How to Select a Grant Management Partner for Municipalities

Municipalities and local government agencies are unique in that they both receive grants from state and federal sources and award grant funding to individuals or local organizations. This dual role means they face a complex set of challenges for grant management.

If you work for your local government, you might be looking for a reliable grant management partner for your organization. This guide explains all you need to know about how to find a grant management partner for municipalities.

What Is a Grant Management Partner?

A grant management partner is an entity that helps municipalities and other local organizations improve their grant management processes. Grant partners for municipalities provide support, resources and expertise to assist grantors and grantees in maximizing their funding.

There are several different types of grant management partners agencies can work with, including software providers and independent consultants. Ultimately, implementing a cloud-based grant management software solution is the best choice for most municipalities.

Common Challenges Municipalities Face in Grant Management

Understanding the problems your organization is facing is key to choosing a partner that can help you achieve your goals. Some of the most common challenges local government agencies experience in grant management include the following.

Compliance and Reporting Requirements

Compliance requires your organization to follow a strict list of standards and regulations from the grantor. When your organization is the grantor, you have to ensure your recipient complies with your requirements.

While specific requirements regarding state grants may vary, the regulations for municipalities receiving federal funding are universal. All recipients must provide the federal grant-making organization with three categories of data:

• Financial data to provide visibility into where funds are spent
• Compliance information to maintain accountability in managing federal funds
• Project data to gauge program success and community impact

Without the proper resources, tracking project and financial data can be challenging for local government agencies. That lack of visibility can lead to compliance issues that could potentially prevent the organization from being eligible for funding in the future.

Grant-making municipalities must also impose these regulations on their grantees to ensure proper funding use, which takes significant time and energy.

Lack of Visibility

Outdated legacy systems and poor record-keeping processes can cause data to become siloed in separate departments. Data silos can easily lead to missing data and inaccuracies, which can then impact your organization’s ability to produce accurate compliance and progress reports.

Modern solutions solve this issue by consolidating all your grant information into one user-friendly platform. You can logically organize that data so anyone with the required authorizations can enter the platform and access what they need right away.

Poor Communication

Grantmakers must maintain consistent communication with grantees, which can be challenging for organizations using disparate channels or communication protocols. It can also be difficult for organization employees to contact members of other departments for assistance with time-sensitive tasks, which can cause roadblocks due to miscommunication.

A unified platform with messaging and grant management capabilities can make communication easier for both grantmakers and grantees by reducing the chances of missed messages. Because they’re only using one platform, each party can easily stay up to date on the other’s activity without having to hunt that information down. Internally, employees can keep up with co-workers to confirm everyone is on the same page.

Resource Limitations

Resource limitations such as the following are common among municipalities:

• Outdated legacy software: Older software systems often lack the capacity to meet modern reporting requirements, which can lead to regulatory issues and information gaps.
• Time restrictions: From maintaining critical infrastructure to conducting local elections, local government agencies are responsible for many different tasks in their jurisdiction. This packed schedule often leaves little time for grant management operations, especially in understaffed departments.
• Budgeting restrictions: Many municipalities operate with a limited budget, which can make completing certain initiatives significantly more difficult.
• Staffing shortages: It takes time and money to recruit, train and retain qualified employees, especially in highly regulated government agencies. Organizations often face difficulties ensuring there are enough people on their staff to meet their goals.

While working with other levels of government can help municipalities gain access to valuable resources and assistance, it’s not a permanent solution. Grant managers in local agencies must identify quality partners that can provide consistent support instead of relying on seasonal resources.

Lack of Internal Organization

Because municipalities are often working with limited resources, it can be difficult to make sure everyone stays organized, especially when it comes to complex processes like grant management.

For example, employees on the grant management team may take on multiple roles to compensate for staffing shortages. While combining roles can help you ensure important operations are covered, it can cause confusion and overwhelm. Important tasks may be duplicated or forgotten altogether, potentially leading to compliance issues.

A grant management partner can help relieve some of this administrative burden by automating tedious and time-consuming tasks, saving your employees time and improving accuracy.

How Technology Partners Provide Grant Management Help for Municipalities

Investing in a unified grant management software solution can help your organization improve your processes in the following ways:

• Centralized systems: Organizations using multiple disparate software systems for grant management processes often lack visibility into their most critical grant data, which can lead to compliance issues. Adopting a single web-based software solution can help your employees streamline operations by providing easier access to documents, ensuring timely collaboration between departments and lowering the number of software solutions you need in your system.
• Automated workflows: Software tools with integrated workflow automation autonomously execute repetitive tasks to speed up grant management processes. For example, an integrated platform like IntelliGrants® IGX seamlessly runs grant management processes such as compliance, contract terms and approvals so employees can focus completely on more complex operations.
• Enhanced compliance management: A unified grant management platform provides a centralized database you can use to generate reports for audits, track new project data or ensure your grantees are following regulations.
• Data-driven decision-making: Advanced analytics and reporting capabilities provide powerful insights into grant management data so your organization can make the most informed decisions.
• Time and cost savings: A unified, automated grant management software solution can help your organization reduce costs related to maintaining legacy systems and working through their inefficiencies.

Key Considerations When Selecting a Grant Management Partner

Due to the dual nature of local governments in the grant management sphere, you need to make sure a potential partner will help you approach the process as both a grantor and a grantee. Some specific capabilities to look out for include:

• Grant research organization: An effective grant management software tool enables you to easily bookmark and organize grants you want to apply for, which can help save time when you begin the application process.
• Application tracking at a glance: A unified platform gives you convenient insight into the application status for all your grants so you can easily keep track.
• Project tracking features: After winning a grant, your organization must track your implementation progress and spending to meet critical regulations. Grant management software can help you simplify project tracking with streamlined, unified features that provide full visibility into your data.

To ensure seamless connections across your entire system, the grant management software you choose should be compatible with every other relevant software tool in your tech stack. This capability ensures your new software can communicate with the other tools you use to manage your organization, which can eliminate data silos and reveal insights that may have been previously hidden.

Streamline Grant Management in Your Municipality With IntelliGrants IGX

If your agency is looking for a solution to enhance your next grant cycle, an advanced technology platform is an excellent option. Partnering with IGX Solutions can help your municipality address many of the common issues local governments face in grant management.

Our holistic grant management software allows organizations to simplify every step of the grant management process, whether they’re the grantmaker or the grantee. Book your free demo today to see IntelliGrants IGX in action.