Grant Management Best Practices for Nonprofits

It’s true—winning grants is challenging. But as most grant managers know, it’s what comes after winning the award that can really make you want to pull your hair out. 

From compliance to competing deadlines to funder relationships, there’s a lot that goes into the post-award grant management phase. 

Here’s the good news: there are strategies and systems you can implement to make the process easier—and we’re going to share them with you. 

Keep reading as we break down top grant management best practices that you can implement in your own organization and the role Instrumentl plays in streamlining the process.

When it comes to managing grants effectively, an efficient tracking system is a must. 

Here are just a few of the things grant managers have to keep organized: 

• Submission deadlines 
• Grant requirements 
• Compliance details
• When mid-term and final reports are due
• Award disbursement dates  

All of these things will be different for different grants—so trying to keep them straight without a dedicated tracking system just won’t cut it. 

Check out what nonprofit grant strategist ​Teresa Huff had to say about creating management systems: 

“By setting up systems, we can alleviate some of the stress that we're all under from day to day, we can help prevent mistakes, [that] can damage our reputation, hurt our funding, [cause] all kinds of confusion and miss deadlines, which can be a really big issue.”

If you currently manage your grants with manual spreadsheets that are simply saved on your desktop, it can make it difficult for you and your team to quickly find the information you need. This not only makes leveraging grant information tough, but it could also cause important information to slip through the cracks and jeopardize your award. 

So where should you start? Here are some tips for setting up an effective tracking system:

• Start backwards: start your project plan based on the due date of a major task and then go in reverse chronological order. This will ensure you and your team have enough time to meet each and every deadline associated with your grant.
• Set up reminders weeks in advance: Setting up reminders for important deadlines can help keep your entire team accountable and on the same page. 
• Use cloud-based tools for collaboration: Cloud-based tools allow you and your team to collaborate and work together in real time. There’s less room for confusion and everyone can access the information they need.   

Pro Tip: Instrumentl users get access to a cloud-based Grant Tracker where they can organize all of their awards, set up automatic deadline reminders, assign tasks to their team, and more. We’ll explain how our tracker works in more detail a little later in the article. 

One of the first things you want to do after you win a grant award is to ensure your nonprofit has grant compliance strategies in place. This will require you to thoroughly understand your grant’s conditions and set up compliance checks throughout the life of the grant.  

After reading through your grant agreement and related materials, you should be ready to create a compliance plan that includes:

• All of the grant requirements outlined in the agreement.
• All grant related tasks, such as: Milestones, Program deliverables, Reporting requirements, Deadlines, and reviews.
• The tasks of each team member so they know what they are responsible for throughout the grant.
• Tasks delegated to other departments, as needed.
• Scheduled recurring meetings with staff to go over grant needs and ensure you're on track according to the compliance requirements.

Every grant will have different conditions; for example, government grants, like those from the National Institutes of Health, have stricter requirements and reporting obligations than other types of funding opportunities. 

Maintaining accurate records will also make it easier to stay compliant with the grant’s conditions, including:

• Financial records that track the allocation and expenditure of the award funds.
• Program records documenting all of the program’s activities, participant data, and progress.
• Evaluation information that details how you are measuring the program’s success, outcomes, and any other metrics.

Rachel Werner, Owner & CEO of RBW Strategy, shared with us why this is so important:

“If your organization does not report on outcomes or provide enough information on progress to your funders, you may not receive additional funding in the future.”

Failing to comply with the grant conditions could be detrimental to your nonprofit’s reputation with funders. By keeping detailed track of your records and implementing a dedicated compliance plan, you should be able to meet all of the requirements of your awards with ease.

Funder relationship management should also be one of your top priorities during the life of your grant. 

When you maintain a strong relationship with a funder, they may prioritize your organization when new or expanded funding opportunities arise. This could be grant opportunities with their own organization, or they may put your name forward when they hear about funding opportunities available from other funders. 

Some strategies for building and maintaining strong relationships with funders include:

• Communicate personally with the funder, using the right name and title of your contact (which can be found in Instrumentl’s 990 snapshots).
• Be both transparent and timely in your reporting! Most grant funders will require you to develop reports, and it is important that these reports are delivered on time and provide the funder with a clear picture of how their funding is making a difference. 
• Involve the funder in the decision-making process, such as picking a name for a program element or having them weigh in on where the next iteration of the project should be.
• Make note of any staff changes at your nonprofit organization so that your funder is aware of their new contacts when communicating with your organization.
• Invite funders to volunteer with you or to just attend special events and showcases, even if they aren’t related to their specific grant. This will help them see and hear about your work without additional financial commitments.
• Recognize your funders contributions and thank them in a timely manner—one to two weeks, tops.

Inviting funders to your facility is a great way to connect with them. As Jeannette Archer-Simons,k MBA, CFRE, Development Director of Health360, explains, 

“Provide the opportunity for a grant funder to feel good about their gift by inviting them to attend a program or activity in action. We assume that funders are too busy, however extending the invite to visit or for a program is the first step to connecting on a deeper level.”

Recognizing your funder both privately and publicly is also a great way to show appreciation and maintain your relationship. Whether it is a shout out on social media, recognition on your website, or just a private, personalized note, you want to share your gratitude regularly to help acknowledge the funders’ contributions. 

For example, the Arboretum at Penn State has a thank you page for all of its donors and supporters. The donors are listed by either the monetary amount or by what they specifically donated. When you click on the “+” sign, a list of donors is prominently displayed.

Remember that every funder is different. Some larger funders may require that you keep in touch through reports, while smaller funders may want to meet face-to-face and hear updates in person. When meeting in person, be sure to document everything that is discussed at the meeting with the funder by taking relevant notes. 

Lastly, if the funder suddenly becomes less communicative, don’t panic! Simply check in to see if anything has changed or there is anything you can do to help.

It should be clear by now that there’s a lot that goes into managing grants effectively. 

With so many moving parts, a dedicated grant management software like Instrumentl can be the solution you and your team needs. 

Instrumentl has tools to streamline the entire grant lifecycle—and we’ll explore a few of the top ones below. 

Grant Prospecting 

Finding good-fit funding opportunities is a breeze with Instrumentl. 

Simply share about your organization’s mission, location, and funding needs, and Instrumentl’s Smart Matching system will analyze its entire database to curate a list of active and relevant grants that align with your criteria. 

Each opportunity comes with detailed insights, such as the grant’s deadline, eligibility requirements, 990 snapshots, and more—making it super easy to decide if the funding is worth pursuing. 

Grant Tracking  

Once you save a grant in Instrumentl, it will automatically be added to your Grant Tracker. 

Here’s everything the tracker will keep organized for you: 

• The names of your grants 
• Their deadlines 
• Their status (i.e. researching vs. planned) 
• Their amount 
• Their next tasks (which you can assign to your team)
• Their notes

Instrumentl will also send you automatic reminders when a deadline is approaching. No more stressing about missing critical due dates! 

This dashboard allows you to see important information easily without having to click into each grant. This is especially helpful for teams managing multiple grants at once. Everything is available and accessible in one place for your whole team to access. 

Awards Management 

Once you’ve won a grant, you can keep track of your funding with Instrumentl’s Awards features. 

Within your Awards dashboard, you’ll be able to manage how much funding you’ve received across your grants, your grant periods for each award, when your next reports are due, and more. 

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And because grants are not always paid out in single lump sums, Instrumentl also provides a payments tracking tool where you can track how much funding you’ve received, when, and for how much. 

All of these features make it easy for your team to maintain compliance and meet your funder’s specific requirements. With everything organized in one place, you don’t have to worry about things slipping through the cracks or getting missed. 

Here’s what Cynthia Ceilan, Director of Institutional Giving at Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, had to say about using Instrumentl to manage her organization’s awards: 

"I love the ability to track everything in Instrumentl. Take deadlines for reports and email reminders I get, for example. I don’t have to wake up in the middle of the night and think—oh my gosh, did I miss it?"

Unlike other tools, Instrumentl was designed to cover the entire grant lifecycle—from start to finish. From finding the grant to adhering to compliance requirements, Instrumentl streamlines the entire management process.

Adhering to grants management best practices may sound challenging, but using grant management software like Instrumentl can help ensure you are staying compliant, organized, and up-to-date with all of your grant awards.

If you’re not already a user, you can try out Instrumentl with a free, 14-day trial. You can also check out this guide, How to Choose the Right Grant Management Software for Nonprofits, to compare some of the top tools on the market.