Grant seekers tend to get their grant funding from many sources, and not all of those sources have the same compliance and reporting requirements. Without a concrete project plan to manage these different funding streams, your grant-funded projects may struggle to meet not only compliance requirements, but also, and most importantly, your intended outcomes.
You’ve done the difficult work of proposing a project that was compelling enough to be funded, which is excellent news. But compelling proposals don’t necessarily always smoothly transition into well-functioning projects, especially for organizations with smaller teams. Grant seekers often face similar challenges when it comes to grants management, such as:
- A lack of resources to dedicate to grants
- Not enough people to build a full grants team
- High rates of staff turnover
- Difficulty maintaining accountability over Federal grant regulations
- Issues managing separate awards that fund a variety of services
- Issues with audits and fund spend
- Lack of access to tools that other award recipients may have
When one or two of these challenges are present, they tend to lead to more challenges down the road. If you’re struggling with high turnover, you know how difficult it can be to create a well-structured team. Without a well-structured grants team in place, it is difficult to maintain accountability. If everything is not properly documented from internal processes to expense reports, you could potentially perform poorly in the single audit and jeopardize future funding.
How do you get ahead of this and create something replicable?
This guide aims to offer some tips so you can pivot from proposing an ideal project to creating a workable and replicable project plan, allowing you to get closer to your outcomes with each award.
Here are some key steps to go through when you win an award.
