HayDay Services is bringing you a series of “how-to” articles related to successful grant development.
Part 1: Grant Readiness
School started yesterday in my community, and over the past two weeks my daughter and I have been making preparations for a successful year. She cleaned out her backpack. We stopped at the store for folders, pencils, and supplies galore. She received her schedule and visited during the open house. Her first day outfit was selected, and trial runs were made for hair and makeup. We visited the grocery store to stock up on her favorite lunch items. Her cross country and lacrosse coaches sent practice and game schedules for the fall seasons, and my calendar is now full of carpool pick-ups and drop-offs for the coming months.
While she wasn’t ready for summer to end, she was prepared for the first day and beyond. And let me tell you how much easier both our lives were since we didn’t spend the day before running around hoping to check off a thousand items on a last minute to do list.
The same is true of grant seeking. No one will find success if they start their organization’s grant seeking history by submitting grants with no preparation.
Priority number one for grant success is GRANT READINESS.
So, whether you work for or with an organization that is new to grant seeking altogether, or you are the new person in charge of grants at an organization with some grant success, this is your permission slip to get your ducks in a row before you write the first sentence of a grant proposal. Instead, take the time to prepare your organization for success, by following these grant readiness steps.
Having the capacity to seek grant funding isn’t as simple as submitting a grant proposal. Your agency needs to have a track record of programming (typically 2+ years), data surrounding the results of your work (evaluations or outcome reports), and a focused purpose (mission statement).
Other documents, systems, and information that create the foundation for quality grant work include:
• Regular (typically 4 times a quarter for nonprofits and monthly for local government agencies) board meetings, complete with minutes.
• Established funding priorities, typically centered around projects or programs with measurable outcomes.
• Financial procedures that follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.
• Financial reporting (monthly, quarterly, and annually) that includes balance sheets and/or income statements.
• An annual audit of your organization’s financials (especially for local governments and large nonprofits) or approved financial statements (for smaller nonprofits).
• A current IRS 990, for nonprofits.
Grant funders require documentation with most grant proposals. If your organization has the commonly requested attachments on hand, that reduces the time it takes to develop and submit grant proposals. By creating an online filing system of the most current documentation, grant professionals have a better chance of putting together winning proposals.
Take the time to build your documentation repository now, and update it as you go, to save yourself the heartache of missing a grant deadline because you were busy trying to find the most recent copy of your organization’s audit, board meeting minutes, or organizational chart.
For nonprofit organizations, commonly requested attachments include:
• 501(c)3 letter from the IRS.
• List of Board Members – be prepared to include their board position, employer affiliations, contact information, and possibly their race/ethnicity and gender.
• Annual budget.
• Annual report.
• Bios of senior leadership.
• Brief history of the organization.
• Strategic plan.
• List of current grant funders or major donors.
For local governments, there is some overlap, but a few differences as well. Commonly requested attachments for these organizations include:
• Audit
• Comprehensive plan.
• Maps.
• Job descriptions.
• Lobbying disclosure form.
• Letters of support (and while these may not be readily available, you can keep a list of partner agencies and individuals available to write such letters).
• In-direct cost agreement.
Everyone worries about getting grant money, so much so they often forget about all the work it takes to manage that money. Before you write your first grant proposal, work with your colleagues to create a grant management system that ensures the safe keeping of funding.
When building a system, consider the answers to the following questions:
• Who will manage the grant-funded program and track measurable outcomes?
• Who will evaluate the program and report the outcomes?
• Who will spend the money, document expenses, and submit required documentation to the funder?
• Who will track the grant funding received and compare income to expenses?
• Who will be responsible for gathering financial and program data for grant reports?
• Who will oversee the compliance regulations as dictated by grant award agreements?
• Do you have financial systems in place for accurate financial record-keeping?
• Can you easily separate grant funds from other organizational funds?
• Do have a system in place to track in-kind contributions?
By no means is this an exhaustive list, and if your organization plans to seek federal funding, the process of getting grant ready is certainly more complicated. But it is worth the time and effort to aim for grant readiness before seeking funds, because scrambling during or after the fact is going to lead to failed applications, heartache, and other consequences.
Prepare for grant seeking like you would other milestones – by doing the important work early. That way, the process of writing your first grant proposal will be as seamless as my daughter’s first day of school. Well, as seamless as a first day of high school can be for a teenager. Yep, that sounds about like building a grant proposal.
Ready to take your grant writing strategy to the next level? Check out our 8-week grant writing training course, the Grants Lab.
Check out all our episodes, and don’t miss any new ones, by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or Spotify today!
