Navigating the Grant Lifecycle: Key Stages Explained

Understanding the essentials of the grant lifecycle is necessary to write, submit, and win grants for your nonprofit organization. 

If you haven’t heard of the grant lifecycle before, you’re in the right place. 

In this guide, we are going to explain each of the different stages of the grant lifecycle and how to navigate them effectively. We’ll show you how to succeed at every stage so that you can secure much-needed funding for your nonprofit. 

Let’s get started!

There’s a lot that goes into winning grants—from finding funders to developing proposals to reporting on your results and everything in between. 

The grant lifecycle refers to the entire process of applying for, winning, and managing grant funds from start to finish. 

In the following sections, we are going explore the three key phases of the grant lifecycle and their individual components: 

• The Pre-Award State 
• The Award Stage 
• The Post-Award Stage 

For a detailed explanation of the entire grant management process, make sure to check out our guide to the grant management process.

The pre-award stage of the grant lifecycle includes everything leading up to the submission of a grant proposal: researching funders, identifying a grant, developing a proposal, and more.

This stage can last for weeks, so it’s critically important to plan accordingly to ensure success! Here’s an overview of the key phases of the pre-award stage you should be prepared for. 

Researching and Identifying Opportunities

The pre-award stage of the grant lifecycle begins with researching and identifying good-fit funding opportunities.

Grants are competitive, which is why you want to make sure you only apply to those for which your nonprofit is a good fit to increase your chances of success. 

If you’ve searched for grants in the past, it’s likely you’ve used tools like Google or Grants.gov. These tools can be good, but you’ll likely find yourself quickly overwhelmed by the vast amount of information on them. 

Sifting through hundreds of opportunities to find one that is a good match can be time-consuming and frustrating.

Dedicated grants databases like Instrumentl are a much more efficient way to discover grants that align with your organization’s needs. Simply input your nonprofit’s funding focus and search criteria, and Instrumentl will curate a list of best-fit funders and active grants for you in seconds. 

Preparing and Submitting Applications

Once you find grant opportunities that are a good fit for your organization’s program or project, the next step is to prepare and submit an application. 

A well-written grant proposal is absolutely necessary to secure grant funds. If you don’t know where to start, don’t stress. Check out this step-by-step guide on how to write winning grants in just 7 steps!

Before submitting an application, it’s critically important to make sure that you have followed all of the funder’s instructions and guidelines. Failure to do so will almost definitely result in your application being declined. 

For example, the Walmart Foundation has very specific guidelines and eligibility requirements for grant seekers that they list on their website.

Pro tip: Submit your grant proposal ahead of the deadline to allow time for any last-minute revisions or technical difficulties. 

Budget Planning and Organizational Assessment

Finally, when applying for grants, it’s important to ensure that your organization is ready to receive and manage the grant funds if you win.

What does this mean? Not all nonprofits are grant-ready, and that’s okay! 

A grant-ready organization should have:

• Articles of Incorporation and tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status
• A clearly defined mission statement
• A nonprofit bank account
• A Board of Directors
• An organizational budget and fundraising plan 

Once you win a grant, you have to be prepared to budget the funds appropriately, implement your proposed plan successfully, and report on its outcomes. 

If your organization is ready to manage those funds successfully, that’s great news! If you’re still not sure if your nonprofit is grant-ready, check out this grant readiness checklist.

Congratulations! You submitted a successful proposal and have been awarded a grant. Hooray!

Now begins the award stage—the shortest of the three grant lifecycle stages. This stage primarily involves formalizing the grant agreement with the funder that has awarded you the grant.

Grant Award Notification and Acceptance

When your nonprofit is selected to receive a grant award, you will receive notice from the grantmaker.  

This notice can be in the form of an email, snail mail, or even an automated message through the grant portal. However it is delivered, this message will outline the terms, conditions and expectations for the use of grant funds. 

Often, a funder will require that someone from your nonprofit sign and return the grant agreement to demonstrate that you understand the guidelines and expectations for the funding. 

This is important! We always recommend making a copy of the agreement and saving it in your files so that you can refer back to it over the grant term if needed.

Contract Negotiation and Agreement

During this phase of the grant lifecycle, you may also work with the grantmaking agency to negotiate the terms of the grant agreement.  This could include items such as:

• Project scope
• Objectives
• Reporting requirements
• Financial obligations

Sometimes, enough time passes between when a proposal is submitted and when it is awarded that circumstances have changed. 

Perhaps you no longer need the funding for the stated program, or maybe your program’s goals and objectives have shifted. If this is the case, it is critically important that these changes are noted in the grant agreement and agreed upon with the funder.

Failure to follow the signed grant contract could result in your organization having to repay the grant funds. Yikes!

The post-award stage is the longest—and arguably most important—stage of the grant cycle. This stage can last anywhere from 1 to 5 years, depending on how long it takes your nonprofit to spend the funds and complete the required grant work.

During the post-award period, your nonprofit will execute the grant project and meet all of the funder’s reporting requirements.

Implementing the Grant Project

Getting started with the implementation of your proposed project can be tough. However, there are some things you can do to help kickstart and streamline the process:

1. Develop a detailed project plan and timeline
2. Outline the steps and resources needed to successfully achieve the grant’s expected outcomes
3. Assemble a grant project team and assign different responsibilities 
4. Use a grants calendar to keep track of deadlines, reporting dates, and more. 

Monitoring, Compliance, and Reporting

It’s important that your grant project team is regularly monitoring your grant project’s progress and financial status. Regular check-ins will allow you to see if you are missing goals or not meeting objectives early on so that you can fix things quickly.  

Grant compliance is important; if you fail to do what you promised the funder you would do, you’ll jeopardize your ability to win grants in the future. 

The last part of this stage also includes grant reporting. 

Every funder will have different requirements on how to report on your progress; they may request a final project report, a final budget report, or even a final site-visit or in-person interview to determine the project’s overall success.  

Be sure to submit all of the necessary and required documentation to the funder by the reporting deadline to make sure that your organization remains in good standing.

Pro Tip: Be flexible. During the course of a grant, you may have to adjust your plans several times. That’s okay! As long as it fits within the agreed-upon scope of work and the grantmaker is in support, it’s perfectly acceptable to make adjustments and tweaks along the way.

Grant Closure and Evaluation

Once your nonprofit has met all grant requirements, goals, and objectives, you can begin the closeout process. 

Your finance team may want to complete a final budget reconciliation to ensure all funds have been spent, and your program team may want to do a final evaluation of the project’s impact.  

Once all the necessary closeout tasks are complete, you’re ready toarchive the grant records for future reference and move on to the next opportunity!

You’ve made it to the end! 

We hope this article helped you understand the different stages of the grant lifecycle, and we encourage you to reference it in the future as a roadmap for all of your grant management activities.

Now that you’re familiar with the pre-award, award, and post-award stages of the grant lifecycle, you’re ready to start uncovering new funding opportunities for your organization. Good luck!