The IPOOG Grant Management Lifecycle outlines essential phases from pre-award to post-award, emphasizing governance and administration. Nonprofits must assess grant eligibility, application processes, and funding strategies while maintaining compliance. The lifecycle stresses effective communication, risk management, and the importance of storytelling in grant reporting for future engagement and improvement.

1. Rounding out the Graphic
2. Governance & Administration – Setting Context
3. Pre-Award Phase
4. Award Phase – What Are You Agreeing To?
5. Program Delivery – Doing What You Said You Would Do
6. Change Management – Project and Grant
7. Post Award – Tell the Grant’s Story
8. Governance & Administration – Back to the Board
9. A Life Cycle Well Lived
10. References

Rounding out the Graphic

The above graphic was introduced in the previous post: IPOOG and Grant Management. This post will delve into the bullets found on the graphic. Content for this delving comes from a variety of sources and I plan to update the graphic and this content as better information comes along. The definitions start with Governance & Administration, jump up and across the graphic and end back at the bottom.

Governance & Administration – Setting Context

• Funding sources / Fit
  • A grant is a reflection on the organization. Who would you (not) accept a grant from?
  • Are the objectives of the Granter a good fit for the nonprofit?
• Grant application Capacity
  • Who will fill out the application?
  • What quality assurance capacity is there to verify and validate the application?
  • Do these people have back up; what happens if someone goes on vacation?
• Operational Capacity:
  • Can you deliver on what you have promised in the grant?
  • Do you have the administrative processes and capacities?
• Compliance first culture
  • Plan as if the auditors are coming next week.
• Funder Relationships
  • A grant is great, getting the next grant is even better!
  • How do you make it easy for the Granter to give you money?

Pre-Award Phase

• Grant Calendar & Board Role
  • If grants are part of you funding strategy, be sure to note and check the key dates in a calendar.
  • A board member is accountable for grants.
  • How is this calendar updated and maintained?
    • New grants added, changes incorporated, and discontinued grants dropped from this calendar.
• Confirm Eligibility & Deadlines
  • Well before the application deadline, confirm the organization is still eligible and dates have not changed.
• Analysis: Win/Fit Estimate
  • Applying for a grant is a time and labour-intensive process.
  • Organizations should only apply for grants where the effort to do so makes sense relative to its value and its win likelihood (although, you never know unless you try!).
  • In particular, watch out for small value grants with onerous requirements, ask: Is this grant ‘worth the bother’?
• Apply approval from Board/Exec
  • The perfect (or good enough) grant has been identified, who on the board approves the work to go ahead and apply?
  • Watch out for a Zombie or Stealth Application: This is a grant someone applied for and commits the organization without the knowledge of the board or executive.
  • Pay close attention to the grant agreement before applying.
    • This is a legal contract, can your organization hold up its end of the bargain?
    • If not included in the application package, ask for a copy and ensure the organization is comfortable signing the contact.
• Who completes, reviews, approves
  • A grant application is a project; to be successful you need to develop a plan and work it.
  • Scan the application to ensure all relevant information is available.
    • Is there a submerged requirement, something mandatory that is easy to gloss over but may disqualify your application if not completed correctly?
  • Given your organization enough lead review time to sign off in confidence.
• Who Submits
  • Who sends the email or completes the online form?
  • Does this person have the authority to do so and do they know when to ‘push the button’?
• Debrief loss application
  • Dozens of hours of effort results in a … rejection.
  • Don’t waste this effort, ask for a debrief of the application.
  • Update your processes and systems based on this feedback.

Award Phase – What Are You Agreeing To?

Ask for a template and examples of what the Granter wants for a final report. This is the time to understand how you will close the grant, what the final report will look like, who will write the report, and will it be accepted by the Granter? Beyond being a contractual requirement, can you repurpose the content?

Program Delivery – Doing What You Said You Would Do

To this end, the Program Delivery phase is what the Granter is buying and what your organization is contributing. This step is highly variable in terms of what is to be delivered and how much effort it will require.

A festival organization applying for a grant to supplement its funding will still deliver the festival whether the grant is given or not. What will change is the scale of the festival. Conversely, a trail organization will not build a bridge or delay its construction if it was relying on a construction grant.

Change Management – Project and Grant

In a nutshell, if you ‘Have to Eat Crow; Eat it When it is Young and Tender‘ [1].

Post Award – Tell the Grant’s Story

If that is not the case, at least ensure you know what should be in the report. Ideally the Granter has given you an outline or required information to include.

For example, in Alberta the Community Initiatives Program (CIP) grants are used by many nonprofits. Reporting is done via the Final CIP Accountability Report (FCAR). Through the FCAR, the Government of Alberta provides both a template and examples of the final report with the following sections. This reporting requirement strikes the right balance of collecting information on how the grant was used, ensuring fiduciary compliance, and not being too onerous.

1. Project Funding: CIP Grant, Cash Contributions, Other grants, etc.
2. Project Expenses: Donated (in-kind) and Paid Expenditures (e.g. labour, material)
3. Outcomes achieved by the grant: healthy communities, economic activity, etc.
4. Stories from the Project/Program the grant supported
5. Recognition of the Alberta Government
6. Signatures

Governance & Administration – Back to the Board

Beyond this administrative matter, the board also needs to build relationships with existing, past, and potential funders.

How? Attend training and information sessions offered by the Granter. Reach out to senior levels of the granting organization at a minimum to say thank you. In your newsletter, website, or social media, acknowledge and thank the granting organization.

Whether the Granter is government department or fellow nonprofit, the granting organization is filled with people doing their best. Help them out by saying thank you. It will inject good Karma into the universe! [2]

A Life Cycle Well Lived

Scale the lifecycle to fit your circumstances. How much time and effort you put into a grant is a function of its size, and reporting requirements. The IPOOG Grant Management Lifecycle should be taken a la carte. More of this in one circumstance and less of that in another situation.

Let me know your thoughts on this lifecycle. Is it missing a critical step you normally perform? Is there too much, would you take something out?

References

1. The origin of the expression, to Eat Crow, are unknown. For those unfamiliar with the expression, it means to acknowledge your own incorrectness or past mistakes. See: Eating Crow | Wikipedia.
2. Is Karma a real thing or superstitious nonsense and does it really matter? I would vote that it is easier to go to sleep at night with the knowledge you left the world in a slightly better place than when you found it. There may not be a deity keeping score, but it makes slumber easier to come by. See: Wikipedia – Karma.