Strategies To Successful Grant Management In NGOs

Some Strategies For Successful Grant Management In NGOs

A grant is a financial contribution made to an organization to help it carry out its objective. The lifecycle of a grant, from pre-award research through post-award closeout, is managed by NGOs using grant management, a critical administrative and management procedure. It can take organizations some time to build an effective grant administration strategy, but once they do, efforts to ensure the correct management of money received become very lucrative and easy.

An organization needs to have a good grants management process in order to increase efficiency, decrease the risk of mismanaging funds, and improve their relationship with donors regarding funding. This can be done by using strategies like being organized, communicative, realistic, detailed, and working as a team.

Grant Management process should be treated as a team effort

From the preparation of the grant proposal to the final reporting, collaboration among the organization teams is essential. Staff members should collaborate to prepare project proposals, establish important actions and desired results of a project, and ensure that correct estimates or budgets for funding proposed initiatives are put in place. Timelines and any other deliverables should also be organized in advance. Collaboration should continue even after the grant has been given out to guarantee that all costs are tracked in accordance with the budget. Additionally essential to the efficient flow of funding to support proposed initiatives is departmental communication.

Being Organized

All departments within an organization must be well-organized in order to foster efficiency, transparency, and quick access to information when required. NGOs need to make sure they have a well-established grant management strategy in place to keep track of finances, correspondence, and deliverables. In order to make it simpler to grasp and follow the necessary documents to the project's conclusion in situations where staffing changes, it is also crucial that the process be simple and easy to understand. This comes down to being organized. For instance, it should be simple to keep a copy of the proposal budget provided and the final/real expenses made when a donor demands a financial report comparing actual spending to those budgeted in the proposal submitted.

Making a calendar to manage reporting deadlines and ensure that all pertinent due dates and payments are not missed is one way an NGO may keep organized. Employees can greatly benefit from having a benchmark and a comprehensive view of fiscal year reporting as a reference to their preparation by paying attention to past organization schedules and institutional activities like annual audits. Setting internal deadlines prior to external deadlines enables an organization to review data before submission

Being Communicative

Only in environments where there is effective communication can a successful grant management procedure be established. Officers who are pertinent to the development of the process should be permitted to remark on the proposal budget and deadlines specified in order to guarantee the effectiveness and efficiency of the grant management process. The grant agreement contract should contain agreed-upon guidelines and timeframes in writing to make it easier to keep track of changes to agreed-upon documentation, commitments, or pledges.

Being Realistic

For NGOs to manage grants effectively, it is crucial and required that they have realistic budgets and timeframes. Before submitting a budget grant request, it is always advisable to take into account issues like the ability to carry out the planned initiatives. Does the cost and time of recruiting a new staff member affect the budget and timeframes given if the objective is to hire more workers to complete a certain project? Knowing the effects of applying for a grant to deliver other organization initiatives is equally crucial. Keep in mind the additional financing commitments necessary to guarantee that you continue to work hard to accomplish the budget and programme targets. For instance, planning your grant with the assumption that workers will work 50 hours per week is not realistic because people who work more than 50 hours per week have decreased productivity and efficiency owing to weariness, which can result in underspending difficulties.

Before applying for a grant, organizations should also carefully assess if their budget will cover the actual costs of completing the project and, if not, what other financing options they have to make up the difference. When applying for grants, NGOs must be realistic, especially those that rely on program-restricted funding. Since many donors have overhead and direct cost caps that are lower than the actual cost allocated to a program, it is crucial to recognize and assess any issues and repercussions that the organization might experience both now and in the future while implementing a certain planned project.

Grant agreement should be treated as a legal document.

To make sure that everyone involved in the grant management process is aware of and agrees to the terms and conditions as well as the deadlines established to complete the project. Management should take into account an internal grant review procedure before signing any grant agreements or contracts. This supports the idea that the process is a team effort, helps identify any possible problems with the agreement, and ensures that all pertinent staff members are on the same page. It's important to pay attention to the terms and conditions of grant agreements so that you can comprehend them and come to an agreement on complying with them, or to determine whether your organization needs time to consult with others before deciding whether to accept the grant funds in exchange for the terms or reject them. Some of these terms and conditions include: ownership of completed work, distribution of final reports, production of or provision of services, and use of the name of the foundation in the project. It is also wise to think about seeking legal guidance from the organization's auditor or lawyer to analyze the grant agreement in case there are any ambiguities that could have ramifications for the organization in the future.

In conclusion, NGOs can create a good grant management process that improves risk mitigation, efficiency, and donor organization funding relationships by cooperating, being realistic, specific, communicative, and organized. As a result, they are able to have a successful grant management process with clear funds tracker from grant award to the last dime spent on a proposed budget appropriate for the grant fund given. Therefore, it is essential for all NGOs to make sure they establish an effective grant management procedure to ensure that proposals are fulfilled and the organization's goal to the community is fulfilled.

Article Author

Winfred Ngure, a Finance and Grants Management Specialist with over 15 years of experience working in Business Partnering and providing Technical and Managerial oversight across Non- Profit Organizations.

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