How it works
The home page is the pitch. This is what sits underneath it: what you choose to collect, the two standards of rigor that hold a grant application between them, and the five-step lifecycle that turns one round into a record the next round builds on.
Narrative, instrument, or both
This used to be decided quietly, and you found out which you collected only after the decisions were made. Now it is an explicit choice, made deliberately for each thing you collect.
As a story
As an instrument
Most rounds want both. What is new is that the choice is explicit, made for each thing you collect, so you get a story where you want a story and data where you need data, instead of finding out which you got after the fact.
The rigor sandwich
CRAFT and WALKRI are cross-domain: they bring the same rigor in any domain. CROSS and GRAIN are what that rigor looks like applied to grants.
CRAFT
the meta-standard · cross-domainChains Reveal Attested Falsifiable Truth. Makes a standard itself falsifiable and legible: legibility before refutability, across six conditions. The rigor on whether a standard can be checked at all. Read CRAFT →
CROSS
grants · normativeCommon Reporting Outcome Standards Schema. What a grant round must commit to before applications open: obligation mode, gate types, indicator fields, organizational identity, concurrent-funding disclosure, public benefit mechanism. CRAFT applied to grants. Read CROSS →
GRAIN
grants · abstraction layerGrant Representation And Interchange Notation. The abstraction layer beneath the grants standards: it represents what a grant program is in one common notation, so everything above it, CROSS included, reads the same description the same way. Its building blocks were not invented; each was drawn from real funding programs and kept only if it appeared in more than one independent source. A grant comes apart into these pieces and rebuilds from them. Descriptive, not normative. Read GRAIN →
WALKRI
field and instrument quality · cross-domainWorking Architecture for Legible, Knowable, Reliable Instrumentation. Makes every point of data capture a measurement instead of a label: criterion intent, operational definition, response form, evidence form, conformance threshold. The rigor on whether a field produces data or noise. Read WALKRI →
The bread never changes; only the filling does. CRAFT and WALKRI bring the same rigor in any domain. Whatever domain you work in slots into the middle. Grants is simply the first filling built; swap it out and the bread still holds.
CLEAR
Five steps that close the loop instead of resetting it each round. The shape never changes; what a program declares at each step is what differs.
Commit
Publicly commit to the obligation architecture before any application opens. The public commitment is what everything afterward is checked against. Nothing moves until this is written and published.
List
List the specification publicly and collect structured applications against it. The program lists its obligations; applicants list their projects. WALKRI-conformant intake runs at this stage.
Evaluate
Assess applications against the committed specification. Reviewers work from declared criteria, not impression. Verdicts are instrument-grade.
Attest
Verify delivery against milestone commitments. Evidence submitted, attestation entries written, determinations on record.
Register
Formally register outcomes as Cohort Position. The institutional record that feeds the next round's Commit stage. This is what closes the loop instead of resetting.
The five steps never change. What each program declares at each step is what differs, the decision step (the A) most of all.
Prospective grant
decides by verifying what was delivered
Quadratic funding
decides by splitting a pool by formula
Retroactive program
decides by rewarding work already done
Funding lottery
decides by random draw among the eligible
That is how it works for you. If you want the machinery underneath, the foundations these standards rest on and the six conditions that make CRAFT a standard for standards, that is under the hood.