by: Gauri Manglik, Co-founder and CEO
Instrumentl

Could someone else send your next funder report? Here’s why 68%% of grant-receiving organizations lack “back up.”

The person who’s in charge of grants is out for a month, starting tomorrow.

Could someone else find out which funder reports are due? Could they find funder contact information? Could they answer when a program manager asks: “How much is left to spend for the grant?” 

If those answers are in one person's head, your organization fails the test.

Most do.

Instrumentl surveyed 582 nonprofits about how their teams work on grants. Almost all of them are concerned about continuity.

When a grant professional leaves, only 19% of nonprofits are confident someone else could step in. 44% already report disruption because of an extended leave. 27% say there hasn’t been turnover yet, but they’re worried about what happens if there is.

Passing the “out-for-a-month” test matters: for your funder relationships, and your team’s workload. Here are three records you can set up this week that ensure your team gets an “A.”

Ownership is one dimension of the Grant Maturity Model — a framework nonprofits use to move from “scrappy” to “strategic”. Read the full report and benchmark your organization.

1: The grant standard operating procedure (SOP) 

Organizations that handle turnover well told us about the value of a clear, concise SOP:

"We created a document that shows the grant life cycle, what department owns what, storage of files, etc. And a checklist for new hires."

"I created an SOP so that if I left my role, the development team would know the status of each grant and how to move forward.”

The best are easy to digest, 1-2 pages that contain:

●       The lifecycle of a single grant, and who owns each one. Decision to pursue, proposal draft, proposal submission, award acceptance, reporting, and close out. Outline who owns each step, and any part of the process that’s standardized (ie. “go/no-go” requirements for application decisions).

●       Who approves. For each stage that needs sign-off, name who gives the okay, and what departments (program, leadership, finance, etc.) need to be consulted.

●       Where files are saved. Most orgs prefer one folder per funder, with the same subfolders every time (proposals, reports, contracts), plus a standard naming convention for files. You may also have a governing folder for frequently referenced global documents (ie. the organizational budget, boilerplate language, the annual report).

2: The awarded grant kickoff template

Most organizations are good at assigning ownership: 71% said every active grant has a named lead.

But few assign a back up: Only 32% said there’s a second person named who could take over.

Organizations that handle this well told us it starts with a kickoff, held the week the award comes in:

“Having a grant kick-off call with all relevant staff where we walk through key info: grant deliverables, reporting, invoicing, file storage, key contacts.”

“Grant memos after a grant is awarded to clearly outline who is responsible for deliverables and reporting”

The best kickoff records fit on one page, get filled in during a thirty-minute call with everyone who touches the grant, and contain:

●       The grant at a glance. Funder, amount, grant period, and what the money can be spent on, plus links to the award letter and the approved budget.

●       A lead and a backup, by name. The lead stewards the grant from award through closeout. The backup can find the files, knows the funder contact, and has their own login to the funder’s portal. 

●       Every report, site visit, and deliverable. For each one, list the owner, the funder’s due date, and an internal deadline ahead of it. Note who supplies the program data and who tracks spenddown.

●       How the money gets tracked. Who tracks spending against the grant budget, and how often grants and finance review it together.

●       The funder contact. The program officer’s name, who on your team holds the relationship, and any check-ins done between formal reports.

3: The funder relationship record

Reports have deadlines, so they get tracked. A funder relationship has no deadline, so its history tends to stay in one person’s head. 29% of organizations lost knowledge about a funder or a grant last year when a staff member left.

Grant professionals told us what funder information is most essential to keep written down:

“We have a master foundation prospects list where we drop notes, map connections and rate potential. This helps us progress from research to a decision whether to pursue or not and allows us to keep track of which prospects don’t look promising and why.”

“I schedule regular check-ins with funders and jot down records of all communications and activities related to a grant.”

Start with your five largest funders, or potential funders. The best funder records contain:

●       Your contacts. Name and role. Note who on your team knows each one, and how the introduction happened.

●       Your full history. Every application, the amount requested, and the result. For each decline, record the reason and any feedback the funder gave.

●       Their preferences. Funding cycles and deadlines, what they will and won’t fund, and how they like to hear from you (ie. a call before you apply, updates between formal reports, an invitation to site visits).

●       The last conversation and the next one. The date, who was in it, and what was said. Then the next planned touchpoint, with a name and a date on it.

Instrumentl helps you pass the test

Instrumentl is the grant operating system: one home for grant work, from initial research to final report.

●       For your SOP: Store your documents where the whole team can find them, so files outlast any one person’s memory, and can be pulled into proposals without rewrites.

●       For your kickoff record: Auto-extract deadlines from award agreements, create tasks, and assign to-dos to owners. Reminders sync automatically to calendars and email alerts.

●       For your funder record: Sync your funder data with your CRM. Instrumentl’s database contains 450,000+ 990s, and integrates with 15+ tools. Your notes, your donor records, and our data live side-by-side.

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Gauri Manglik is the Co-founder and CEO of Instrumentl, the intelligent operating system for grants. Since its founding in 2015, Instrumentl has grown to serve over 5,500 nonprofits and universities, and is a favorite tool among grant professionals advancing missions like conservation, community development, healthcare, and education.

Gauri has dedicated her career to building impactful and product-focused startups. Before Instrumentl, she was the CEO and co-founder of Fondu, an online location based community. After Fondu was acquired by Airbnb, she led their mobile and special projects teams. When she’s not building new products, Gauri is going for walks in the East Bay with her toddler and wife.