When you receive the grant award what do you do in your organization?

Cartwheels? High fives? Celebratory lunch?

Taking time to celebrate the success of a new grant award is one of the best parts of the grant seeking process. (Seeing Grant Funding in Action is the *best* part in my opinion.)

After you are done celebrating the new award and funding partnership, it is key to your long-term success as a grant seeking organization that you consistently accept, document and process your grant award. Having grant acceptance policies and related procedure in place is a surefire way to ensure consistency in your actions.

Here are some initial steps to help get your own customized grant acceptance policies started:

1. If partial funding was awarded, before providing the contract/award paperwork to your Executive Director for signature, you must first determine if your organization will still be able to achieve the anticipated goals and objectives of the proposed project with the partial funding. Contact the Executive Director regarding the partial award in order to discuss the ramifications of partial funding and how to determine the effect on the program.
2. Read through the entire contract carefully looking for specifics including, but not limited to:
   • Reporting requirements – due dates, forms required, etc
   • Check request procedure/Check payment schedule
   • Partial funding restrictions if the full request was not awarded
   • Requirement to put together a press release announcing the award
3. If you are satisfied with your organization’s ability to meet all grant requirements, send original contracts to Executive Director for signature.  A minimum of 3 copies of original signed contract need to be made and distributed to the following: 
   • 1 – Finance, 2 – Director(s) in charge of executing grant; and 3 – Executive Director.
4. Return signed originals and any other required paperwork along with a thank you cover letter thanking the funder for the award.
5. If there is a check request procedure, submit it at the beginning of grant if allowed by funder rather than after expenses have been incurred.
6. Talk with Finance about the assignment of a grant number associated with this award for coding of grant expenses and provide a copy of the budget for the grant (if partial funding was awarded, also provide finance with a copy of the partial funding budget).
7. Once the check for the grant does arrive, be sure to write an official thank you/receipt for the gift.

Review Your Grant Acceptance Policies

Don’t forget to share your journey on the 30-Day Grant Readiness Challenge by using the hashtag #grantreadiness on your posts and updates on social media.

Did you miss the launch of the 30-Day Grant Readiness Challenge? It isn’t too late for you to start! It’s free to participate in, and you can sign up at any point and it will start you back on Day 1!