Strategic Grants Best Practice Tracker Logo
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  • Welcome!

    The Strategic Grants Best Practice Tracker will help identify your organisation’s readiness and capacity to seeking funding and grants and areas to work on to optimise results. Assess your processes against each of the critical success factors, to determine where you need additional resourcing and support.

  • Let's get started!

    Score your organisation against each topic area. You will be provided with an overall score at the end of the survey where you can compare against the benchmark. Each measure is scored out of 5. If you need support with making your assessment, one of our team would be happy to assist. You can save the form and return to it later. There is a Save button at the bottom of the screen.

  • GEM Portal Knowledge Centre

    If you are filling this out via the Knowledge Centre, your results will be auto loaded into GEM Portal around 15 minutes after you submit this form. Refresh your Knowledge Centre Home page in GEM Portal to see the results in the BPT Results screen
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  • Strong support from the CEO and management team is crucial for an effective grant-seeking and fundraising strategy.

  • Ask yourself the following questions outlined below, then rate your organisation’s current performance.

    • Does your organisation have a current Strategic Plan and KPIs to measure?
    • Is there strong internal collaboration between teams for planning, performance management and donor engagement?
    • Is your CEO willing to talk to major donors and funders?
    • Are your processes and policies for grant-seeking and fundraising endorsed and supported by your Executive (or equivalent)?
    • Are KPIs for grants included in the position descriptions of your CEO, Board and other senior leaders? Do you have a Grant Coordination Committee (or equivalent)?
    • If so, does this committee support the implementation of your grants strategy, drive team collaboration and ownership for grants across your organisation?
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  • Helpful Strategic Grants Resources

    Blog: How to empower your Board to connect with major donors, trusts and foundations.

    Resource: Setting KPIs for your grants program: Grant-seeking performance goals and measurement development guide

    Talk to SG: Strategic Grants offers training sessions for your Executive Team on the importance of grant-seeking and fundraising processes. We also conduct workshops tailored to your organisation to help develop and implement an effective grants strategy.

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  • A current list of funding priorities is essential to a successful grants program. It is critical to guiding grant-seeking to ensure that grants identified and applied for are aligned with the organisation’s purpose and meet the organisation’s short, medium and long-term needs.

  • Ask yourself the following questions outlined below, then rate your organisation’s current performance.

    • Do you know what your organisation’s top funding priorities are?
    • Do you have your funding priorities documented in a centralised funding priorities list?
    • Have your funding priorities been approved by your Board and/or Executive Team, and do they align with your Strategic Plan?
    • Do you have a schedule for regular review and updating of funding priorities? (Quarterly, bi-annual, or annual reviews to ensure priorities remain current and relevant). 
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  • Helpful Strategic Grants Resources

    Resource: Funding priorities table template

    Talk to SG: Get in touch about our services to educate staff and Board members on identifying and prioritising funding needs.

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  • Robust project plans enable you to be ready to ask for funding.  Funders have an expectation that the program you’re seeking funding for is well designed and developed. Capturing information into a “grant-ready” proposal before grant opportunities arise will streamline your grant writing process and strengthen the chances of a successful application.  

  • Ask yourself the following questions outlined below, then rate your organisation’s current performance.

    • Do you have an agreed process for internal Project Planning and Development?  
    • Are your funding priorities captured into “grant-ready” project summaries outlining the aim, objectives, need, activities, outputs and outcomes? 
    • Do you have Measurement and Evaluation built into your projects? And is this embedded in your organisation? 
    • Do you have an accurate budget (with quotes) ready for your projects? 
    • Are all relevant stakeholders involved in the project planning process? 
      Is there a system for tracking progress and making adjustments to project plans as needed? 
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  • Helpful Strategic Grants Resources

    Blog: M&E: 5 Steps to Funder Happiness

    Blog: Outcomes and outputs – getting it right in your grant applications

    Blog: The key to learning and improving practice is asking powerful Qs 

    Blog: What Funders want from M&E 

    Resource: A Guide to Effectively Engaging Program Staff in Fundraising 

    Resource: M&E Checklist 

    Resource: Project Planning Template

    Video: Project Planning

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  • To be effective you should apply an efficient, regular and systematic approach to finding the right funding and grant opportunities for each of your projects. 

  • Ask yourself the following questions outlined below, then rate your organisation’s current performance.

    • Does your organisation use GEMS to identify grants and funding opportunities?
    • Do you apply an efficient, regular and systematic approach to finding the right funding and grant opportunities for each of your projects? (If your organisation has GEM Portal – is it being used optimally?) 
    • Do you undertake prospect matching between current funding opportunities and your grant-ready projects? 
    • Do you make calls to funders, send appropriate communications or conduct research to confirm eligibility and interest prior to applying? 
    • Are project owners advised when grant applications are proceeding? 
      Are you utilising a clear decision-making framework on which funding opportunities to go for?  
    • Do you have a clear pipeline of “by invitation” funders to build relationships with? 
    • Do you ensure that the values of prospect funders align with, or are not in contradiction to, your own organisational values? 
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  • Helpful Strategic Grants Resources

    Blog: Grants prospect researching – ensuring the best project match every time!

    Resource: A guide to understanding invitation only funders

     

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  • To secure funding, it is essential to demonstrate the need for your project/s and organisation, effectively. Assessing your organisation's capabilities in donor communications and funding applications involves evaluating several aspects. 

  • Ask yourself the following questions outlined below, then rate your organisation’s current performance.

    • Do you have organisational key messages in one central file that all staff can access to ensure consistent messaging across the organisation and assist with grant writing?
    • Does your organisation have the writing experience and skills internally to prepare strong funding applications that concisely provide relevant evidence, rate highly and leave no unanswered questions in funders’ minds?  
    • Do you ensure the project need is clearly demonstrated, citing local needs data and higher-level needs data that provides evidence / rationale for the project? 
    • Do you ensure outputs, outcomes, long-term impacts and evaluation methodology are clearly defined? 
    • Do you have a current organisational Case for Support that effectively presents the need for funding and the impact of your work? 
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  • Helpful Strategic Grant's Resources

    Resource: Recommendations for writing a concise funder proposal

    Resource: Writing checklist

    Training: Attend our next in-person Grant-seeker Workshop

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  • Reporting your success is a crucial aspect of maintaining strong relationships with donors and funders. It involves both external and internal communication, ensuring transparency, accountability, and continued support.  

  • Ask yourself the following questions outlined below, then rate your organisation’s current performance.

    • Do you deliver all donor and funder reports for funding you have received?  
    • Are these reports delivered on time? 
    • Are all applications recorded in an agreed and central electronic system? 
    • Do you notify project owners of successful funding outcomes and confirm that they understand the reporting and evaluation requirements ahead of the commencement of the funding period? 
    • Do fundraising staff ensure the most appropriate person calls the funder to say thank you? 
    • Do fundraising and finance staff work together to record the details of funding arrangements (such as grant agreements) and issue receipts? 
    • Are you exceeding your funding partners’ expectations? 
    • Do you, where appropriate, re-apply for funding acknowledging the past support? 
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  • Helpful Strategic Grants Resources

    Blog: How acquitting your grants can lead to securing consistent funding

    Resource: Acquitting funding checklist

    Resource: Acquittal report template

    Resource: What to do when funds have not been acquitted on time

    GEMS Application Tracker: provides the essential tools

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  • Funder engagement and stewardship are crucial for sustaining funding relationships. These questions assess your organisation's efforts in nurturing relationships with funders, seeking feedback, and maintaining transparent and meaningful communication. 

  • Ask yourself the following questions outlined below, then rate your organisation’s current performance.

    •  Do you invest time into nurturing strong relationships with funders, both existing and prospective? 
    • Do you invest time in your current funder relationships, beyond reporting requirements? 
    • Do you obtain feedback from funders on the quality of your applications and reporting? 
    • Do staff nurture and grow funding relationships outside of application and reporting times? (e.g. sending through ad hoc case studies or video updates from key staff, invitations to come onsite and see programs in action, invitations to events etc.) 
    • Do you keep a centralised record of donors, which is updated regularly by fundraising staff?  
    • Do you thank your funders in meaningful ways, where appropriate? 
    • Do you have tailored funder communications plans in place?  
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  • Helpful Strategic Grant's Resources

    Blog: Stewarding our funders….We know it’s important, so why aren’t we doing it more? 

    Blog: Telephone tips to engage your funders

    Video: Donor and Funder engagement

     

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  • Well done! You've assessed your organisation against best practice. Now time to see your score and next steps.

  • What does my score mean?

    0 - 14 This indicates that there are limited processes in place. Get in touch - we are here to help.

    15 - 21 There are a few processes in place but room for a lot of improvement. Get in touch to discuss strategies to raise your score.

    22 - 28 You have some some good processes in place and some areas to improve on. Get in touch to discuss strategies to raise your score.

    28 - 35 Well done - that's a great score. Re-assess your processes in 3 months.

  • Click the Submit button to have your results emailed to you.

  • We suggest assessing your organisation in the Best Practice Tracker, every 3 months.

    Pop a reminder in your calendar now!
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