Grant managers often face the challenge of juggling multiple projects, each with its own deadlines, reporting requirements, and compliance tasks. To stay organised and ensure the success of these projects, a comprehensive grant management calendar is essential.
This calendar serves as a centralised tool to map out key dates and milestones, allowing managers to maintain control over all grant processes.
In this article, we’ll go over how to create an effective grant management calendar that streamlines your workflows and keeps your projects on track. We’ll also briefly address how a grants management solution takes things further.
Step 1: List All Key Milestones for Each Grant
Naturally, planning out your timelines is the first step, so list all major milestones throughout the grant management process. These should be the milestones associated with each grant, including:
- Application submission dates: The deadlines for submitting each grant application.
- Review dates: Dates for any follow-up activities, such as interviews, presentations, or the announcement of selection decisions.
- Award notification: Record the expected date for grant award notifications.
- Kick-off meetings: Schedule any required onboarding or kick-off meetings with stakeholders to discuss project goals, timelines, and expectations.
- Budget reporting and progress updates: Note interim reporting deadlines and plan check-ins to align all stakeholders on financial and project status.
- Reporting and evaluation: Include deadlines for submitting final reports and conducting audits or impact evaluations.
Identifying these milestones upfront ensures that critical tasks are scheduled and accounted for throughout the entire grant lifecycle, from application to post award management.
Step 2: Make Compliance Tasks Stand Out
Staying on top of compliance tasks – such as quarterly financial reports, expenditure tracking, and progress updates – is essential. Here are some tips to ensure these tasks are prioritised and completed on time.
Set Recurring Reminders
Use calendar tools to schedule recurring reminders for compliance deadlines. One reminder isn’t always enough; it could get buried amongst other notifications, for example.
Colour-Code Compliance Tasks
Assign specific colours to compliance-related activities to make them easy to differentiate, so they won’t get lost amidst the many other tasks on your plate. A bold red block signifying a compliance deadline won’t be missed.
(Also, consider attaching relevant files, templates, or links to your calendar entries for quick access. This reduces the time spent searching and ensures accuracy in your submissions.)
Step 3: Incorporate Internal Checkpoints
Relying solely on external deadlines can leave you vulnerable to last-minute surprises. To mitigate this risk, incorporate internal checkpoints into your calendar – on a monthly or quarterly basis, for example.
These checkpoints keep the team accountable and provide opportunities to address emerging issues and make timely adjustments. They encourage proactive problem solving.
Step 4: Break Down Reporting Requirements
Each grant has unique reporting requirements, so their associated tasks cannot be batched together. A well-organised grant calendar will make it easier to track the distinct requirements for each programme. Here are some tips:
- Create separate entries: Createa distinct calendar entry for each reporting requirement, specifying the type of report and the deadline.
- Provide detailed instructions: Include notes within calendar entries to outline what each report should contain, such as specific data points. This will provide clarity in the midst of numerous reports for numerous programmes.
- Account for review time: Schedule internal deadlines ahead of the real deadlines. These allow you to thoroughly review, adjust and finalise reports before submission.
Step 5: Contingency Planning
Grant projects rarely go entirely as planned. Staffing changes, unexpected delays, or supply chain disruptions can all impact timelines. To manage these uncertainties, build flexibility into your calendar. Here are some considerations.
Include Buffer Times
As mentioned, add extra time before major deadlines to account for potential delays. Also include multiple smaller buffers for complex projects, such as interim deadlines for specific tasks, to break down large goals into manageable segments.
Regularly Review and Update the Grant Calendar
Make it a habit to review your calendar weekly or bi-weekly. Adjust timelines and reallocate resources as needed to reflect current progress. Collaborate with team members during reviews to discover any challenges they may be facing.
Plan for Contingencies
Identify high-risk areas in your projects and develop contingency plans. For example, if a staff member is likely to become unavailable for any reason, ensure another team member is prepared to take over their responsibilities, and be ready to assign calendar items to them, as needed.
More Tips for Success
Choose the Right Platform
When selecting a calendar tool, consider the following:
- Customisation options: Choose a platform that allows you to customise views, add tags, colour-code tasks, and so on.
- Integration with other tools: Opt for a tool that integrates with your existing workflow software to minimise duplication of efforts.
- Automated reminders and notifications: As mentioned, automated reminders are important for compliance and other time-sensitive tasks.
- Collaboration features: If multiple personnel will need to access the same calendar, consider a platform that enables sharing.
- Mobile accessibility: This will allow for quick reference while staff are out of the office, helping them to plan their days more effectively from anywhere.
Use Templates
Templates provide standardisation and therefore speed up the creation of your grant calendar. Look for templates designed for grant lifecycle tracking, covering the milestones discussed earlier.
How Can a Grant Management System Help You Manage Grant Timelines?
A calendar is an essential grant management tool, but there are many challenges it won’t solve – such as handling time-consuming admin. It also won’t collect grants data or generate detailed reports.
On the other hand, the best grant tracking software streamlines many processes, ensuring you hit every deadline. It also provides a centralised platform for managing multiple data sources, thus reducing complexity and increasing productivity.
In addition, a grants management system can provide audit trails and data-driven insights, supporting compliance and facilitating thorough and accurate impact reporting. Flexigrant, for example, saves you time by automatically capturing data from forms and bulk scheduling progress reports. It also has various collaboration tools, including a committee workspace.
Conclusion
Creating a comprehensive grant management calendar is a powerful way to streamline the grantmaking process and ensure your projects stay on track.
In summary, the steps discussed above were listing key milestones; setting recurring reminders for compliance tasks; incorporating internal checkpoints; breaking down reporting requirements; and contingency planning.
These tips make it easier to manage multiple grants while minimising stress. And of course, you can take things further by investing in grant management software.
Flexigrant simplifies grant management for nonprofit organisations, government agencies and other funders across the UK and beyond. To learn more or request a demo, contact us today.
