Your relationship together with your grantees is greater than a transaction. But it surely’s tough to drive affect when your grantees can’t entry their funds, aren’t certain when the funds are arriving, and don’t have a transparent understanding of their necessities for utilizing the funds.
An environment friendly grant distribution course of builds belief together with your grantees and improves transparency throughout your group. Listed below are 5 ideas for streamlining the way you get grant awards to your recipients.
1. Present a Detailed Discover of Award
Sending out the discover of award is thrilling for each the funder and the grantee. That is additionally the place you’ll be able to arrange your grant distribution course of for achievement.
Use your discover of award to obviously define the phrases of the grant, together with the awarded quantity, any particular necessities or expectations, and the timeline for deliverables. This transparency permits grantees to know what you count on from them to allow them to plan accordingly.
Embody clear—and apparent—contact data within the discover, so grantees know precisely who to achieve out to with questions or issues. This encourages open communication and funnels suggestions to the right channel as a substitute of your entrance desk fielding extra inquiries.
To make the acceptance course of seamless, embrace directions on easy methods to signal and return the discover. Your discover of award communication can be a fantastic place to supply hyperlinks to assist assets that may assist grantees efficiently meet their grant obligations. These assets would possibly embrace reporting templates and examples, entry to neighborhood assist, or data on skilled growth alternatives.
Lastly, contemplate requesting acknowledgement that they obtained the discover of award. This affirmation may help confirm that the e-mail deal with is right and there have been no modifications in touch data because the software was submitted.
2. Verify the Grantee’s Most popular Cost Course of
Getting funds to your chosen grantees is the entire level of your grant program, so be sure to have what you have to course of the fee.
Both as a part of your discover of award or as a follow-up after acceptance, ask for any extra data you have to course of the fee. Take into account recommending strategies, like digital transfers over paper checks, to assist velocity up the method. Digital funds additionally assist scale back the chance of errors and fraud in comparison with paper checks.
3. Set up Clear Inner Controls for Grant Distribution
Any time you have got funds transferring to or out of your group, it’s essential to have clear—and if doable, automated—inner controls to supply transparency and mitigate threat.
Set up tiered approvals for funds, similar to you do in your bills. Set a benchmark so any funds beneath that quantity, similar to $5,000, solely should be authorised by the grants supervisor. Any funds over that quantity should be authorised by the grants supervisor and a member of management. You retain the smaller, usually extra frequent, funds transferring shortly whereas nonetheless having essential controls for the larger funds.
Since you’re coping with grantees’ fee data, you have to have robust controls to verify the info is saved securely. Have a spot designated in your grants administration system for this data and require it to be saved there—not in a spreadsheet on somebody’s cloud drive or worse, of their electronic mail. Use role-based permissions to verify solely individuals who want entry to that data inside your GMS can see it.
If doable, combine your fund accounting system instantly together with your GMS for real-time updates and grant progress so you’ll be able to clearly see the place funds are within the course of and what’s been paid.
4. Prioritize Safety and Transparency
When grantees and inner groups really feel knowledgeable, the grant distribution course of turns into smoother and more practical. Clear communication and accessible programs go a good distance in fostering this belief.
Begin by making it easy for grantees to trace the standing of fund transfers. Arrange a user-friendly portal the place they’ll log in, view transaction updates, and know precisely when funds are on their approach. This eliminates uncertainty and reduces the back-and-forth electronic mail or calls.
Internally, equip your workforce with instruments that make monitoring and addressing questions seamless. A centralized system the place workers can entry grant-related data ensures everybody stays on the identical web page. This additionally permits workforce members to supply well timed and correct responses to grantee inquiries, bettering general relationships.
Take into account creating reporting dashboards that clearly show key metrics. These can embrace disbursement timelines, finances allocation, and challenge progress. Dashboards not solely assist higher decision-making but additionally make it straightforward to share updates with stakeholders.
It’s equally essential to know your authorized tasks. Familiarize your self with reporting necessities and guarantee your processes adjust to all related rules. Conserving correct, detailed data is crucial—not just for compliance but additionally to keep up a powerful audit path. If a query or difficulty arises down the street, you’ll have the documentation to again up your choices.
5. Talk a Clear Cost Schedule
A transparent fee schedule lets your grantees know when to count on their funds. With a clear fee schedule, they’ll higher plan and guarantee smoother implementation of their initiatives. From the beginning, present an in depth timeline outlining fee dates, quantities, and any situations connected to disbursement. Be upfront about your group’s course of and any delays that might come up as a result of administrative or compliance necessities.
Handle contingencies proactively. For instance, in case your grant settlement contains eventualities the place the award could should be partially or totally repaid—similar to unused funds or non-compliance with phrases—clearly clarify these situations in your fee communication. Keep away from surprises by discussing these potentialities early and together with them in writing inside the grant contract.
If the grant is unusually massive or covers a number of years in a single disbursement, provide optionally available assets to assist grantees handle the funds successfully. For example, you may share budgeting templates, present a referral to a monetary advisor, or advocate attending a workshop on managing large-scale funding. This step exhibits your dedication to their success whereas encouraging accountability.
All through the method, keep accessible for questions. Encourage grantees to achieve out in the event that they face sudden modifications that might affect fee timing or fund use. By prioritizing readability and offering assist, you assist grantees deal with their work and obtain the targets of their challenge or program.
Create a Higher Grantee Expertise with Aligned Grants and Finance Groups
Integrating your grants administration system together with your finance workforce can create a extra seamless expertise for grantees. By aligning these groups, you facilitate a smoother fee course of, making certain that funds are disbursed shortly and effectively. This collaboration helps keep away from delays and automates the circulation, even when key personnel are unavailable.
Foster a supportive and clear relationship with grantees by way of aligned grants and finance groups and pave the way in which for profitable challenge execution. By making certain environment friendly fee processes and clear communication, you allow grantees to deal with their targets, driving impactful outcomes for his or her initiatives. This synergy in the end enhances the general effectiveness of grant applications, benefiting each the grantees and the broader neighborhood they serve.
In search of a grants administration system that works together with your fund accounting system for streamlined grant distribution? Take a look at our on-demand product tour that includes Blackbaud Grantmaking™ and Blackbaud Monetary Edge NXT®.