5 Considerations When Updating Your Grant Application

Change may be inevitable, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. No one wants to live in a world before indoor plumbing and timers on your coffee maker.

While your mission probably won’t change, the needs of your community and the technology you use to manage your grantmaking will. It’s important to review your grant application periodically so you can incorporate new features in your grantmaking software and new ways to meet the needs of your grantees.

Here are five questions to consider as you start to update your grant application.

1. How well does your application match your funding priorities?

Your application should be an extension of your mission as a grantmaking organization.

Before you start digging into the nuances of what and how you ask for information, use this opportunity to look holistically at your application to make sure it matches the tone of your organization.

Make sure your core values are represented in your application process. If someone didn’t know your organization well and came across your funding program, would they be able to tell that you prioritize big-picture problem solving or funding marginalized voices, for example?

As you review each question and process around your application, clearly define how it reflects your mission and your priorities.

2. Can you provide a simple pre-screening process?

Potential grantees don’t want to waste their time—or yours—completing an application that isn’t a good fit. Provide a simple, low-effort way for organizations to verify their eligibility before spending hours completing the full application. Applicants should be able to complete your pre-screening in 30 minutes or less.

Consider adding a quick questionnaire that verifies they meet your basic criteria, such as serving a specific location or demographic. It should be a few questions, mainly checkboxes or dropdown lists, and should take a few minutes to complete. A survey like this works well if you have specific requirements, such as a budget under $100,000 or serving families with preschool-aged children.

If your requirements need a little more nuance than a survey can convey, perhaps have your grantees submit a short letter of inquiry or a five-minute video explaining why the organization should be considered for funding. These take a little longer for your staff to review, but the organizations can give you more insight into whether they would be a good fit.

If you already have a pre-screening process, look for ways that you can make it better. Do you find it currently takes too much of your staff’s time to review, or that some organizations are getting screened out that shouldn’t be? You may find better ways to ask your screening questions or for your applicants to submit their answers.

3. How can you simplify your funding application?

Your grant application must walk a thin line between gathering the information you need to make an informed decision, and not being so onerous that your target organizations opt not to apply.

Make sure you are taking advantage of any functionality in your grantmaking software to automate or streamline the process. Something as simple as autofilling address information based on their login can save time. Integrations with Candid can also help provide some important details about the potential grantee instead of the applicant having to supply it.

Use conditional logic to shorten the application based on size or age of organization. For example, if an organization is less than two years old, you may ask for a simplified version of their financials.  

Another way to simplify the application process is to enable autosave. Like you, your applicants are busy and probably working on several projects at once. Nothing is more defeating than losing an hour’s worth of work because your browser froze, or you accidentally closed the tab without saving.

Finally, encourage your applicants to submit their responses electronically. Online submissions save your staff time because everything is automatically entered into your GMS, which often also serves as your CRM. It also saves your potential grantees time and money by not having to make copies and mail their application.

4. Who will be completing your application?

You may have people with a variety of abilities, resources, and skills applying for your funding, so keep your application accessible. Depending on your mission and the scope of your funding project, the organizations interested in applying may not have reliable internet, need assistive technology, or may not speak English as their first language. Keep this in mind as you update your grant application.

Keep your language simple and clear. If you include images, make sure they have captions. Avoid jargon, cliches, and regionalisms to help all your applicants understand what you are looking for.

Work with your GMS vendor to make sure your forms work with standard screen readers for people who have limited vision or prefer to have the text read out loud. Similarly, see what translation capabilities are innate to your GMS for organizations where English is not their primary language. Can they easily translate the questions into Spanish, for example?

The concept of universal design states that if you make a system or process more accessible for a subset of people, you often make a better experience for everyone. Everyone benefits from clear language and multiple ways to access.

5. How will you use the information?

Only ask for information that you know will be essential for making a funding decision. Not only is this important for streamlining your application, but it’s also good data management. You don’t have to worry about managing data you don’t collect.

Remove any legacy questions that have lasted longer than their usefulness for decision making. If you had a program that provided funding for volunteer training, but that is no longer part of program, you may be able to remove any questions about the number of volunteers an organization has.

There is some information that you need, but you may not need to be prescriptive about how you receive it. For example, do grantees need to format their financials based on your templates, or do you just need them in a format where you can verify their budget and expenses? If you are willing to accept their budget in a format that they already pull from their fund accounting system instead of translating it into a spreadsheet, you can save them significant time and still get the information you need.

Build Stronger Relationships with Streamlined Applications

You build trust with your grantees when they recognize that you are taking their time and resources into consideration with your application. Consider asking a few long-time grantees to review your application and provide feedback—both before and after you make your update. Plan to review and update your application regularly to take advantage of new functionality and to better reflect your grantees’ changing needs.

If you are ready for a grantmaking solution that provides flexibility for your application and accessibility for your grantees, check out Blackbaud Grantmaking. Watch this short video to see our modern grantee experience in action.