CATALOG OF FEDERAL DOMESTIC ASSISTANCE (CFDA)

Summary

The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) was a comprehensive database that listed all federal programs available to state and local governments, federally-recognized Indian tribal governments, territories, domestic public, quasi-public, and private profit and nonprofit organizations and institutions. Each program was assigned a unique five-digit CFDA number for identification. In 2018, the CFDA was replaced by SAM.gov's Assistance Listings as part of the government's effort to streamline and modernize federal systems. While the CFDA no longer exists, understanding its historical role is important for comprehending the evolution of federal assistance program management.

Usage Context

Understanding CFDA is important when reviewing historical federal assistance programs, analyzing legacy grant documents, conducting research on the evolution of federal funding systems, or when encountering older academic literature that references CFDA numbers.

Common Confusions

• Students often think CFDA is still the current system for finding federal assistance
• Confusion between CFDA numbers and current Assistance Listing numbers
• Believing that all references to CFDA in older documents are now invalid
• Mixing up CFDA with other federal databases like Grant.gov
• Not understanding that historical CFDA data is still accessible through SAM.gov