Coefficient Giving maintains a policy that limits indirect costs (‘overhead’) as follows: For universities and community colleges: maximum 10% rate, i.e. indirect costs may not exceed 10% of total direct costs. The primary grantee may not charge indirect costs on amounts transferred to subgrantees or subcontractors.
Coefficient Giving defines indirect costs as expenses related to the general operations and administration of an organization, which are not directly allocated to or identified with a specific project.
Sample Calculation
To explain how our indirect costs policy works, here’s a sample calculation.
Let’s say you want to request a $110 grant and your indirect costs are $10. This would fit exactly within our policy, since the direct costs (direct costs = total – indirect costs) are $100, and the indirect costs are 10/100 = 10%.
However, if the total grant amount was $100 including indirect costs of $10, then that would be too high, since the direct costs would be $90, and 10/90 = ~11%.