Every grantor needs accurate and relevant insights from reports on the status, results and impact of their grant funding. Grantees need to deliver reporting on how funds are used, with further or ongoing funding tied to achieving agreed goals.
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This relationship is one of the most important in building confidence between both parties, ensuring proper use of funds and assessing if program goals are being achieved.
But reporting is also one of the most complex and time-consuming tasks.
At Tactiv we work with grant funders to improve the entire grant management lifecycle, including reporting, compliance and performance management.
Getting the application process right at the start is one of the best tools to eliminate KPI reporting complexity, ensure consistency and quality while reducing the time and effort for grant recipients.
Clear program goals
Grantors can ensure potential grantees are well matched to the opportunity by providing clear program goals. Goals should be easy to understand and appropriate to the context of the grant.
A strategic framework with the grant funding goals should identify the KPIs needed to measure, monitor and report on performance.
Overly high level or vague outcomes can be too broad or difficult to measure and monitor. A grant to improve community sporting participation is easy to measure, while setting an outcome like reducing obesity may be too long term a goal or involve far too many other complicating factors to be measured with any credibility.
Explicit KPIs
Grant recipients need to understand from the outset what is expected of them.
The grant application form should explicitly reference the desired KPIs, which need to be clear and concise so both parties understand the information required and the reporting obligations.
By explicitly noting KPIs upfront, in the application process, grantors also help potential grantees to self-select more easily. This can reduce application administration and assessments processes.
Grantors can also save time for both parties by focusing application data on the critical KPIs and desired targets, avoid open ended qualitative reporting or collecting data that is not relevant.
Consistent reporting
Grants that involve milestone reporting linked to payments should state this up front, so grantees know how and when data should be reported and how this impacts the overall grant relationship.
Linking KPIs to milestones in the application form ensures grantees know before they start what data they need to track and the information they need to submit. Information across reporting periods remains consistent as the KPIs remain the same.
Tactiv’s Enquire Grantcycle Management offers a highly configurable system allowing grantors to establish program KPIs so that data can be aligned and collected automatically. Application forms can include the data fields to capture grantee responses and continue once the grant has been awarded to support milestone and acquittal reporting.
Lessening the reporting burden
Data is automatically aligned to KPIs so grantee status reports or reports across multiple grantees can be generated as needed or scheduled.
This allows grantors to clearly connect planning to performance. Grantees benefit from clear and consistent requirements throughout the process, lessening the reporting burden and eliminating risks to their grant compliance conditions.
How To Manage Grant Applications in Enquire
Tactiv consultants offer a wealth of experience in how Enquire can best be configured to ensure application forms support the needs of both parties. Connect with our consultants to streamline your next grant application form and supercharge your grant management and reporting.
