Efficient Grantmaking Process Workflows: A Path to Impactful Giving

Foundations and other grantmaking organizations provide essential funding through grants and donor advised funds, creating a substantial impact on the nonprofit sector.

According to the Giving USA 2023 report, foundations gave one out of every five dollars to charity in 2022—amounting to $105.21 billion in total.

It can be hard work to make and manage grants that will advance your mission and generate real results for your community.

Every grant dollar needs to make a difference.

To maximize impact, grantmaking organizations need solutions to manage and connect key development and operational processes with their financial processes.

Here’s what we’ll cover

Introducing Sage Intacct for Grantmakers

Cloud-based nonprofit solutions, like Sage Intacct for Grantmakers, automate the grantmaking process with best practices and efficient workflows.

Cloud automation also improves collaboration between the finance team and program leaders, thanks to real-time reporting and enhanced insights for decision makers.

Sage Intacct for Grantmakers streamlines the execution of grants and donor advised funds through automated, collaborative workflows connected directly to financials in Sage Intacct.

Powered by Sage Intacct Forms and Operational Flows, the solution fully automates the grantmaking life cycle, including the:

• pre-award phase
• award decisions and notifications
• implementation
• monitoring and evaluation
• closeout.

In the remainder of this article, we will walk through the steps of an effective grantmaking process, highlighting workflows that can be enhanced by technology and examining how digital automation with Sage Intacct for Grantmakers can transform grantmaking efficiency.

Steps to an Effective Grantmaking Process

1. Start with your mission

Like all nonprofits, foundations must stay grounded in their mission.

Before gathering grant applications and handing out money, grantmakers should be able to communicate their mission and the impact they intend to make with their funding.

Clarifying and refining your mission allows you to answer grantmaking questions such as:

• What change are you trying to drive?
• Who are you trying to help?
• What types of organizations or people will be eligible to receive your grants?
• What types of restrictions might you need to place on the funding?

2. Adopt nonprofit-centric technology

Cloud accounting software designed for foundations and nonprofits can help you structure your grantmaking process, track the status of your grants, manage finances and budgets, and monitor outcomes.

Cloud solutions provide easier visibility to real-time data and insights, helping foundations maximize mission impact and ensure greater transparency.

3. Plan your budget and determine your funding focus

Budgeting should include not only the money for grants your organization awards, but also for the people, processes, and technology needed to administer, track, and report on grant progress.

Your mission will guide how you use funding to achieve goals and drive change, also known as funding focus.

For example, if your organization is eliminating hunger, will you focus funding on food pantry and soup kitchen operations, or will you focus on poverty eradication and empowerment programs and training, or will you direct grants toward studying the problem and looking for new solutions?

4. Assemble a good team to manage grant applications and grant decisions

Grantmakers need talented people to design grant applications as well as organize and track the status of applications received. To decide who will receive grants, organizations will establish a selection committee.

The people reviewing and deciding on grants may include stakeholders, members of your staff, and board members.

Ideally, you may also want to include external reviewers with first-hand experience in the communities you’re trying to help and with the problems your mission seeks to solve.

5. Create your grant application

The pre-award phase of grantmaking sets the tone for your future collaboration with grantees.

Therefore, the application process should point directly to your mission and the application should include clear instructions.

Eliminate paper-based applications in favor of the speed, ease, and organization of online grant applications.

Sage Intacct for Grantmakers provides customizable online grant application forms (no coding required) and eligibility quizzes.

6. Verify grant applicants and perform due diligence

When you commit precious resources to a grantee, you want to know the program and organization are legitimate and will spend the money to achieve the desired outcome.

That’s why it is essential to perform due diligence and verify the legitimacy of potential new grantees as you review each grant application.

Sage Intacct for Grantmakers helps verify the legitimacy of grant applicants through an automated verification process.

7. Make award decisions

After your grant review committee selects the grantees that will be awarded, you will need to communicate with both grantees and applicants who were not selected.

Automation can significantly speed this process and help ensure no one slips through the cracks.

Sage Intacct for Grantmakers includes automated award letters.

Once grantees are in your network, you can further automate contract review and accept electronic signatures from grantees.

8. Collaborate with grantees

Today’s leading grantmaking organizations don’t simply write a check and wait for results—they partner with grantees to drive change and increase mission impact.

Automation helps you keep details squared away so your team can concentrate on the mission and building deeper relationships with grantees.

With Sage Intacct for Grantmakers, workflows are fully digitized, with information about vendors, grantees, grant award payments, and more flowing automatically into the appropriate areas of Sage Intacct.

Community foundations can create a no-code, two-way communication portal with donor advisors to streamline award notification requests and share contribution history and giving details.

9. Measure impact and report outcomes

As grants are in progress and later closed out, you will want to make data-driven decisions about whether to renew your grant, based on measured outcomes.

Sage Intacct for Grantmakers automates interim and final reporting, so grantmakers can measure impact at the grant and organizational level, and then share those results with stakeholders and decision makers.

Final thoughts

Experienced grantmakers know the keys to smooth grantmaking are active collaboration between the finance team and program staff along with easy communication and data exchange with grantees.

Automation can eliminate grantmaking process bottlenecks and improve communications with employees, grant applicants, grantees, fund advisors, vendors, and more.

Having automation like Sage Intacct for Grantmakers ensures everyone has access to real-time information they need to make the best decisions and move grants forward for excellent outcomes.

Leverage technology to empower your people and infuse your grantmaking process with efficiency.

Download the Benefits of Cloud Accounting for Grantmaking Organizations e-book to learn more about how to maximize mission impact with cloud-based solutions.

About the author

Natalie Anderson is a senior nonprofit industry marketing manager for Sage Intacct.

Natalie has 10 years of experience in software marketing and is passionate about helping nonprofits leverage software to achieve mission success.