Managing an award

When a grant is funded, the grant will either receive a Notice of Grant Award (NOGA) or the funding agency will notify the contact named on the grant application documentation to submit a full proposal or request changes to the original grant. Once you or your district satisfactorily submits those changes and wins the grant award, a NOGA will be issued (foundation notifications tend to be less formal than the issuance of an official NOGA). Once your grant application contact informs you of the NOGA, meet with your named district contact to get details on goals to be achieved by the grant and important deadlines for reporting the progress toward meeting those goals.

Funding agencies create grants to meet goals of their organization. These goals result from either initiatives or legislation that must be met or from foundational philosophies or goals of the foundation providing the funding. Meeting those goals means the entity moves the needle closer to enacting those initiatives or achieving progress toward making the world reflect the vision of the foundation. Funded grant awardees that do not meet progress toward those goals run the risk of not being funded in the future should the need arise to apply to that agency again. Conversely, grant applicants who do a stellar job of carrying out a grant's goal often times get invited to apply for future funding, especially from foundations, because the awardee has demonstrated the ability to meet those goals with fidelity. Worst of all, grant funding agencies can require grant recipients to pay back grant funds received as a result of non-compliance.

If the grant recipient needs to rearrange the funding to spend more on one area of the budget than originally requested, most grants have a percentage that can be spent outside of the original funding categories (typically 25%). If more funding needs to be moved to other budgeting areas, most grants provide an amendment process. Notify your district that you may need to amend the grant in order to fully spend all funding by the grant deadline. Though rare, occasionally grant recipients can request an extension in order to complete the requirements of the grant. Avoid this at all cost; however, if the need should arise for an extension, notify your district as soon as possible and inform the funder of the need and get guidance on next steps. The recipient must provide well-supported, concrete reasons for the extension showing that failure to complete the project could not be avoided.