Banned and Trigger Words in Federal Grant Writing in the Trump Administration 2.0

We have entered a new era in federal grant writing. When it comes to federal funding, with the Trump administration there is now a new set of banned and trigger words that can get your grant application immediately disqualified. In this article, we’re going to cover the list of banned words under Trump, including those leaked from the National Science Foundation (NSF), as well as how to replace these words in your grant proposals.

I have always said that grant writing is a word game and the types of words you use play a big part in how you construct a grant. Until the Trump Administration in 2025, though, we have not experienced the sheer elimination of word usage in federal grant guidance before. That’s why grant writing today requires even more attention to the actual words you are using.

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Banned vs Preferred Words in Federal Grant Writing

To put the new banned words into context, we’ve been writing grants for more than 20 years, and we have learned to play the wordsmith game of grant writing. But what is happening today with the Trump administration and banned words is VERY different than the norm.

What is normal: New preferred words or language are often added to federal grant cycles when:

• a new administration starts, 
• societal movements and norms enter into the federal mainstream, and/or
• priorities of the federal government are identified.

Even for foundation grants, we have been training grant writers to connect words with the funding source priority areas, Request for Proposals (RFPs), and website information, so that grant writers mimic funding source language. Then we teach grant writers how to integrate these words into program descriptions in a way that aligns with what the program does.

This ensures that everyone is on the same page with language and what that language means AND helps with consistent language in grant applications.

While we still entirely support this approach, the new wrench for 2025 is the potential sheer number of words to NOT use when applying for federal grants and the leaked banned word lists from some federal agencies.

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National Science Foundation (NSF) Leaked Banned Words List 2025

The NSF came out with a leaked list of banned grant words. Much of this elimination of language is based on Executive Order 14151, “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing.”

Even if the nonprofit client you have does not have explicit DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs, you may have been using certain words that are very common when writing grants and throughout the English language today.

According to our latest information on releases from federal project officers at National Science Foundation, here are words that will trip a wire for more scrutiny (and potential stop order before reviews):

According to Dr. Darby Saxbe, a professor at the University of Southern California, the following words are considered forbidden or banned and will prompt a review at NSF.

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Nonprofits May Respond Differently to Banned Words Under Trump

Do you have to avoid all of these ‘trigger’ or ‘banned’ words?

No. This is a leak from one agency, the National Science Foundation, and may not apply to other agencies.

However, with the breadth of how this is rolling out from one federal agency, we do recommend that nonprofits contact project officers at federal agencies from which they receive federal grant funding.

Some nonprofits and organizations might dig their heels down and not change their usage of words as those words embody their values. 

If they choose to do that, they may just realize they will not get funded with certain types of federal agency grants during the 2025 Trump Administration.

In the future, a different Administration could roll back a lot of these Executive Orders and initiatives.

Some nonprofits and organizations may not even be ready for federal grants, so they may look at applying for foundation or corporate grants at this point in time or sticking with non-federal fundraising and individual donors.

Some nonprofits and organizations may choose to play the federal grant game (some may have to as their funding is already allocated or they are really embedded in federal grant funding) and replace these words with the thought that their missions can continue but they may have to change words and approaches to get funding.

There is no right or wrong way with how organizations may want to approach this. 

If you are looking at how to initially re-word some programs, there are a few different ways you can seek to find the ‘right’ word.

Know that even if your words don’t trip the wire for scrutiny the primary essence of your program might.

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2025 Federal Grant Banned Words: Start With Synonyms

Using synonyms in grant proposals and budgets is not new! For example, in the past, we have recommended switching out the word ‘marketing’ to ‘awareness’ for your budget categories. With this, there is a shift of how you position ‘distribution materials’ about your programs. 

It’s more of finding synonyms to switch out the approach to language without changing the end result or impact. If you want to jump to quickly using synonyms to replace banned words, download our free 2025 Federal Grant Trigger Word Replacement Checklist.

Note: Synonyms May Not Be Enough for All Federal Grant Applications

Some nonprofit programs, even if you change words, may still get denied because of the nature of your mission or programs. Even if your program got to the review panel process it might be blocked. 

For example, if your nonprofit provides pro-choice counseling and you replace words to showcase a program that doesn’t get initially flagged, when it reaches the grant review panel, it could get immediately denied because of the overall nature of the grant in opposition to a certain Executive Order. 

This might mean that alternative forms of grants (such as foundation grants) might be a better use of your time than applying for certain federal grants. 

But if you are writing grants, and have been using words that have been prioritized in past Administrations but now will be trip-wired, how do you know what those words are or how to replace them?

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Replace Banned Words Using Synonyms from ChatGPT

I ran all the words from the NSF trigger word list through ChatGPT to find alternative words. While this was helpful to get ideas, it was not entirely efficient.

What I did was insert the list of ‘forbidden’ or banned words from NSF leaked words into ChatGPT, alongside some of the new Executive Order Against DEI and OMB Memo-25-13. Then I had it list alternate words that did not conflict with the NSF ‘forbidden’ words, EOs, and OMB-M-25-13.

OMB-M-25-13 was rescinded, but I still utilized this in ChatGPT, as there is language in that memo that implicates the types of programs and language that the Trump Administration is looking to reduce or erase.

Scroll down to see the full list of suggested synonyms.

ChatGPT had a difficult time finding synonyms for many of the banned words. For example, ChatGPT kept replacing ‘female’ with ‘woman’ and vice versa. The fact that both of these descriptor words were included in the banned word list meant that this type of word is hard to communicate. 

Some of the alternatives ChatGPT suggested are helpful, though. For example, you could change ‘socioeconomic’ to ‘financial conditions.’

Overall, an erasure of words impacts grant writers abilities to clearly explain or describe simple facts or needs for nonprofit organizations. This results in potentially having to succumb to ‘clunky’ language to get the point across.

Language erasure is overall not a positive trend as reflected in colonialism and the impact on endangering languages of a culture and linguistic imperialism.

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Links Mentioned in the Podcast on Federal Grant Banned Words

Freelance Grant Writer Academy

Download the Trigger Word Replacement Workbook

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