Education

7 Best Practices To Follow To Transform Your Grantmaking

Grantmaking requires a lot of work and strategies. Grantmaking organizations frequently take on significant issues like reducing poverty or raising the standard of women’s education in the most disadvantaged populations worldwide. Determining how and what matters can be challenging when the scope is broad. Therefore, creating grant programs is never a simple task barboun. You can narrow your emphasis by using best practices for writing grants.

Even after you’ve designed your grant program, there may still be difficulties with implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. There is a risk that you won’t know how well your awardees are performing or if they are having an impact because of missing data or fragmented data from measures that aren’t clearly defined.

We summarize seven grantmaking best practices that each grantmaker should follow based on our extensive industry experience.

Focus On Relationship Management with Grantees

As soon as the pandemic started, foundation staff members had to start working both tactically and strategically with their nonprofit partners. Relationship management becomes even more important in the wake of lockdowns and the advent of remote cooperation. It has become more important than ever to record the amount of information, and expertise exchanged via email, phone conversations, online chats, and virtual meetings.

All of this increases the importance of grantee relationship management (GRM) as a part of a grants management system. Meaningful exchanges between grantees and foundation employees should be documented throughout the course of the partnership, not simply when a grant proposal is filed.

Funders can improve their relationships with grantees, gain access to widely disseminated knowledge, and obtain a better understanding of the lifespan of interactions with the organization and its managers with the use of a purpose-driven GRM. New levels of communication and operational efficiencies will result from the whole effect, not just now but well into the future.

Become Strategic About Using Technology

 It’s 2022. There is no life without technology. However, using technology is different from strategically integrating it into your mission.

“The size of your budget does not determine whether or not you’re going to be successful with technology,” says Amy Sample Ward, CEO of NTEN.

You are aware of the influence you wish to have and your motivations. Technology will play a significant role in your journey. You’ll do better if you link the “why” and the “how” as soon as possible.

How does this actually appear in practice? In your strategic planning, you should first be clear about how technology serves your goal. You should explain how technology will make your task possible as you lay out your future plans.

For instance, if you were distributing aid to underserved areas, would you like to:

  • Reach out to underserved communities?
  • Integrate trust-based methods?
  • ask the public for its opinion?
  • Quickly deliver resources?

You may accomplish these objectives with the correct grant management software, but you must be deliberate. You will better grasp where and how technology fits in if you start with your purpose. You’ll also be able to invest in the appropriate technology.

Work Together With Other Funders To Achieve Impact

What does working together entail? Exceptional funders are aware that collaborations can take many various forms but that they all use the strengths of the individuals involved to further a common objective.

Collaboration between funders can take many different forms. We tend to make assumptions far too frequently, such as thinking that cooperation necessitates sharing resources, a long-term partnership, or a significant time investment from personnel. 

In reality, it can be the exact opposite: a group of funders coming together to recognize an urgent need, each making their own grants in support of a shared objective and frequently checking in on progress and results.

Minimize The Requirements For Your Prospective Grant Seekers 

You’ll frequently discover possibilities to simplify the application process when you’re examining applications. 

You’ll frequently discover that you over-engineered your line of inquiry, asked the same questions repeatedly, gathered the same information at various phases of the grant process moviesverse, or included some inputs that lose their relevance when you compare the grant applications side by side.

Don’t be hesitant to improve your procedure:

  • Make sure you are not gathering data on grant applicants that you already have, ask for information only once if possible.
  • To gather the specific information, you’ll need to decide on your funding and focus on asking the right questions.
  • Think carefully about how much time you’re asking applicants for grants to spend on their applications in relation to the amount of each grant.

The application process should be aligned tightly with the goals of scholarship.

Keep in mind that every minute nonprofit organizations spend filling out grant proposals is a minute they aren’t spending on their primary objectives. You must take into account both their time and your own if you want these groups to have an influence. It is priceless.

Additionally, increasing application completion rates will probably result from streamlining the application process.

Create An Application Form That Is User-Friendly For Applicants

Organize your application form and make it simple for applicants to use. Make sure they can complete your form in stages because sometimes, gathering all the necessary files takes time. Allowing them to return to the form each time they get a new document to add will make it simpler for them. This form page can also be customized to provide a great user experience, although that obviously relies on the software you are using.

To make sure that only eligible candidates take the time to go through the application process, your grant management software should also pre-qualify your applicants by asking them questions that further narrow your pool.

As a result, those who are unqualified won’t be wasting your or their time, and it will let people who are truly qualified know they are in the correct place. In the long run, this one will help you spend less time and effort reviewing the applications you do obtain.

Focus A Great Deal On Determining Funds

Having a clear target for your funds is one method to effectively transform your grantmaking process. By establishing “deal-makers” and “deal-breakers,” a fundraising focus can help you develop your grant assessment rules.

“Deal-makers” could consist of grant requests that:

  • Incorporate your geographic or demographic focus area.
  • are from organizations with a substantial network of community leaders who share your particular area of interest
  • come highly suggested by reliable professionals 9xmovies mom.

Alternatively, “Deal-breakers” could be funding requests from organizations that:

  • whose financial report shows a significant loss
  • absence of project experience
  • don’t have a sustainability plan for your organization
  • possess biases and prejudices that go against the goals and ideals of your organization.

Center Trust In Your Services 

In your interactions with grantees, you want to prioritize trust. How does that actually appear in practice?

The simplest course of action, according to David Callahan, is to switch from providing project help to general support and from one-year grants to two- or three-year grants.

Giving grantees general operating support gives them control. The money you give them is theirs to do with as they like. This enables them to invest in rent, technology, and payroll.

Flexibility allows your grantees the freedom to experiment, develop capacity, and cope with unanticipated changes. Everyone will experience delays and irritation if your grantees are required to request your permission each time the requirements of the community change. 

Bottom Line 

The main goal of best practices for grantmaking is efficiency for all parties. Efficiency is what we’re referring to when we talk about time and resources.

The more time and effort we can save in the grant-making process, the more influence your fund will have on the local area and beyond riley reid and rudy gobert marriage. Grantees and NGOs can increase their effectiveness by concentrating more on their goals when they spend less time asking for funding.

No matter how many best practices you use, if you can’t carry out the challenging objectives you’ve set, your organization will never be able to reach its full potential. Pay attention to the locations where you can use tools to cut down on the noise. More NGOs that are excellent candidates for your grant find you, like you, and apply as a consequence. Both your purpose and your mission are benefited, leading to the improvement of the world.

Author bio:

Mr. Robert Davis is the Founder and President of SmarterSelect, a Dallas, TX based SaaS company that provides online application management services to scholarship, grant, and award providers such as foundations, universities, corporations, and associations. Prior to that he has served as President and CEO of network management firms Tavve Software and Oculan. He has served as a VP and General Manager at IBM/Tivoli Systems. Mr. Davis held several executive roles and was one of the first employees with The Tigon Corporation, a $250M telecom startup acquired by Lucent/Avaya tyler perry and meghan markle relationship. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a MBA from Southern Methodist University.

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