Grant tracking beginner's guide for grantseekers and grantmakers

Foundant Technologies

The federal government awards over $500 billion annually as grants for different projects and programs.

These funds are intended for specific purposes or goals and have controls to prevent abuse, waste, and fraud. Federal grants are subject to certain regulations, oversight, and audits to ensure accountability and transparency. Privately provided funds, similarly, must meet contractual reporting requirements.

However, while adhering to these controls, many organizations contend with manual methods, outdated systems, and workflow bottlenecks that impact grant tracking and management. Efficient fund management is crucial, as it impacts ongoing and future funding opportunities.

In this guide, discover simple strategies grantseekers and grantmakers can employ to ensure effective fund tracking.

What is grant tracking?

Grant tracking is the process of monitoring and recording a grant’s progress, from the initial application to the final reporting. It encompasses every detail, including application status, allocations, milestones, compliance, impact measurements, and reporting.

The tracking process is different for grantseekers and grantmakers.

Grantseekers focus on managing various applications, deadlines, and compliance. They track the status of their grant proposal, use of funds, and documentation—ensuring they or their organization meet all criteria for successful submission and potential grant funding.

On the other hand, grantmakers track the funds they’ve awarded to ensure they’re distributed and used as intended. They also monitor the grantee performance, grant outcomes, and compliance to ensure the funds achieve the desired impact.

Why is grant tracking important?

Effective grant tracking offers multiple benefits, from improved organization to increased transparency.

For grantseekers:

Improved organization: Grantees can easily monitor the statuses of different applications and the use of allocations, better ensuring efficiency and compliance.
Reduced missed deadlines: Tracking tools feature calendars, reminders, and checklists to improve administration and reduce the risk of missed deadlines and other preparatory concerns.
Increased funding opportunities: Effective tracking is proof of successful grant lifecycle management, helping to make more funding opportunities available.

For grantmakers:

Accountability: Tracking ensures responsible use of the awarded funds and adherence to the grant requirements.
Transparency: Tracking standardizes processes for effective monitoring and financial reporting, providing easier access to information and improved data security.
Streamlined reporting: It consolidates operations and data, making it simple for grantmakers to generate financial and performance reports.

Generally, tracking offers grantseekers and grantmakers greater visibility into their respective processes, enhancing grant management and decision-making.

Key components of effective grant tracking

When deploying a grant tracking strategy, organizations must consider key components.

Grant application management

A structured approach to managing grant applications is vital for maximizing success rates and staying organized. Tracking platforms or efforts help grantseekers keep a record of applications, including submission dates, statuses, and requirements. The system allows grantmakers to track submission deadlines, reporting schedules, and renewal opportunities.

Budget monitoring and financial reporting

Financial management is an essential component of grant tracking. It allows entities to review spending and allocations to ensure they align with approved budgets, preventing overspending or underutilization. Grantseekers must collect data from all teams and generate detailed financial reports for internal review and submission to grantmakers.

Compliance

Grants have unique terms, conditions, and regulations to ensure accountability and transparency. Grantseekers must understand the grant compliance requirements and other stipulations, including reporting formats, timelines, and usage restrictions. They must also develop a process for monitoring grant terms, such as reporting deadlines and documentation, to ensure compliance, credibility, and eligibility.

Communication and documentation

Effective grant tracking requires organized communication and documentation to foster accountability and collaboration. Grantseekers must regularly coordinate with team members, partners, and grantmakers to provide updates and feedback. Organizations must implement a central system for storing reports, proposals, and other grant-related documents for easy access and a clear audit trail.

How to create a grant tracking process

Here are straightforward steps on how to step up an effective grant-tracking process.

1. Define goals and needs

Grantseekers and grantmakers must identify their needs and define clear goals to create a success roadmap.

For example, an organization’s needs can include:

Tracking grant application deadlines
Monitoring fund disbursements
Ensuring compliance with grant terms

Define measurable and reasonable objectives for the process; examples include reducing missed deadlines and improving application success rates.

2. Choose the right tools

Besides an effective strategy, grant tracking requires dedicated tools for streamlined, effortless monitoring. Manual and generic applications like spreadsheets are ineffective and quickly become disorganized. Instead, organizations must consider investing in grant management software to consolidate operations, monitor grants, and stay organized.

Here are key factors to consider when selecting a tool:

Usability and customization: The software must have a user-friendly, intuitive design to foster adoption. It should also support customizations to adapt it to existing processes and workflows.
Scalability: The right tool must support increasing business needs, users, and workloads as the organization grows. It should adapt to such changes without impacting performance or needing additional investments.
Integrations: Ensure the tool supports integrations with financial management software or CRM systems to avoid manual data entry and siloed operations. Integrations can improve decision-making and communication.
Support and training availability: The vendor must provide enough support and training to address issues—along with a knowledgeable support team with experience in grant management. Ensure the tool has built-in support or tutorials to help with onboarding.

Grantseekers and grantmakers must analyze their needs and workflows to find the right solution. They should work with different stakeholders to pick a tool that offers all the key features, such as reporting, reminders, compliance, pre-award research, and budgeting.

3. Organize data

Creating a central repository for grant-related documents, reports, applications, and other information is vital. Categorize the data by timeline, project, grantmaker, or grant to facilitate access and tracking and prevent simple errors. This provides an invaluable resource for future reference and creates an audit trail to support compliance.

4. Set milestones and alerts

Grants come with tight deadlines for application or proposal submissions. Every team member must note key dates and deadlines to ensure timely and successful submissions.

To that end, nonprofits must establish milestones for key tasks like application submission and fund disbursement. Use automated reminders or alerts to stay on top of deadlines and tasks.

5. Train team members

Organizations must train their teams to ensure they have the necessary skills to track the grant process, ensure compliance, and optimize the utilization of grant resources. This training should cover reporting, data entry, communication, compliance, and budget monitoring. Offer training on the selected tools and systems and encourage open communication to address challenges or questions.

6. Evaluate and optimize your process

A grant tracking process isn’t fixed—it can be improved to ensure value and boost efficiency. To that end, organizations must assess their processes regularly to identify bottlenecks and improvement opportunities. Collect feedback from team members on the workflows, organization, and tools, making adjustments to reflect new changes, team input, and requirements.

Leveraging technology for grant tracking

Tracking and managing grants is a complex process, and using manual or outdated systems like spreadsheets only aggravates it. Instead, nonprofit organizations should leverage grant management software to streamline and automate grant tracking.

Grant management software solutions offer multiple benefits, including:

Application tracking: Software enables grantseekers to monitor the progress of applications from submission to approval.
Detailed reporting and analytics: It provides access to analytics and reports, allowing teams to measure performance, identify bottlenecks, make sound decisions, and improve grant outcomes.
Automated alerts: Software solutions provide notifications and reminders to help teams stay on top of deadlines, essential tasks, and key events or actions.
Compliance: Software technology automates compliance, saving organizations time and resources. The software has built-in compliance tools to monitor risks and alert managers if necessary.
Collaboration: Grant management software consolidates all operations and communications on a single platform, making it easy for team members to collaborate, share files, assign tasks, and stay up-to-date on grant progress.

Notably, grant software solutions integrate data from multiple sources, including CRM systems, financial management tools, and grant databases. This results in a centralized system that provides a unified view of grant information, streamlines workflows, and reduces data redundancy.

Ready to explore grant management software?

Effective grant tracking is crucial for efficient grant administration by both grantseekers and grantmakers. It offers a structured approach to monitoring all aspects of grants, ensuring successful applications, compliance, and detailed financial reporting.

Implementing it isn’t difficult.

Organizations simply need to identify their needs, organize data, and train team members to deploy the right public and foundation grant management strategies. They can optimize the process based on user feedback and new requirements to make it more impactful and efficient.

Then, power the process with the right software solution—Foundant’s grant management software for funders simplifies the whole experience with robust features designed to support effective grant tracking and maximize success.

Learn how Foundant can help your grantmaking organization with grant management.