Within the phrases of the good 80s hairband Poison, each rose has its thorn. Grant funding seems stunning in your revenue assertion, however if you happen to’re not cautious, the reporting necessities will be prickly.
In our webinar with Rachel Werner and James Spencer from RBW Technique, they coated steps to assist nonprofits that obtain—or want to begin receiving—authorities grant funding. Incorporate these greatest practices into your processes earlier than making use of for a grant and after you win an award to ensure you keep compliant with the grant necessities.
Pre-Award Preparation
Have sure insurance policies and processes in place earlier than making use of for a grant so that you will be assured you meet their necessities and there are not any surprises.
Tip 1: Have your management drive the dialog on grant funding and the insurance policies related to this income stream. Counting on core insurance policies that embody each finance and program places of work improves collaboration as a result of everybody is aware of what their roles are and the place the directive comes from.
Tip 2: Evaluate the Uniform Grant Steering (2 CFR 200) necessities to ensure you have the suitable inside controls in place. Carry out a threat evaluation (here’s a worksheet you should utilize) to make sure your group’s monetary integrity and that you’re ready for the reporting necessities. Replace your insurance policies accordingly.
Tip 3: Give attention to consistency all through your group in relation to your grant funding. Determine a spot to retailer documentation, together with functions and related insurance policies, in a spot the place everybody has entry, similar to throughout the grant report inside your fund accounting software program or a cloud storage instrument. Be sure that everybody is aware of why you might be making use of for every grant and what the particular purpose is if you happen to get it.
Tip 4: Calculate your oblique value or make an intentional choice to make use of the de minimis charge. Realizing the way you wish to deal with oblique prices earlier than you apply for presidency grants will velocity up the applying and reporting processes.
Receiving the Grant Award
Congratulations on profitable the grant! Put these insurance policies you created and up to date into follow and set up workflows for this particular funding alternative.
Tip 5: Evaluate the Discover of Grant Award phrases and circumstances with all departments, particularly highlighting the necessities and deadlines. Make these paperwork obtainable to all stakeholders so everybody can reference them as wanted.
Tip 6: With the Discover of Grant Award in hand, do a niche evaluation to ensure you have the programmatic and monetary necessities outlined within the communication. Make a listing of the processes which are concerned, what techniques you may have that may work for these necessities, what must be up to date, and what must be created from scratch.
Tip 7: Arrange a kick-off assembly that features sub-recipients and stakeholders all through the group. Use this chance to assign roles and obligations that align with the grant deadlines. Set clear expectations so these concerned don’t really feel blindsided by due dates or what they should do.
Tip 8: Set up standing conferences with stakeholders to relay finances info, monitoring techniques, accounting codes, deadlines, and all different vital, cross-cutting info.
Tip 9: Create instruments that define the expense codes and finances for this grant in addition to your outlined oblique prices so everybody can apply the share persistently throughout departments. Make these instruments obtainable with the Discover of Grant Award and different documentation.
On-Going Help and Upkeep
As you place the grant funding to make use of, you may have a number of tactical steps to ensure you are ready for the reporting and audit necessities throughout and after the grant interval.
Tip 10: Be sure that everybody understands the reporting cadence and course of for monitoring the budgets vs precise, reviewing invoices, and oblique value monitoring. Share the reviews and outliers throughout your standing conferences, in addition to the due dates for progress reviews. Share your insurance policies for bill critiques along with your programmatic crew members and sub-recipients.
Tip 11: Set a daily cadence for finishing and gathering timesheets. A certified particular person—not the one that accomplished the timesheet—should approve them every pay interval to make sure segregation of duties. Evaluate them repeatedly towards the permitted finances.
Tip 12: Set up one individual to take care of the documentation all through the grant award and after. It will present consistency with capturing, monitoring, and storing grant-related paperwork.
Tip 13: Be ready in your audit. Should you obtain greater than 750k in a fiscal yr, you might be topic to a single audit. Your auditor will likely be taking a look at monetary and programmatic info, so you’ll want to ensure you are monitoring and managing these particulars.
Grant Compliance is a Group Effort
Grants, particularly authorities grants, are sometimes advanced and require important work. Whereas the finance crew owns a lot of the reporting and monitoring obligations, grant compliance requires enter from the whole group. Be sure that your program crew understands their function. By establishing a repeatable course of, you’ll be able to tackle extra grant funding and drive extra influence.
Be taught extra about methods to enhance collaboration on grant compliance with our webinar, Constructing a Sturdy Grants Compliance Group: The Significance of Finance and Program Workers Collaboration.
