Grant management for nonprofits: top 6 best practices

Grant management is often overlooked and underappreciated.

But here's the thing: managing your grants is crucial to diversifying your funding streams and contributing to the sustainability of your organization. And, with the right grant management system in place, you can save time and energy for more impactful activities. This article will discuss six best practices in nonprofit grant management that will help you successfully manage your grant funding.

The nonprofit grant management process

Before establishing best practices for the grant management process, let’s take a quick overview of what the grant process entails for a nonprofit organization.

Identifying grant opportunities

During your search for funding -- whether through the government, charities, or community organizations -- start small and expand from there. Look for local grantmaking organizations to improve your grant readiness, hone your grant writing skills, and demonstrate your ability to responsibly manage grant funds. Once you’ve narrowed your list, start by getting familiar with the requirements of the grants, making sure you meet those requirements, and assembling all the items you need to apply.

Writing your grant proposal

Knowing where you’re going is just as important as getting there; the grant writing process is no exception. You will want to create a project plan that outlines the steps required to create and assemble all the elements required for a successful grant proposal. Some basic elements of a grant proposal include an executive summary, statement of need, project description, budget, organizational information, and an evaluation plan. Getting input from program directors and your finance team as you develop the proposal is key to success.

Submitting your grant proposal

After you have included all the necessary information in your grant proposal, make sure to submit it correctly. While all grantmakers are different, it’s best practice to consider the following:

Read the Request for proposal (RFP) and Funding opportunity announcements (FOA) carefully for the requirements and expectations
Ensure your organization is eligible to apply
Follow the format and content requirements (page limits, font size, formatting, etc.)
Understand the evaluation criteria to tailor your application to these guidelines.

Following up after submission

Once your proposal is submitted, track its status with the grantmaker. Get a receipt for your submission, track its progress with spreadsheets or software, and provide more information if needed.

Managing your awarded grant

Upon reward, your team will begin managing the grant. It is important to have a good grant management system in place. Grant management includes document, task, and financial management, as well as budgeting, auditing, spend down tracking and compliance. Having a streamlined and integrated system can make the process easier and more efficient.

Grant management best practices for nonprofits

The work of a nonprofit can be taxing, even before you add grants into the mix. So it is imperative that you utilize efficient systems and best practices to help you manage the entire grant process - from finding potential funders and managing grant deadlines to tracking grant spend down and completing funder reports. Here are six best practices in grant management to consider:

Create a grant tracking list or calendar

A grant calendar can help you and your organization stay on track. It should remind you of your funder’s proposal deadlines and help you submit your grant reports on time.

Many ways exist to track your grants. Your grant calendar may consist of a whiteboard or wall calendar, a shared Outlook or Google calendar, a task management system, spreadsheets, or a grant management solution like GrantHub that ties all these pieces into one cohesive system. No matter what system you use, make sure it is effective by meeting these criteria:

Everyone has visibility to upcoming deadlines.
Task owners receive reminders when items are coming due.
Everyone on the grant team can see their upcoming deadlines and easily access grant documents.
You have a process to keep adding new opportunities to your calendar.
Your plan always reflects recurring funding opportunities. .
Seamless communication of your grant plan, progress and results.

At the start of your grant efforts, a manual process and applications you already have on hand may work. However, once you start receiving more grants, you may find that you spend more time maintaining your solution than focusing on building relationships with funders and engaging in other fundraising activities. Be sure to reassess your grant management tools regularly so they can grow with you.

Organize your funders and grant history

Tracking key information about funders you work with is considered best practice. At best, this information resides in someone’s email folders or, at worst, in their head. This puts your organization’s fundraising capabilities at risk. It is vital that you document key contact information, past results, and funding priorities to make it accessible to those who need the information. In our research, we found that the following items were most important to track:

Funder name
Website link and other key contact info
Link to their 990s
EIN
Areas they fund
Typical funding range
Funder type
Social media links
Notes of past conversations
A list of your past grant history with them

Having quick access to details on your past, present, and future grant requests is a key part of grant management. Keeping track of funding request dates is crucial for maintaining a sustainable grant practice. It can help you avoid falling behind, missing deadlines, and losing out on funding opportunities. Our research found that it was helpful to track:

Grant name
Status
Funder
Funder program
Contact at the funder
Who wrote the grant
Proposal / LOI deadlines
Requested amount
Targeted program/restrictions
Application method/details
Date submitted
Decision date
Amount awarded
Grant term
Notes about the grant
Easy access to all the grant documents associated with this grant

Build trusting relationships with your grantors

Creating and keeping relationships is important for any organization, including the ones you have with your grantor. Keeping your grantor updated and staying honest about the challenges you face throughout your project builds a trusting rapport.

Invite donors to events and share success stories of grant recipients to show your organization's values. Most organizations post public calendars with events and fundraisers; consider attending some events to show them you’re as dedicated to their mission as yours.

To keep your relationship strong, track your progress and show proof of your achievements. Delivering on your project’s goals is an important step in securing potential future funding. Finally, leverage your success by showcasing your efficiency and the impact of your work.

Coordinate your grant team responsibilities while staying on schedule

A grant management solution can keep you on track, highlight tasks that might be behind schedule, and remind team members of upcoming items that are coming due. Quickly seeing what is coming up in the next two weeks or a high-level view by month is critical to keeping the process running smoothly.

Grant management solutions track important deadlines and send email reminders when they are approaching. This can be a great time-saver for the person organizing all the elements of a grant proposal and responsible for the final submission. Spending less time reminding people and more time on finding new funders, writing more powerful proposals, and nurturing relationships with funders is a good tradeoff. If you don’t have a grant management solution, ensure you have an organized approach to tracking all the requirements for a successful proposal and who is responsible. Doing so helps you weed out funders who are not a great fit for your organization, which saves you lots of time if caught early in the process.

Assemble a library of boilerplates and supporting documents

Spend time making sure you and your organization are "grant-ready." There are several grant-ready resources available. Find one you like and use it to ensure you have all your ducks in a row. It is estimated that you can complete up to 80 percent of the effort in creating a funding proposal before knowing which funder you will be applying to. Having this work done upfront helps you complete more applications in less time. And the time saved can then be spent on higher-value activities that will set your proposal apart from others.

An answer library is a place where you can collect important documents, templates, boilerplates, and answers to common questions. If it is online, everyone on your grant team can easily locate, access, and use the best and most current information for their grant work. That way, you don’t have to hunt to find past applications, copy and paste, and risk sending something outdated to the wrong funder. And, if everyone has access to the repository, you can control the content but don’t have to be the bottleneck in distributing it to those who also need these items.

Now, when you sit down to write, you will have all the ingredients easily accessible. Or, if you have an intern or other supporting help, they can utilize these resources to compile the first draft for you. An answer library can help streamline the development and writing of your proposals.

Internally report on your progress at key intervals

You should also be prepared to pull together summary reports that can effectively communicate the current status and progress of your grantseeking efforts to your organization and board. Depending on the type of grant management solution you use, this can take a few clicks or potentially hours of time manipulating spreadsheets every time you need to report.

Once you start reporting on particular metrics, you can tune your grant-tracking process to be more timely and consistently track the information needed to create those reports. A common question is, "What types of grant status reports and metrics should I start with?" In our research on the metrics grantseekers most often wish to report on, we found that reporting on grants by status (planned, in progress, pending, awarded, denied, etc.) was the most common report. Other commonly sought metrics and reports included Grant Win Percentage, Upcoming Grant Deadlines by Month, and Top Funders by Program reports.

Learn how Foundant can Streamline Grant Management for Your Nonprofit

When you are prepared, organized, and have the data you need, you can be depended upon to provide your organization with solid advice. Your system can also help you become recognized as a knowledgeable grant professional, increasing the power of your recommendations. An effective grant management process also helps show the results of your efforts and investments and supports your need to make data-driven decisions. If you want to get the best return on your grantseeking efforts, you will want to use tools and processes that help save time and increase the amount of funding you receive.

Find out how Foundant Technologies gives you the tools you need to save valuable time and focus on your organization's future.

This piece was made in partnership with willowpeak consulting