Project Administration

The following information is provided to assist Project Directors with meeting the contractual obligations of grants awarded by the North Central Center. Sections are provided for award management topics including Funding Acknowledgement & Logo Requirements, Invoicing, Budget Revisions, Extension Requests, Change of Project Director and the ERME Retrospective Evaluation Requirement. Please contact the North Central Center with any questions regarding this information.

Funding Acknowledgement and Logo Requirements

While your grant has been awarded by the North Central Center, the funding is ultimately from USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). The regulations governing the use of these federal funds require that the following acknowledgement of support and logos be utilized in all promotional materials, presentations, media releases, and project materials developed for programming funding by this grant:

Statement for Meat & Poultry Processing Awards
"This material is based upon work supported by USDA/NIFA under Award Number 2022-70419-38561."

Statement for  2023 and 2022 Awards
"This material is based upon work supported by USDA/NIFA under Award Number 2021-70027-34694."

Statement for 2021, 2020 and 2019 Awards
"This material is based upon work supported by USDA/NIFA under Award Number 2018-70027-28586."

The USDA/NIFA logo and the North Central Extension Risk Management Education logo must both be used on all printed materials, including those produced in electronic format. Please utilize whatever size best fits your printed/electronic material.

To use the North Central Center logo, please visit the following links and right click to save a PNG version of the logo to your desktop.

North Central logo – Scarlet
North Central logo – Black
North Central logo – White

NCERME Logo


To use the NIFA logo
, please visit: https://nifa.usda.gov/resource/official-nifa-identifier and use the identifier “as-is”. Please refer to the webpage for additional formats and specific details.

NIFA Logo

An all-inclusive Funding Acknowledgement Image is available that includes the statement and both logos:

Insert the image at full size on its own slide for PowerPoint presentations, or feel free to utilize in other documents.

If space prevents the use of logos on your materials, the following statement should be used:

 “Funding for this project was provided by the North Central Extension Risk Management Education Center, the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture under Award Number (insert appropriate award number from above), and (list other funding sources if applicable).”

Invoicing Procedures

  • All invoices must correlate to your plan of work and follow the budget and budget narrative that was set forth in your application and include the current and cumulative amounts requested by budget line item.
  • Invoices should be submitted monthly or quarterly and should be a minimum of $500 (except for final invoice), otherwise the invoice will be held until the total requested amount is at least $500. Waiting to submit an invoice over longer periods of time could result in payment being delayed or withheld if there is lack of sufficient documentation.
  • Invoices must include the assigned 13-digit sub-award number (25-6324-xxxx-xxx) found on the first page of the agreement – “Sub award No.”
  • Invoices must include a Certification Statement with signature.”Invoice Certification Statement
  • Invoices should include a detailed itemization of expenditures produced from the sub-recipient’s accounting system. The itemization shall include, at a minimum, names/amounts of persons paid from this award, vendor payee name, date of payment, item description and amount.
  • Detailed receipts may be requested.
  • Accumulative total of all invoices should not exceed 85% of the grant funds awarded unless a final report has been submitted. ***Invoices that are submitted bringing the total remaining balance to less than 15% will be held until the final report has been submitted.
  • Email invoices to:
    University of Nebraska-Lincoln
    Attn: Kathi Malone
    Office of Sponsored Programs
    151 Whittier Research Center
    2200 Vine Street – P.O. Box 830861
    Lincoln, NE 68583-0861
    kmalone2@unl.edu

 

A generic Sample Invoice showing the basic elements necessary for the invoice minus supporting documentation can be viewed here.

Budget Revisions

Please contact the North Central Center for consultation if you believe that a revision to your approved budget may be necessary. You may contact either Brad Lubben (blubben2@unl.edu) or Christine Lockert (clockert2@unl.edu). Justification for the change in budget and a revised budget will be required.

Change of Project Director

The Project Director is responsible for the entire project. This includes project management, subcontracting, funds oversight, meeting project time schedules, reporting progress and submitting the final report. A change in project director designation requires approval from the Director of the North Central Center. The existing project director must send a letter to the Center Director requesting the change. Additionally, the newly designated project director must provide a CV and a letter which states his/her qualifications for assuming the responsibilities associated with the project.

The signed and dated letters must be written on the letterhead of the Project Director’s organization and addressed to: Dr. Bradley Lubben, Director, North Central Extension Risk Management Education Center, 303 Filley Hall, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583-0922. Failure to notify the Center of a change in Project Director designation could result in payment being withheld and/or de-obligation of any unexpended funds remaining under the grant.

ERME Retrospective Evaluation Requirement

In order to assess and document educational impacts across the ERME project portfolio, Project Directors are required to conduct a brief retrospective evaluation.

ERME has developed a specific format that all projects should follow to prepare a retrospective evaluation assessing changes in understanding/knowledge for each area of risk covered by the project. There should be a separate question (5 maximum) for each risk area (production, marketing, financial, legal or human) as determined by the topic areas you select within your table of Proposed Results. The evaluation should be conducted at the end of the project’s workshop(s) or training series.

Please review the ERME Retrospective Evaluation Training presentation slides for more information.