Grants Coordination Team: Manage the Grant Application Process
- Harshula Jhala
- Sanaa Kherodawala
- Wilmarié Moreland
The Grant Coordinator typically needs to oversee and manage the entire Grant Release, Application, Review, and Reporting phases. Naturally, the team members and business processes for these stages vary from one organization to the next. This guide includes general guidelines for the Grant Coordination Team to manage the following Grant Management stages using the Amp Impact Grant Management Plugin:
Not a Grant Coordinator? You might want to navigate to the Grant Applicant, Grant Reviewer, or Grantee pages to learn more about these processes.
Manage Calls for Proposals
Grant Coordinators often need to publish a Call for Proposals to share details about available grants and invite applications.
Grant Coordinators can create a Call for Proposals record to invite Applications for a funding opportunity. This can be created by navigating to the “Call for Proposals” tab and clicking “New”.
Once a Call for Proposals record has been created, the Coordinator can navigate to the “Details” tab to add remaining information, such as Description, Available Funding, Status, etc.
Organizations often publish the Call for Proposals details on an external platform (like their Experience Site or a website). This can be configured depeding on the organization”s requirements.
Add Related Themes
Organizations often track particular themes related to grants (for example Education, Health, etc.). This can be done by associating Thematic Areas to the Call from Proposals record from the “Thematic Areas” related list. The Thematic Areas added to a Call for Proposals are then automatically copied onto all related Applications.
Interested in tracking specific indicators by Thematic Area? Amp Impact allows organizations to define required Indicators by Thematic Area. This is especially helpful if there are a standard list of indicators that need to be tracked for specific grants. Setting up required Indicators by Thematic Areas means that these Indicators will automatically be added to the Grant and grantees need to report on them through the grant lifecycle.
Add Narrative Concept Note & Application Templates
Coordinators can request that a narrative report be filled by Applicants (while filling out a Concept Note or an Application) and Reviewers (while filling out a Concept Note review or an Application review) during the application process. These narrative reports are based on a Template and typically, the Submissions feature is used to do this.
Here are the Submission Templates that come with the Grant Management Plugin:
Concept Note Template
Concept Note Review Template
Application Template
Application Review Template
To link a narrative reporting Template to a Call for Proposals record, navigate to the “Templates” section of the Call for Proposals record, and enter the name of the Template in the relevant field.
Once the Templates are linked to the Call for Proposals, all Concept Notes, Applications, and reviews for both will be created with the narrative report specified in the relevant field.
Concept Note Management
Once the Applicant has created a Concept Note, the Coordinator can access it, set it up for review, and request revisions on it.
To view all the Concept Notes submitted for a Call for Proposals, navigate to the “Concept Notes” related list on the “Related” tab on Call for Proposals.
Before advancing a Concept Note to the Reviewer, the Coordinator might want to make changes to it. For example, by default, the primary contact on a Concept Note is the Applicant who created it. If the Coordinator wants to assign someone else as the primary contact, they can do that by updating the “Grant Applicant Primary Contact” lookup field.
Request Revisions on Concept Note
If any revisions are needed on the Concept Notes, you can request them by sending an email using the Activity timeline on the Concept Note record.
The Email Template “Notify Grantees To Revise Concept Note” is available for Coordinators to quickly create an email to notify Applicants of requested revisions.
If revisions are requested on the Concept Note, the Coordinator should:
Update “Concept Note Stage” from “Submitted” to “In Progress”.
If revisions are requested in the narrative report, the “Status” field on the Submission record related to the concept note must be updated to be “In Progress” again in order to become editable for the Applicant.
Once the Applicant has submitted the concept note, the Coordinator can assign a Reviewer to it, and monitor the review for the Concept Note.
Approve/Reject Concept Note
Once the Reviewer has submitted the Concept Note review, the Coordinator can approve or reject the Concept Note by navigating to the “Details” tab and updating the picklist field “Concept Note Stage” to “Approved” or “Rejected”.
If the Concept Note is approved, an Application for the second step of the application process is auto-created and contains the relevant information copied from the Concept Note.
Application Management
Once the Grant Applicant has created an Application (in case of a single-step application process) or the Concept Note is approved (in case of a two-step application process), the Coordinator can access it and request revisions.
To view all the Applications submitted for a Call for Proposals, navigate to the “Applications” related list on the “Related” tab on Call for Proposals.
Request Revisions on Application
If the grant applicant has submitted the Application, the grant coordinator can request revisions on it (if any) by sending them an email using the Activity timeline on the Application. The Email Template “Notify Grantees To Revise Application” is available for grant coordinators to quickly create an email to notify grant applicants of requested revisions.
If revisions are requested on the concept note, the grant coordinator should:
Update “Application Stage” from “Submitted” to “In Progress”
If revisions are requested in the narrative report, the “Status” field on Submission record related to the application should be updated to be “In Progress” again so that it becomes editable for the grant applicant
Approve/Reject Application
Once an Application Review has been submitted, the Coordinator can approve or reject the Application by navigating to the “Details” tab and updating the “Application Stage” field to “Approved” or “Rejected”.
If the Application is approved, the Application is automatically converted to a Grant and contains the relevant information copied from the Application.
Manage Concept Note & Application Reviews
Once an Applicant has submitted a Concept Note and/or Application, the next step is for a Grant Coordinator to assign a Reviewer.
Once they do so, a Concept Note or Application Review record is automatically created and assigned to the Reviewer.
Create & Manage Reviewer Contact Records
In order for Coordinators to assign Reviewers to a Concept Note or Application record, the “Designated Reviewer” checkbox on the Contact record needs to be checked.
Coordinators can mark any contact as a designated Reviewer by navigating to the contact”s record and checking the “Designated Reviewer” checkbox.
Add a Reviewer to a Concept Note/ Application
To assign a Reviewer, navigate to the Concept Note or Application record in question, and select that contact in the “Reviewer” field on the Details tab.
If a Reviewer is not assigned to a Concept Note or Application, the corresponding review record will not be created when the Concept Note or Application is submitted.
Set Review Due Dates
On the Concept Note Review or Application Review record, the Coordinator can set a due date for the Reviewer to submit the review.
Remind Reviewers to Submit Review
An email alert is automatically sent to the Reviewer 3 days in advance of the due date, if the Concept Note Review or Application Review has not already been submitted.
If the Coordinator wants to send an additional reminder, they can send an email from the corresponding Concept Note or Application using the Activity timeline using one of two email templates:
“Remind Reviewer to complete the Concept Note review”
“Remind Reviewer to complete the Application review”
Monitor Review Status & Scores
There are two ways to monitor the Review Status and overall Review scores: