidelines
The Spencer Foundation requires PIs of multi-year projects to submit annual narrative reports, as well as a final narrative report at the end of the grant period. When the grant activity and funding are limited to one year, a final report is sufficient. These reports provide us with important updates on activity related to the grant.
For field-initiated research grantees (Small Grants, Large Grants, Lyle Spencer Awards, Research-Practice Partnership Grants, and Special Grant programs--COVID and Racial Equity), the process for completing final narrative reports will both (a) help Spencer understand and communicate the impact of our grant giving, and (b) support grantees in their efforts to convey the implications of their research to the broader public. Using the responses to final report prompts, we will produce a research brief. After we create the brief, we will ask the PI to approve the copy before it is publicly posted to the Spencer website and publicized through our social media channels. The PI will also receive a copy, which we encourage them to use for their own communications efforts.
Narrative reports should be submitted using the Spencer Foundation online portal. Click here to access the online system and log in using the email and password you (the PI or Co-PI) utilized during the application process. (If you’ve never registered, click the Register Here button to create an account and access the report form.)
Don't see your grant listed under the Narrative Reports tab on your Workbench? Contact Maricelle Garcia at mgarcia@spencer.org for assistance.
Financial Reporting Guidelines
The Spencer Foundation requires that grantee organizations of multi-year projects submit annual financial reports, as well as a final financial report when the grant period has ended. When the grant activity and funding is limited to one year, a final report is sufficient.
One month ahead of the due date, a reminder email will be sent to the financial contact at the grantee organization with instructions on how to submit the financial report. Note: Grant funds in excess of $250 remaining at the end of the grant period must be returned to the Spencer Foundation.
Questions? If you have any questions, please contact Asad Zaidi via email at azaidi@spencer.org for assistance.
Requesting a Budget Reallocation
The Spencer Foundation requires grantees to request approval for a budget reallocation if they will be shifting funds from one category to another within their approved budget and the amount being shifted is more than 20% of the total amount awarded. If the amount being shifted is less than 20%, a budget reallocation is not required. Budget categories include Salaries, Benefits, Other Collaborators, Travel, Equipment and Software, Project Expenses, Other, and Subcontracts.
To request a budget reallocation, please email reallocation@spencer.org.
Requesting a No-cost Extension
If work on the grant will extend past the scheduled end date, the foundation will consider requests for no-cost extensions of 12 months.
To request a no-cost extension, please email extension@spencer.org.
Change of Contact Information
If anyone associated with an awarded grant has changes to their contact information, they should log on to the Spencer system with the email and password they initially used to create their account and update their My Profile area with the new information. If they have never accessed their account in the Spencer system, they should contact the Spencer administrator for the specific grant program for assistance.
Change of Grant Personnel
If a change of PI or Co-PI is necessary during a grant project, please send an email to Maricelle Garcia at mgarcia@spencer.org with details about the circumstances necessitating the change and who will be accepting responsibility for the grant. This change must be reviewed and approved before it can go into effect.
Change of Grantee Institution
If the Principal Investigator is relocating to a new organization and would like to request that the grant be transferred to the new organization, please send an email to Maricelle Garcia at mgarcia@spencer.org. The email should include information about where the grant would be transferred and the timeframe of the transfer. This change must be reviewed and approved before the transfer process can begin.
Published Work
Publications produced as a result of Spencer funding should acknowledge the Foundation using the language below:
The research reported in the (book, article, or monograph) was made possible (in part) by a grant from the Spencer Foundation (#Spencer reference number). The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Spencer Foundation.
Additionally, the Spencer Foundation would appreciate receiving a copy of any book that might be published as a result of a grant. Books can be mailed to:
Librarian
Spencer Foundation
625 North Michigan Avenue
Suite 1600
Chicago, IL 60611
Intellectual Property Rights
With each award, the Spencer Foundation asks grantees to agree to our Intellectual Property Rights policy below. This agreement will be sent with each award letter issued.
Intellectual Property Rights Policy
The Spencer Foundation seeks both to support and disseminate exemplary research about education, broadly conceived. To enhance the foundation’s ability to disseminate the research it supports, our staff has been developing the Spencer Foundation web site (www.spencer.org). We now plan to post more examples of outstanding research in the form of article abstracts, book chapters, and report summaries, along with links to authors’ personal web pages, publishers, and other distributors of research. In this way, we hope to help our grantees reach broader audiences and become even more effective at bringing their work to the attention of other scholars, policy makers, and practitioners. We hope that the Spencer Foundation web site will prove to be a valuable research tool for all those interested in education.
To facilitate this effort, Spencer now requires its grantees and their sponsoring institutions to accept the terms of the Agreement when signing the Grant Award Letter. This policy protects a grantee’s rights to their works generated with Spencer Foundation funds and guarantees the foundation’s rights to disseminate works that we support. It also guarantees the foundation’s right to publish excerpts of up to 15% of a particular work that results from its grants and with permission, complete works of Spencer supported authors. We work closely with our grantees to implement this policy, which we hope will enrich the education research community generally and directly assist the scholars we support.
Intellectual Property Rights Agreement
Intellectual property rights in all works of authorship, data, inventions, and trade secrets (“Intellectual Property”) created or developed by grantees and investigators using Spencer Foundation resources shall be owned by the grantee and/or investigator, as they may determine between themselves.
Grantees and investigators shall make all appropriate efforts to disclose, publish and distribute the Intellectual Property to the public and the scholarly community in a manner consistent with the mission and purpose of the Foundation to foster the dissemination of educational research. Notwithstanding the foregoing, personally identifiable data and information shall be kept confidential.
The Spencer Foundation reserves the right to review and comment, and in cases where necessary disassociate from the Intellectual Property, in advance of any commercial exploitation of the Intellectual Property by any grantee or investigator, other than publication of works of authorship by commercial publishers.
With respect to works of authorship, grantees and investigators, to the extent the grantee and investigator are legally able to, shall grant to the Spencer Foundation, a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide royalty-free license to use excerpts from such works in both conventional and electronic media for furthering the foundation’s mission. No such excerpt shall exceed 15% of the total length of the work from which it is taken without the prior written consent of the copyright owner. With respect to the licenses granted above, the Spencer Foundation shall consult with the principal investigator prior to using and/or excerpting the works.
