Planning a grant funded program

← All Insights

1. A program nobody has asked for

A capacity building program is not a sale. The United States decides that a partner should have a capability, funds it from its own appropriations, and gives the equipment and training away. That reversal changes who does the planning, and it creates a problem the manual has to solve: what the partner may be told while the decision is still being made.

Planning runs on the military calendar rather than a customer request. "Most BPC case and training grant planning occur in conjunction with annual geographic Combatant Command (CCMD) SC planning" (SAMM C15.2.5), organized through regional and partner working groups and recorded in a theater plan.

Events break the cycle. Crises, targeted appropriations and similar developments can force planning to start outside the annual process, and two named authorities run their own coordination cycles anyway (SAMM C15.2.5). What these programs are is covered in what building partner capacity is.

2. The document chain behind a requirement

Requirements come out of a structured planning process rather than a wish list. An initiative "comprises multiple SC activities planned over multiple years in support of a specific SC objective" (SAMM C15.2.5.1), and it carries two required documents.

The first measures whether it worked. "A PMP outlines objective statements, monitoring indicators, and baseline data for SSCI objectives, long-term and short-term outcomes, outputs, and activities" (SAMM C15.2.5.1). Inside it sits a chain of reasoning: "The PMP includes an Objective Tree, a logic model that ties activities to specific objectives at the SSCI, National Defense Strategy (NDS) and Theater Campaign Plan (TCP) levels" (SAMM C15.2.5.1).

The second turns the objective into something buyable. Each objective requires a design document that "identifies the programs, projects, and activities over a three-to-five-year period in sufficient detail to ensure that IAs have the information needed to source appropriate defense articles and services" (SAMM C15.2.5.1).

The phase ends with a request package that the implementing agency can actually execute within its funding and timeline, prepared with support from the embassy office, the command, the agency and the policy staff (SAMM C15.2.5.1). The authority behind the largest of these programs is described in the Section 333 authority.

3. Talking to a partner about something not yet approved

The embassy office has to gather information from the partner without creating an expectation. The instruction is unambiguous. "The SCO must clearly communicate during any engagement with the Benefitting Partner that planning discussions do not in any way imply or guarantee USG assistance" (SAMM C15.2.5.2).

The manual then says it again in five words: "Proposed U.S. assistance for a partner is not guaranteed" (SAMM C15.2.5.2). And it names the thing a partner would find hardest to hear: "Prior to title transfer, the USG may opt to divert proposed assistance to a different Benefitting Partner" (SAMM C15.2.5.2). Right up to the moment ownership changes, the equipment can go somewhere else.

What the office is allowed to ask about is broad. The partner can describe the threat as it sees it, existing capability and capacity, inventory, its logistics and lifecycle chain, its concept of operations, and any further security requirements (SAMM C15.2.5.2.1).

One answer is compulsory. The partner representatives "must confirm budget availability and the ability to support and sustain any BPC provided articles and services under consideration" (SAMM C15.2.5.2.1). Free equipment still has to be affordable to keep.

4. What must not cross the table

Against that openness sits a hard line on internal material. "SCOs must not share internal USG correspondence or information about internal USG discussions regarding BPC requirements and pre-decisional information with Benefitting Partner representatives" (SAMM C15.2.5.3).

That covers most of what a partner would most like to know: which options are being weighed, what the command has recommended, where the money might come from. None of it is shareable before a decision.

The office also does practical work at the far end, helping the partner through customs and security and arranging final delivery and title transfer once the articles and services are available (SAMM C15.2.5.2.2). How a case of this kind runs and closes is set out in how a BPC case runs and closes.

5. The sentence the manual wrote for them

Rather than leave officers to improvise, the manual publishes approved wording for discussing potential grant assistance with a partner. It is worth reading closely, because every clause is doing defensive work.

It opens by making the whole thing conditional: "Contingent upon notification and approval by U.S. Congress, the U.S. Department of Defense is considering providing 10 U.S.C. 333 grant assistance to [Partner] to support [mission area]" (SAMM C15.2.5.4). Notification is covered in congressional notification of arms sales.

It then restricts who may use the equipment. "The [equipment] would be transferred to [unit], and [unit] alone would be legally allowed to operate [equipment]" (SAMM C15.2.5.4). The named unit is the recipient, not the armed forces generally.

Next it lists what the partner must provide: transport from the delivery point to the site, installation, and upgrades to facilities needed to support the equipment (SAMM C15.2.5.4). That is the paragraph in which a gift becomes a project with a local bill attached.

Then it hands over the running costs. "After the initial provision of [equipment] and an [x]-year spares package, the operation and maintenance of the [equipment] is the responsibility of [Partner]" (SAMM C15.2.5.4), with long term sustainment the same.

It closes with a statutory condition that is not optional and not negotiable: "the U.S. is required by U.S. law to conduct human rights training, assessment, monitoring and evaluation, and instructional capacity building in conjunction with the provision of equipment and training" (SAMM C15.2.5.4).

6. What a supplier can take from this

The interesting work on these programs happens years before a contract exists, inside a planning cycle that produces a design document naming programs, projects and activities across three to five years. A company that understands the objective behind the initiative is reading the same logic the requirement was built from.

Two practical points follow from the approved language. The local tail is the partner responsibility: transport inland, installation and facility upgrades, then operation and maintenance after the spares package runs out. That is exactly the space where a supplier or a support provider is needed, and it is not funded by the grant.

And nothing is settled until title transfers. Assistance can be redirected to another partner up to that point, which is a real planning risk for anyone staging people or facilities in advance of a delivery.

Key terms

Benefitting partner	The country receiving the assistance. Not a purchaser, and not a party to the case.
Performance monitoring plan	The document setting objectives, indicators and baseline data, including the objective tree that links activity to strategy.
Initiative design document	The three to five year plan detailed enough for an implementing agency to source articles and services against.
Pre-decisional information	Internal discussion of requirements, which may never be shared with the partner.

Every statement above links to the document behind it. The full source list for this piece is on the sources page.

This page describes public United States government programs for general information. It is not legal, regulatory or procurement advice, and it does not address the facts of any particular case.

How Sentfore supports this

Equipment given rather than sold still arrives in the same places and needs the same support. Sentfore works at the delivery end of defense programs in difficult environments, providing secure movement, protective security, facilities and life support. Requirements can be sent through the contact page.