Review the definitions for administrative terms you may come across in a grant application from the City of Austin Heritage Tourism Division. For a full list of terms relating to your specific program, refer to the following City of Austin webpages, which also include program guidelines and other helpful information:
- Heritage Preservation Grant – Heritage Tourism Division
Types of Artistic/Cultural Enterprises
Museum / Art Gallery: Facility whose primary function and mission is to exhibit, present, or sell artistic work in a variety of media. Artwork must be produced by an artist, artist collective, or arts and culture organization and accessible by public audiences.
Performance Venue / Theater: An establishment whose primary function and mission is to present live performances, plays, live music, film screenings, or other performances of artistic work produced by an artist, or arts and culture organization, accessible by public audiences.
Grant Program Related Definitions
Account Holder: This is a term used by Submittable to describe the person who owns the Submittable Account, and is responsible for starting, submitting, and administering an application or grant award.
Audience Served: The general audience, community groups, neighborhoods, attendees, tourists, and individuals supported by an applicant’s proposed activities.
Authorizing Official: The individual who holds authorizing power over a project or grant award. This is the person who will sign a grant contract.
Bids: A project bid is a formal estimate made by a contractor, subcontractor, and/or vendor on a project proposal. The project bid should include cost, description, timeframe, contracting roles, scope of the work that will be performed. For capital projects, bids should also include materials and how the proposal will meet the Secretary of Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties. Project bids are required to be used to develop the project budget. NOTE: Project bid prices may change over time. Please plan accordingly.
City of Austin Council District: The City of Austin is made up of ten single-member districts. To determine where address is located, go to https://www.austintexas.gov/GIS/CouncilDistrictMap/ and click “I Want to…” then click “Find my Council District”.
City of Austin Fiscal Year: The City of Austin Fiscal Year runs from October 1st through September 30th of the following year. For example, the City of Austin Fiscal Year 2024 is October 1, 2023, through September 30, 2024.
Creative Collaborator/Collaborator: A creative contributor that has a share in the creative direction of the project or proposal. This term is also used to reference anyone coming in to support the main applicant in Submittable.
Creative Spaces: Commercial locations that include both for profit and nonprofit creative businesses including live music venues, recording studios, performance venues/theaters, museums, art galleries, etc.
Extra Territorial Jurisdiction (ETJ): The unincorporated area that is contiguous to the corporate boundaries of Austin and is located within five miles of those boundaries. Use this map to determine if a location is located in Austin Full Purpose and/or Austin ETJ.
Grant Writer: Grant writers are hired professionals who complete grant applications on behalf of organizations or individuals to procure financial assistance. They may also assist entities with identifying grants that are appropriate for them, and structuring a plan to secure that funding.
Heritage tourism: The National Trust for Historic Preservation defines heritage tourists as those who travel to experience the places, artifacts, and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present.
Marketing: All costs for marketing, publicity, and/or promotion specifically identified with the activity. Include costs directly related to promotion, publicity, or advertising.
MBE/WBE: Minority Owned Business Enterprise & Women-Owned Business Enterprise
Municipal Hotel Occupancy Taxes: As outlined in State of Texas Statute Chapter 351, municipalities are authorized to charge a tax of up to 7% on individuals staying overnight in hotels or other accommodations, which creates revenue that must be used for one of nine allowable uses, including the promotion of the arts and to “promote tourism and the convention and hotel industry.”
Non-profit organization: An organization with tax-exempt status that is certified by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as a 501(c)(3) organization which ensures no part of net earnings benefits a private individual.
Preservation: Focuses on the maintenance and repair of existing historic materials and retention of a property’s form as it has evolved over time.
Publicity: Publicity means the manner, method, timing and content of all efforts to generate public knowledge of, understanding of, and interest in the Project, including but not limited to any interviews, flyers, brochures, posters, mailings, advertisements, emails, social media postings, blog postings, electronic communications or presentations of any type, live or prerecorded television or other video presentations or commercials, radio interviews or advertisements, and any other publications of any other kind and in any medium.
Rehabilitation: Acknowledges the need to alter or add to a historic property to meet continuing or changing uses while retaining the property’s historic character.
Reconstruction: Re-creates vanished or non-surviving portions of a property for interpretive purposes.
Restoration: Depicts a property at a particular period of time in its history, while removing evidence of other periods.
The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties: Guidelines for preserving, rehabilitating, restoring, and reconstructing historic buildings. For more information visit The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties guidelines.
Tourist: An individual who travels from the individual’s residence to a different municipality, county, state, or country for pleasure, recreation, education, or culture (Texas State Tax Code Chapter 351(p.1)).
Visitor: An individual traveler that stays overnight away from home in paid or unpaid accommodations, or a day visitor that travels at least fifty miles one-way from home on a non-routine trip.
For-Profit Business Entity Definitions
Corporation: A legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners. Under the law, corporations possess many of the same rights and responsibilities as individuals. They can enter contracts, loan and borrow money, sue and be sued, hire employees, own assets, and pay taxes.
LLC – A Limited liability company (LLC): A business structure that offers limited liability protection and pass-through taxation. As with corporations, the LLC legally exists as a separate entity from its owners. Therefore, owners cannot typically be held personally responsible for the business debts and liabilities.
Partnership: An arrangement between two or more people to oversee business operations and share its profits and liabilities. In a general partnership company, all members share both profits and liabilities.
S-Corp – S corporations: Corporations that elect to pass corporate income, losses, deductions, and credits through to their shareholders for federal tax purposes.
Sole-Proprietorship: An enterprise owned exclusively by one natural person and in which there is no legal distinction between the owner and the business entity.
Not for Profit Business Entity Definitions
Non-profit: An organization that qualifies for tax-exempt status by the IRS because its mission and purpose are to further a social cause and provide a public benefit.
Trust: A relationship in which one person holds title to property, subject to an obligation to keep or use the property for the benefit of another.