Managing grant projects is an actual art. It requires a tremendous effort, lots of administrative tasks, patience and coordination. Streamlining any processes in the management of projects means less errors and delays, less time wasted on tiny administrative stuff that can drive you crazy. The whole purpose is to reach operational efficiency and somehow, if you're still reading, we know you aim for that too.
As we provide support and technical tools for grant management, it makes sense to give you our 5 favorite tips to streamline your grant project management the best way possible.
#1 Use a grant project calendar
The key to any project is keeping track of the milestones, and mastering every deadline with a calendar. Same goes for your grant project management: a grantmaking calendar helps you organize your grant efforts and teams throughout the year.
How to do it? The most common way is to use a white board or internal office calendar. However, there are limitations to this manual system. You'll end up with a messy board if you have to add last minutes notes. Just like we already explained why Excel is not the best solution ever, manual work is way to time-consuming and not efficient enough. As digitalization offers a lot of solutions, it is also a far better way to keep track of everything. A shared Outlook and Google calendar will guarantee a common access for all members of your grantmaking team.
#2 Streamline the list of tasks
While selecting projects and causes to support, every grantmaker has to keep track of what happens on the field. Leading your grant project to your goals means ensuring the efforts of the teams are coordinated, on track with the milestones and the budget.
Use a central list of tasks to ensure that every member of your grantmaking teams knows what he/she has to do at any time.
#3 Centralize your grant project management
From the start of your grant efforts, you are certainly going to collect applications, applicant contacts, project holder and third party informations.
For a successful grant project management, we really advise you to use a central tool from the very start, such as a CRM, or a dedicated grant management software. This digital system will allow you to easily find all the contact informations, the history of messages and files related to the projects.
Also keep in mind that such grant data are sensitive. You need to ensure right from the start that you're in complete compliance with the new data regulations (GDPR, Can Spam, ...).
#4 Automate your grant data processing
Tracking data about your grant projects is a good practice. Most of the time, these informations are split into several documents, or channels, or persons.
To go faster and to avoid wasting your time in data consolidation, make sure you have prepared a methodology or workflow that guarantees "automatic" data processing.
The benefit is obvious: the more data automatically processed, the more you will have time to work on improving your grant strategy and results. And, let's be honest: it's far better for a grantmaker to work on a grantmaking strategy and create a real impact rather than excel-diving all the time!
#5 Use pre-built grant reports and templates
Your grant project management will heavily rely on the grant reports and different grant audits.
Don't wait for the dealine to get closer: prepare yourself right from the start, creating pre-built and ready to go grant reports and grantmaking templates. You can either use the basic Microsoft or Google Suite documents, or enjoy the pre-consolidated and expert grant reports offered by a dedicated grants software.
Because we have helped more that 350 organizations worldwide, we know how to streamline grant and social impact projects. We have integrated all these tips in our grant management software. There are solutions to your problem, you just need to get in touch.
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