How To Build A Knowledge Bank On All Your Grant Funders

Recently, my nonprofit wanted to reach out to a past funder who had awarded us a grant for an arts and culture project in our local community a few years back. We were currently working with a small acting troupe to develop a new program to teach basic acting skills to lower-income, urban children and needed grant monies for the project.

Luckily, I had all of this past funder’s contact information stored and immediately accessible in Instrumentl and had maintained a good relationship with them. We were able to personally reach out and secure funding for the upstart of our program.

In this article, we are going to explain howyou can leverage Instrumentl to maintain an always-up-to-date history of the funders that you work with. From key contacts to application histories to opportunity-specific notes, all of this critical information can be organized in one convenient location to simplify your grant-seeking journey.

Nonprofit fundraising is all about developing, cultivating, and maintaining relationships. However, when you’re dealing with dozens of different funders over multiple different years, trying to remember and keep them all organized in your mind just won’t cut it.
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The more carefully you track your history with funders, the easier it is to maintain relationships with them and leverage relevant information for future funding opportunities.

Here are a few examples of key things worth keeping detailed track of and why:

• Contacts: You don’t want to have to go digging to try to find a phone number or the name of the person you’ve worked with from a foundation. Storing funder contacts will make it easy to maintain your relationship and reach out in the future.
• Awards: Grant management becomes much easier when you keep detailed track of your grant amounts, award period start and end dates, and reporting deadlines for each of your individual funders.
• Notes: Sometimes there are specific things about a funder or grant that you don’t want to forget—such as a connection with one of your board members, a specific way they like to be contacted, a program that they’re particularly passionate about, etc. These important insights are definitely something you don’t want to get missed or forgotten.
• Portal Logins: Many funders have their own application and reporting portals. Keeping track of your login information for each will save you from future headaches down the line.

Now, if you are just working with one or two funders, a simple grant tracking spreadsheet with their contact information, award statuses, important dates and deadlines, and any notes is probably fine. However, as your list of funders grows, all of the grant funder history information will become more cumbersome to keep track of over time.

This is where Instrumentl’s dedicated and streamlined grant tracking system comes into play—keep reading!

Instrumentl makes it easy to keep track of all your funder information and manage your entire grant history in one place, including:

• Your funder notes
• Opportunity-specific notes
• Funder contact information
• Current award status
• Award start and end dates
• Funder portal logins

If you’re not currently an Instrumentl user, you can sign up for a 14-day trial. Once you’ve created your account, here’s a detailed breakdown of how you can start tracking your entire funder history with ease:

Step 1: Set Up Your Nonprofit With Instrumentl

Once you have created your free trial with Instrumentl, you will need to set up your first project.

Projects are like a saved search—you enter details about your organization and the types of grants you are looking for, and then Instrumentl uses this information to match you with the best-fit funding opportunities.

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In the “1. Organization” section, you will start filling in the details about your organization, such as your geographic location and fiscal year. You can then click “Save and Continue.”

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In the next section, “2. Overview” you will name your project. The name can be anything that will help you distinguish your project.

In the example below, we called our project “Promoting Arts and Culture.” Make sure to select “Matches & Tracking” so that Instrumentl can match you with relevant grants that fit your criteria.

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After you’ve finished setting up your project, Instrumentl will let you invite your team members to have access to the account. That way, your entire team can review your grant matches and grant funder tracking information together.

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Step 2: Upload Your Grants To Instrumentl

Instrumentl will automatically match you with active funding opportunities that align with your search criteria, but if you have existing grants that you want to upload to the platform, Instrumentl makes it easy.

There are two different ways you can go about this:

1. You can save hours of manual data entry by uploading your existing grant spreadsheet. To do this, you simply enter your existing grant data into this template, and click “Upload Your Spreadsheet” on the below screen.
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This process can take some time depending on how many grants are in your current grant database. So, be patient! It can take up to a week for your grants to finish uploading.

2. Also keep in mind that you can add grants manually if you prefer to do it that way, or if you don’t have very many grants to enter. To do this, you will need to manually search for that funder by going to Instrumentl’s “Quick Find” search tool at the top left of your page.

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When you click on the Quick Find area, it will open up a search modal. That is where you can type the name of the funder or grant you are looking for.

You will see a list of results appear below. The top of the list will show any active grant opportunities with names related to your search term, and the bottom portion will list the funders related to your query.

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You can select the grant or funder you are interested in and then save them to your Tracker by using the “Save” button.

For example, if we chose the first opportunity on our list, the TFAA: Exhibition Grants, a new box will open up with the specific grant information. If we want to save that grant to our Tracker we simply click “Save.”

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Once you upload or manually add in any grants, you will see them and their histories organized seamlessly in your Grant Tracker.

Step 3: Open the Tracker and Select a Grant Opportunity

Once you’ve saved your grants (either by selecting them from Instrumentl’s grant matches, uploading them via your spreadsheet, or manually adding them) they will all appear in your dedicated Tracker.

Instrumentl’s Tracker gives you a comprehensive view of all your funding opportunities, their deadlines, status, tasks, and more. No more disorganized information scattered across different spreadsheets!

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When you click into a saved opportunity from your Tracker, you’ll notice that a funder modal populates.

This new view showcases the Funder Profile, as well as the complete history of Funding Opportunities with that funder on the left hand side.

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The great thing about Instrumentl is that it allows you to track and keep notes on both Saved Opportunities (active grants) as well as saved Funder Profiles (more on Funder Profiles in the next step!).

When you click on a specific Saved Opportunity (in our example, the Olive Tree Foundation Grant), you’ll be able to see the:

• Status
• Fiscal year
• Project
• Application cycle
• Opportunity notes
• Tasks

for that specific saved grant.

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You can also update the status of the grant to keep your whole team organized and on the same page.

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By clicking on the “Funding Opportunity” tab at the top of your screen, you will also be able to see important information about the specific grant you’ve selected, including its fields of work, funding uses, location of project, eligibility, etc.

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In the “Dates & Amounts” section, you’ll be able to add any dates and monetary amounts associated with the funding opportunity.

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Finally, under the “Documents & Resources” header, you’ll be able to add in Funder Portal credentials and any documents for the opportunity.

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Step 4: Locate the Funder Profile

Instrumentl’s Tracker isn’t just helpful for tracking your active grant opportunities, it’s also a great way to organize all of your funder-specific information as well!

Simply click on the “Funder Profile” on the top left of your screen.

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Clicking into the Funder Profile will populate funder insights, including 990 breakdowns, an overview of their giving, and more.

You’ll also see two new fields, Funder Notes and Funder Contacts. Keep reading!

Step 5: Update Funder Notes and Contacts

Instrumentl allows you to now save funder-specific notes and contacts within your Funder Profiles. These fields can be seen across all opportunities with a funder and can be very helpful for your team when there are multiple grant opportunities from the same funder.

When you click on a Funder Profile, you will see Funder Notes and Contacts on the right hand side where you can store the most relevant and updated information.

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You can save all of this key funder information and relationship history so that it is easily accessible anytime there is an opportunity from this funder.

Unlike other methods like manually updating spreadsheets or project management platforms not built for grant professionals, Instrumentl allows you to store and track your funder history seamlessly.

Save Time

Tracking funder information manually takes significant time and effort.

Instrumentl, on the other hand, is designed specifically to streamline this process for nonprofits and to make grant management a breeze. With this saved time, your team can focus their efforts on building and cultivating funder relationships instead.

Stay Organized

Instrumentl keeps things centralized and fosters collaboration. All of your grant opportunities, tasks, and deadlines are organized in your Tracker, making it easy to keep your entire team in the loop.

This organization makes post-award management easier than ever before.

Stay Up-To-Date

The last thing you want to do is miss an important funder deadline! Luckily, Instrumentl keeps all of your funder information synched in real-time. This makes it easy for anyone on your team to see what stage a grant is in, what tasks still need to be completed, and when the next deadline is.

Instrumentl will even send automatic deadline reminders to your email!

With Instrumentl’s dedicated grant tracking system, you can say goodbye to outdated and unorganized spreadsheets. You and your entire team can have access to your complete funder history—including funder notes, contact information, portal logins, and more.

Sign up today to get started streamlining your entire grant seeking and management efforts!