Grant Management

Grant management is a process that is used by a grant-making organization/grantors to distribute grant funds to non-profits or small businesses. The process requires a lot of work-intensive tasks, ranging from creating a grant program, selecting worthy applicants, distributing money, to collecting reports from grantees.

Grant process is a linear lifecycle that requires one phase to complete before moving on to the next one. However, the grant management cycle operates differently for the grantseeker (the NPO that uses the grant) and the grantmaker (the organization that distributes grants and awards funds). It encompasses several stages: creating the grant, assessing the applications, choosing the worthy applicant, awarding the grant fund, and periodically analyzing whether the fund is being used in an appropriate manner.

For a grant seeker, it is an administrative process that requires using the grants and fulfilling the requirements of the grant for a specific period, starting from applying for a grant, managing the grant fund, to sharing timely reports with the grantor, and more. However, as a grantmaker, the more effectively you manage the grants, the more your organization can contribute to projects and issues that matter to you. Thus, grant management facilitates grantmakers to allocate funds to meaningful projects that serve corporate purposes.

Grantmakers and grantseekers play complementary roles in the grant process; however, their roles in this cycle are quite interdependent.

A grantmaker works for the government or foundations and is responsible for managing grant programs. They are the funders who solicit applications and select worthy applications after thorough evaluation. Their primary tasks revolve around creating grant programs, setting strategic goals, accepting applications from grantseekers, assessing applications, and awarding grant funds to worthy applicants. Moreover, the grantmakers also look into the reports after disbursing the fund to check if the awardee is using the money appropriately, while clinging to the guidelines of the agreement.

On the other hand, a grant seeker is typically an NPO(non-profit organization) or its representative who seeks grants to achieve the goals of their NPO. Generally, these non-profits have diversified sources of revenue and try to receive money from more than one funding source. Grantseeker tasks include gathering internal information, searching the grant opportunities that match their needs, understanding the qualifying and eligibility criteria of grant programs, and finally, applying for grants by writing the application or proposal. While grantseekers are often NPOs, they can also be small businesses sometimes.

This phase involves all the activities that take place before the grant awardee is selected. Before understanding this phase, let us understand the roles of the grantmaker and grantseeker individually in this phase.

Grantmaker: The grantmaker creates a new grant program and establishes its strategic goals. The grant may target a specific field, such as arts and culture, education, or healthcare domain. The grantmaker must clearly spell out their grant program objectives, so they only attract applications from qualified grantseekers.

Grantseeker: Grantseeker starts searching for grant opportunities that can fulfill their organization’s objective. Once the grant seeker comes across a relevant grant, they have to follow various steps, including collecting internal information, understanding the eligibility criteria, and finally moving to the process of applying for that grant.

The Pre-award Phase Includes Three Primary Steps

Step 1

Grantseekers collect internal information prior to searching for the specific grant, like:

• What is the objective of the funding
• How will the grant help them achieve their non-profit goals
• Which of their projects requires funding, and how much revenue do they need
• What will be the size of the team that will be working on this project

Step 2

Once they clearly understand their needs, grantseekers start searching for suitable grant opportunities using the grant database and assessing which ones they are eligible for and which match their requirements.

Step 3

Once they’ve found the grant program that aligns with their needs, grantseekers write a grant application or proposal, being sure to include all necessary details (required revenue, qualifications, etc.), and send the application to the grant program representative. Writing the grant application is the most important step, as it can make you stand out among other applications. Grantseekers should convey how the fund will be utilized to meet their objective and the positive impact it will create.

Once the grantseeker has applied for the grant, the award phase begins.

Grantmaker- In this phase, the grantmaker thoroughly analyzes all the applications and selects the grantee with the strongest grant application that best uses their grant fund. The funder rewards the grant to the awardee.

Grantseeker(Awardee)- Before getting awarded funds, the selected award recipient is given an agreement that outlines the grant’s terms and conditions, including grant policies, how the funds must be used, team size requirements, timelines, and any other requirements of the grant. This agreement helps ensure that the grant’s execution will be frictionless. Once the grantseeker reviews the agreement, both the awardee and funder sign it off. The awardee should communicate to the whole team the expectations, policies, and deadlines defined in the agreement.

Other Grantseekers- The applications from other grantseekers who were not selected for the grant are closed out and stored for future assessment.
This way, this phase ends here.

Once the grantseeker signs the award agreement, the execution of the grant – that is, the processing of the fund – takes place. This phase also has two steps:

Step 1: Executing the Grant

Grantmaker- In this step, the funder disburses the funds to the awardee in intervals. Grantmaker also ask for periodic reports from the awardee to keep track of how they are utilizing the grant funds and what the progress is.

Grantseeker(Awardee)- The awardee uses the funds to execute the objective of the NPO. The awardee is asked to share periodic reports so that the grantor can validate that the grant is being used properly and the terms of the grant agreement are being followed. In their reports, the awardee needs to show their progress and demonstrate how they are achieving their goals with the help of the fund.

Step 2: Closing Out the Grant

Finally, the closeout of the grant takes place, where the grantmaker retains information regarding the funding amount and how it is being used for future reference.