Recently I was asked, what tech tools are available to support grant professionals? Below are tech tools that could be helpful for all stages of delivering successful grant proposals — time management, organization, writing, budget and collaboration.
Grant Writing Tools for Time Management
Grant professionals often juggle planning, research, program design, writing, grant management, facilitating professional development, fundraising and other tasks. When a grant deadline is pending, how do you use technology to effectively manage your time? If you are skilled at procrastination, or are easily distracted, consider using the Pomodoro Technique which breaks writing up into 25-minute sessions:
- Set a kitchen, microwave or mobile phone timer at 25 minutes
- Take a break for three to five minutes
Pomodoro apps you may find useful are available online. Other time management tech tools include RescueTime, Remember the Milk, Toggl and TimeTree.
Grant Writing Tools for Organization
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.” Instead of wishing for projects to get done, start organizing. Some people use EverNote or Notion to organize and record notes and ideas. Other organizing tools include Smartsheet, Jira and the Scrum framework. Grant professional Diane Leonard breaks down the Scrum framework for prioritizing grant projects on the Grant Association Professionals (GPA) website.
It is so much easier to write the narrative of your project knowing the budget first and matching the story to the numbers. The budget and project narrative must match.
Grant Writing Tools
Before writing the grant proposal, a project plan is needed. To help form a visual plan of the project, try ‘mind mapping.’ Some tech tools to help with mind mapping are MindNode, MindMeister, Mind42 and Scapple. If you don’t have a team mock review process or a family member/friend to edit proposal drafts, consider using tech tools such as Grammarly or Hemingway Editor. I love and use the readability feature in MS Word, which provides data such as the percentage of passive voice use. David Lindeman talks about this tool along with other professional copy editor tools on GPA’s website.
Grant Writing Tools for Budget Proposals
“A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went” (Dave Ramsey).
I am a firm believer in the power of creating a grant project budget first before any proposal writing begins. It is so much easier to write the narrative of your project knowing the budget first and matching the story to the numbers. The budget and project narrative must match; reviewers often place the budget alongside the narrative proposal to ensure consistency. Going back through the narrative after the proposal is in a first draft stage makes it more difficult to ensure reviewers understand the full purpose of the grant project and don’t walk away with unanswered questions or confusion.
Keep grant budget documents in an electronic shared file so that they are readily available when meeting grant deadlines (i.e. Form 990s, 501c3 letter, organizational budget, audited financial statements, job descriptions, financial policies/procedures). Find out the best way to collaborate with the finance office, business office, human resources and/or accountant when preparing a grant budget, whether through email, phone, Google Drive, DropBox or another method. You will need that collaboration to write a competitive grant proposal.
Other helpful tools include:
- MS Excel (or comparable)
- QuickBooks
- Printing calculator
- Budget templates (often provided by the funder)
Grant budget software management tools include Fluxx Grantseeker, Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise Grants Management and Nonprofit+.
Grant Tools for Collaboration
Mark Sanborn said, “In teamwork, silence isn’t golden – it’s deadly.”
Make sure you have the tools that work for all involved to make grant teamwork successful. DropBox and Google Drive are useful for sharing multiple documents/large files with others and for sharing the writing/editing tasks. I use both, but prefer Google Drive, especially for a shared workspace. Having the DropBox app on your mobile phone is a great, quick way to scan documents and share with others on a grant team.
When submitting a federal grant through Grants.gov, consider using Workspace for team grant project tasks. Set up regular grant update meetings during the application drafting period. Useful tools for arranging a time which meets all stakeholder schedules and enabling remote meetings include Doodle, Calendly, UberConference and Zoom.
