One Habit That Will Immediately Improve Your Grantwriting
What would your grant writing look like if you weren’t:
Trying to remember upcoming deadlines
Searching through previous grant applications for elements you want to reuse in another proposal
Logging into funder portals to double-check reporting requirements, or
Recreating attachments and supporting documents?
If you’re struggling to launch or grow your grants program and secure more funding from corporate and foundation funders, take the time to step back and build a strong foundation.
Grant management is a necessary part of successful grant writing. Having streamlined systems for organizing and tracking all grant writing will mean you spend less time scrambling to find materials and meet deadlines, and more time on higher-return important activities like identifying new funders and submitting well-crafted proposals.
Grab our free Google Sheet + Trello Board templates and start organizing your grants!
Organize Your Grant Files
If you’ve ever worked on a grant proposal where you couldn’t find previous grant language you know you crafted and spent hours tracking down required attachments you realize how important the organization of your grant files can be.
Organizing your grant application materials does not have to be a complex or time-consuming process, and you don’t need any special software or tools. The key is to create a simple and easy to navigate system so that you always have all application materials at your fingertips. I organize my grant files as follows:
A Grants Management Folder for boilerplate language and supporting documents including:
IRS Determination Letter
Budget Attachments
Financials
Board Lists
A folder for every grant funder you will pursue, whether they are new or renewing
A subfolder for every fiscal year for each funder
Having one folder per grant funder, with proposals organized by year, will mean no more trying to remember whether a funder is a prospect or renewal, if you last submitted in FY18 or 19, and more. Keep it simple, and everyone involved will know where and how to access information easily and quickly.
Catalog Your Grant Funders and History
Once you have your files organized, it’s time to ensure your grants calendar is up-to-date. In addition to using a project management tool like Trello to maintain a grants calendar, I like to maintain a spreadsheet of key funder information.
This spreadsheet is the heart of your grants program and should include all the high-level information you need, including:
Funder name, website
Key contact information
Link to their 990 and EIN if applicable
Funding history
Deadlines
Previous funding history
Who wrote the grant/proposal
Marketing Requirements (e.g. does the grant require social media shoutouts, videos or examples of crediting?)
...and anything else that you regularly need to track
Create Your Grants Calendar (and Keep It Updated)
Your grant calendar is your roadmap to future grant writing success, and once you’ve organized your grant files and funder information, you can populate your calendar with all upcoming deadlines.
Choose a template - the medium doesn’t matter, but make sure it’s something you and your whole team can use. We like to use Trello as a living, breathing grants calendar that is always available online, with a Google Doc to store static funder information.
To populate your grants calendar:
Review all the funders on your list and add upcoming proposal deadlines to the calendar.
Ensure you have all progress reports and final report deadlines on the calendar. They’re way too easy to miss when they’re buried in the body of a grant agreement!
Use labels such as new, renewing, proposal, report, and LOI to stay organized.
Add prospect deadlines as they are identified.
Organizing your grant writing may take some time and effort, but once you create a system it will be easy to sustain and update year after year.
