ABILITY Corps does not accept outside solicitations. Our grants vary according to type of partnership, reach, social impact and magnitude.

Projects, programs and research funding are chosen that share our theory of substantive change.

Indirect Cost Policy for Sponsored Research

ABILITY Corps (“AC”) is a 501(c)3 non-profit charitable organization working to create a world of inclusion and awareness for people with disabilities – through art, media, housing, employment, and volunteer opportunities. AC achieves this in part by fostering research to understand the diverse and interrelated aspects to better the lives of people with disabilities. At times, AC may contract with or award grants to sponsor specific research to satisfying AC‘s objectives.

Indirect costs are costs incurred by an organization for common or joint objectives and, therefore, cannot be identified readily and specifically with a particular sponsored project.

Indirect costs are sometimes referred to as “overhead costs” and “Facilities and Administrative costs” or F&A costs. Indirect costs are real costs related to overall general operations and maintaining the organization’s infrastructure but are not readily identifiable as belonging to a specific project. As a result, indirect costs are generally stated in research project budgets as a percentage of direct costs.

Payment of indirect costs and overhead seriously limits the amount of work AC can accomplish by reducing the amount of funds available for other projects. Therefore, AC does not pay government-approved indirect cost rates on funds awarded for research projects. It is our preference that research project budgets exclude indirect costs and therefore AC requests cooperation from organizations seeking funding in waiving indirect costs and overhead.

However, to the extent that indirect costs are applicable to a research project budget and cannot be waived by the organization, indirect costs paid by AC shall not exceed 15% of total direct costs. Thus, the 15% rate provided above is the maximum indirect cost rate allowed under AC‘s policy. An organization with an actual indirect cost rate lower than the maximum rate provided above should not increase the funding request to the maximum allowed. AC‘s policy helps ensure furtherance of our charitable purpose.

The research project budget for each grant should reflect all of the direct costs that are required for, and can be tracked directly to, the proposed project. AC reviews each research project budget individually for the appropriateness of the direct costs being requested.