Professional Ethics and Standards Flashcards
7 cards from real Grant Writing practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Professional Ethics and Standards flashcards as text
A grant writer is asked to sign a letter of intent on behalf of an organization claiming that a community partner has already agreed to collaborate. The partner has only had a preliminary conversation. This is:
Answer: Unethical because it misrepresents the status of the partnership
Claiming confirmed partnerships that do not yet exist misrepresents organizational capacity and violates the ethical standard of truthfulness in all grant materials.
Under the Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200), what is an unallowable cost that grant writers must help organizations avoid?
Answer: Lobbying activities conducted with federal grant funds
Federal regulations prohibit using federal grant funds for lobbying activities, and grant writers must ensure proposed budgets exclude such unallowable costs.
When two former colleagues ask a grant writer to review each other's competing proposals for the same grant, the most ethical response is to:
Answer: Decline to review either proposal to avoid any conflict of interest
Reviewing competing proposals simultaneously creates an unavoidable conflict of interest and the ethical action is to decline involvement with both.
What is the primary ethical concern with 'proposal mills' that sell pre-written generic grant applications?
Answer: They present another organization's work and misrepresent organizational capacity
Generic pre-written proposals misrepresent the applying organization's actual programs and capacity, and submitting them as original work is a form of deception toward funders.
A grant writer learns that their client submitted a final report with fabricated outcome data to a major foundation. The grant writer's ethical obligation includes:
Answer: Advising the client to self-disclose the error to the funder and correct it
When aware of fraud or significant misrepresentation, grant professionals should advise the client to self-disclose and may need to withdraw from the engagement if the client refuses.
Which statement about grant writers and intellectual property is most accurate?
Answer: Work created for hire typically means the commissioning organization owns the grant materials
Grant proposals created as work-for-hire belong to the commissioning organization, not the grant writer, unless a different arrangement is explicitly negotiated in the contract.
How should a grant writer handle a situation where a nonprofit's executive director instructs them to inflate the number of program beneficiaries in a federal grant application?
Answer: Refuse to include false data and document the refusal in writing
Inflating beneficiary numbers in a federal application constitutes grant fraud; the grant writer must refuse and should document the refusal to protect themselves professionally.