Manage Grantseeking Opportunities

Grants Overview

Grants are donations that typically come from philanthropic organizations and are usually paid out separately from when they are awarded. Grants are often tied to specific programs and deliverables with important reporting and documentation deadlines that require thoughtful management.

In Nonprofit Success Pack, nonprofits use the Opportunity object to track their grant seeking activities.

Foundations, philanthropies, and other grant makers should explore Grants Management from Salesforce.org. Grants Management helps foundations provide a portal where grantseekers can find funding opportunities, apply for funding, view their application status, and submit ongoing progress reports for awarded grants all in one place.

Create a Grant Opportunity

Salesforce stores Grants as Opportunity records, just like donations. Grants are usually given by institutions, and not families. However, you can associate a Grant record with a Household Account, if appropriate.

1. In the navigation bar, click Accounts.
2. Find the Account with which you want to associate the Grant. If you haven't yet created an Account for the organization, create a new one.
3. On the Opportunities related list, click New.
4. From the list of Record Types, select Grant and click Next.
5. Salesforce fills in the Opportunity Name and Account Name by default. Enter the following information for your Grant record:
   • Requested Amount—The amount you are requesting for the Grant. Because the ultimate amount of the Grant may differ from the requested amount, you might want to leave the Amount field blank for now.
   • Stage—Select Prospecting. As long as you don't select a Closed/Won stage such as Awarded, you'll be able to schedule payments for this Grant record.
   • Close Date—Select a date that indicates when you expect to receive the grant. Don't worry if you don't know the exact date right now. For example, you might want to enter a date that you think is somewhere within the same fiscal quarter. That way your quarterly forecast reporting can include this grant. You can always edit the date later and the changes are tracked in history.
   • Campaign, Grant Requirements Website, Program Area(s)—Enter if appropriate.
6. Click Save.

The new Grant Opportunity is now associated with the Account.

Note Consider exploring the free, open-source Grants Content Kit to manage the text you use in your grant applications.

Manage Deliverables

As you communicate with the funding organization and your Grant moves along in its process from Prospecting to Awarded, you'll want to keep key data on the Grant record up to date. In Nonprofit Success Pack, you keep track of these deadlines by creating separate Deliverable records.

Let's say your organization needs to have a Letter of Intent (LOI) for this ABC Telecom grant issued by November 1st. If the LOI is approved, you'll then need to apply for the grant by December 1st, for a decision on January 30th. Here is what you'll need to do to make sure everything is completed on time.

1. Open a Grant record that's been set to Prospecting.
2. In the Deliverables related list, click New.
3. Give the deliverable a Name and add additional detail. Be sure to indicate the Due Date.
4. Click Save.
5. Enter additional Deliverable records. You can enter as many as is appropriate.

Notice that Salesforce automatically updates the Next Deliverable Date field on the main Grant Opportunity record to reflect the next deadline date.

Update a Grant Record When a Grant is Awarded

You have received word that your grant has been Awarded. Congratulations! Now you need to update your work-in-progress Grant record to indicate that you expect payment and when. There may be additional reporting requirements that you need to keep track of as well.

1. Navigate to the Opportunity record for the Grant that's been awarded, and then click Edit.
2. Enter the amount of the final, total grant amount in Amount field. This number does not necessarily have to be the same as the Requested Amount previously entered.
3. Change the Stage of the Grant Opportunity to Awarded. Doing this will tell Salesforce to assign the Opportunity a Closed/Won state. The total amount will then roll up to the grantor's Account record.
4. Manage Grantseeking Opportunities.
5. If you've enabled GAU Allocations in NPSP Settings, you should double-check the GAU Allocations related list to see that your allocations are correct. You can also add allocations at this point to indicate how funds should be distributed within your organization. See Allocations Overview for more information.
6. Update the Grant record's Grant Contract Number, Grant Contract Date, Grant Period Start Date, Grant Period End Date as appropriate.
7. Add additional Deliverable records to track post-award requirements such as when interim reports are due.

Schedule the Grant Payments

Often, grants are disbursed as partial payments over a fixed schedule. Once you've marked the Grant record with the Awarded stage (or a stage where the Type is Closed/Won), Nonprofit Success Pack may assume that the record contains only Paid payments. When the Grant record is in this state, you can't schedule additional Payments, so you'll need to edit the record slightly before you can schedule the Grant Payments.

1. On the Grant record, go to the Payments related list and edit any existing Payment record to uncheck the Paid field.
2. Return to the Grant record and schedule payments. On the Payments related list,

   click Schedule Payments. The Schedule Payments screen appears.

3. To create a quarterly payment schedule over a single year, enter the following information:
   • For # of Payments, select 4.
   • For Date of First Payment, enter the date you expect the first payment.
   • For Interval, select 3 and Month.
   • For Payment Method, select how you anticipate the payments will be made. Leave blank if unsure.
4. Click Calculate Payments. The Payments to be Created appear at the bottom of the page.
5. Accept the default calculations or modify them as you see fit to match the grant payment dates.

   In the example above, we entered the date and checked the Paid checkbox for the first quarterly installment of this grant.

6. Click Create Payments to create the four Payment records associated with the grant.

The Grant record has been updated to show the total completed payments and remaining balance.

Receive or Write Off Grant Payments

Record details of grant payments and handle grant schedule changes.

• As you receive payments, to record the details (such as payment date): In the Payments related list next to a payment, click , then Edit.
• If the grant schedule changes or you won't receive the rest of the grant for some reason, you can write off an individual payment: In the Payments related list next to the payment, click , then Edit.
• To write off (that is, cancel) all of the remaining payments in the Payments related list: Click , then Write Off Payments.

  For more information, see Manage Pledges.

Associate a New Grant record with a Previous Grant

As great relationships are maintained with funders, Grants are often renewed year after year. Each year or funding period, create a new Grant Opportunity to take advantage of those great relationships. To keep your Grant records related to each other, update the Previous Grant/Gift Opportunity and Is Grant Renewal fields for easy access to historic records.

Note Special thanks to Dennis Jeske and Sam Knox for their great contributions to this documentation.

Track Grant Communications

It's not all about deliverables and deadlines. Your relationship with your grant maker is also critically important to manage. For example, what did your colleague discuss in yesterday's conversation with the Program Officer? What follow up is needed? In general, how is that relationship going?

Salesforce offers several ways to track and provide visibility into this kind of information. We'll look at three ways here:

• Tasks and Activities

• Notes

• Chatter

Notes

Notes (formerly Enhanced Notes) is a versatile, rich text editor. Think of Notes as a handy "scratch pad" where you can record information about the conversation you just had with your Program Officer. You can create a Note independent of any record, or attach a Note to one or more records such as Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities.

Note To use Notes, your admin must enable Notes for your organization, and configure page layouts to include Notes. For more information, see Set Up Notes in Salesforce Help.

To create a Note:

1. Click the Global Actions menu in the Lightning Experience header and choose New Note.

2. Enter a subject in the subject area, and the information you want to record in the Notes area. Use the rich text editor to format your Note, and optionally add images.

3. Optionally, click Add to Records to attach the Note to any record. Repeat to attach to multiple records.

4. Click Done.

For more information on how to use Notes, see Pro Tip: Boost Note-Taking With Enhanced Notes in Lightning Experience.