Grant management is essential for grantmaking organizations. However, it can be cumbersome if you don’t know what it entails and its pitfalls. Effective grant management needs proper policies and tools to curb frustrations and help carry out a successful mission. To achieve this, you can use these tips to help you better understand the grant management systems and some of the best practices you can use.
Let Your Mission Come First
An effective mission is a driving force behind any grant organization. Therefore, it needs to come first before other objectives and responsibilities. For an effectively reestablished mission, you must put the needs of your funders and community first. To understand this, you can use the past data from the previous grantees, review what other grantmaking organizations are funding and conduct interviews. This will help in determining where to allocate the funds to impact several numbers of people.
Improve Your Application Review System
Using grant application management can help you review the applications. This process is vital; however, it takes time and effort. When building your grant review team, you can use full-time employees, several stakeholders, or even a single employee or hundreds of volunteers from different states or cities. Furthermore, you need to identify how many members you need for grant reviewing, which members will review first, and which will go last.
Include Your Finance Department
Managing your grant management program should always include close relationships with your finance department. This is because grant proposals require huge budgets, and who better handle this than your finance department? The department will also help ensure the grant funding goes to the right organization and optimized utilization. Moreover, it will help you determine what amount you need for grant reviews, consulting, and grantmaking software.
Include Accountability In Your Activities
Accountability plays a huge role in ensuring a successful grant management program. However, the accountability measures you need will vary depending on the stage of the grantmaking process. For instance, if you are towards the end of the cycle, the relevant accountability measures to use would include:
- Evaluating outcomes.
- Personalizing reports for the stakeholders.
- Adapting the processes.
- Reporting performance-centric outcomes.
Grant funding faces stiff competition, and having an ineffective grant management system will help you manage the entire grant lifecycle and support your efforts. It also helps you monitor all the essential activities to mitigate financial risks.
