If you are a nonprofit company looking to manage your grant applications and submissions, you may want to consider grant management. Staying organized with grant management means you’ll have more time to focus on essential tasks and funder relationships.
The grant management process organizes programs and services in the grant application and submission process. Understanding how grant applications work is critical to the success of your submissions and funder relationships. While being awarded new funds is essential to your organization’s success, it is just a tiny part of the process. From writing the document to submitting your application and reporting on your results, you’ll want to become familiar with every aspect of managing your grants, and organized management can help.
A well-developed grant management system helps you stay on track and meet critical deadlines. Here are five organizing grant management tips to help you achieve your funding goals.
You can share clear goals and a well-developed plan with the entire team to ensure everyone is on the same page during the process. Your first action should be to prepare for the pre-award stage.
Some pre-award actions include the following:
One of the best ways to help you keep track of your grants is to use a grant calendar or tracking list. A calendar enables you to keep track of important dates, report submission reminders and proposal deadlines that every employee at your nonprofit should keep in mind. Some tracking lists or calendar applications include:
No matter what kind of tracking list you use, you’ll want to be sure that it meets specific criteria. Ensure that everyone involved in the grant process can see essential deadlines and get reminded of important deadlines through email or calendars. You should be able to add new tasks or deadlines to the calendar. The management system should allow users to focus on funder relationships without worrying about manual tasks.
Another important step is to organize your funder and grant history. Try your best to document important information to prevent missing dates, running behind schedule or other mishaps.
When tracking critical information about funders and grants, many people keep information within email folders or online documents. However you choose to organize information, try your best to write it down or type it out, as keeping it all in your head could be risky for your nonprofit.
When it comes to funders, some essential information to track includes:
You’ll also want to keep track of your overall grant history. Try to ensure that your workers can access past, present and future requests whenever they need to make the process efficient. Some grant history information to track includes:
Grant management can also help you coordinate your team and ensure you stay on the same page throughout the process. Many enjoy that an organized process helps team members stay on schedule during hectic days or deadline-specific tasks.
For team members wondering how to manage grants organized by software, point them toward highlighted tasks. Coordinated teams use software to remind others of upcoming due dates, view future schedules, track deadlines and send email reminders. Many nonprofits can save time on manual tasks that would otherwise eat into their essential responsibilities, like finding funders, writing documents and establishing strong funder relationships.
Many funders have specific rules and regulations for application submission and grant writing. To ensure that you understand and follow these rules, try to become familiar with the changes or requirements of each type of funder.
Suppose your company plans to apply for a government grant. Many of these regulations lie in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget Circular. Usually, you can find these rules in a management document or grant booklet from their office, or you can find circulars online.
Even if you aren’t applying for a government grant, always ask for their booklet or catalog or rules and regulations to be sure you are taking the proper steps. Ask for extra information or call to speak to a representative. When in doubt, you could even hire a consultant or set up a software system to manage your grants and be sure you follow every rule they require.
When managing your grant applications, implementing software or other helpful tools can be essential to making your nonprofit thrive. Software can help track your grants, set up tasks and follow each step through to submission. Using these tools ensures that your members have more time to find new funders and invest in building relationships rather than looking at spreadsheets and online reports.
IGX Solutions offers some of the best tools to meet your organization’s grant management needs. Our software helps you save time and money by automating workflow and improving your current process so that the integration is seamless. Using IntelliGrants® IGX, Core CVC™ or BEPro™, we help take control of your data by centralizing information in one reliable source. Whether you need to track expenses, review working applications, customize reports or work across different devices, IGX Solutions is here to adapt to your nonprofit’s design.
These tips can ensure that you manage your grants well and streamline the application process. From organizing your funding information to installing reliable management software, taking control of your procedures can help you find better funding and improve your nonprofit over time.
At IGX Solutions, we pride ourselves in offering clients premier management software for your grant writing and applications. With over 120 satisfied clients in 34 states, our company consistently retains new customers by providing software that solves your workflow needs. Our team members will help guide you through the process, suggesting applications and design improvements along the way. Contact us today to speak to a representative, or call us at 888-534-5879.
