Processing paper, mailing and managing old computer files with stacked ledger has been a curse to every large organization that is handing out granting and funding. Sometimes one state in an organization will be trying to administrate hundreds of grants and often forty or fifty of them at a time. It becomes a huge, expensive chore just trying to administrate the submission, adjudication and follow-up processes.

Some big foundations and companies that have lots of money to disperse to the public simply don’t because despite the tax write-off that they can get for giving money to business start-ups and charities just monitoring the process is too expensive. This is when it becomes time to educate administrators and foundation partners about just how inexpensive and easy it can be to run grant proposal management software out of a single office.

You Do Not Need to Develop A New Skill Set

There are not real additional skills that you need to develop to operate this type of program unless you are completely computer illiterate but chances are that if you are working in a government office, research institute or for an arts foundation that gives money a way that you were not hired in the first place unless you had rudimentary computer skills.

Some administrators may need a technical person to initial install and help them set up the program. It can, in some cases, take a few weeks to complete customize a grants proposal software program depending on the complexity of your organization in the first place.  For instance if you are an arts foundation that gives away six grants a year, you will have less set up time than a state organization with 48 grants that are given away with more than 160 rotating deadlines.

Yet another issue with regards to this is spending the time to input your basic information. This can mean hiring extra people to handle the data entry. Many of these programs, however, are designed to integrate with the databases that you already own and also with your existing branding.

Skills Required for Handling Proposal Automation

Many of the skills that are required of your job as a grant manager in the first place are the same ones that are required to manage automated proposal submission, evaluation and follow-up processes.

For example:

You can manage various project and management staff and communicate with them using various features and functions that are inbuilt right into the functionality of the software program.

You will be branding, proof-reading and ensuring that information is accurate on all forms and information but because you are now automated templates will help you automatically keep things uniform.

You will still be responsible for every aspect of your project design as well as evaluating only this  time you will be able to use the in-built programs in the software to monitor, change and consistently evaluate how the grant dispersement is progressing,.

You are responsible for making sure that all information is current, a job that used to be a chore. Now details that change (such as the amount of a grant or qualification requirements) can automatically be changed on all forms with the touch of a button.

You can check for the eligibility of a person to get funding by searching their granting history within your program and thereby preventing any exploitation of the funding process.

You will be able to easily follow up on those awarded grants with emails that are sent out by the program’s autoresponders and also ensure swift post-award implementation” including document transfer, post-award fiscal transactions and activity reporting.

You will be able to enforce the key elements of regulatory appliance by having them configured right into your applications and the processed that help you evaluate it.

You will be able to provide statistics about who is applying your grants as well as award statistics with a touch of a button as these programs will generate reports at the touch of a button. This saves you hours of research and wading through files and the way the reports are printed out in different views makes you appear organized and professional.

You will be able to communicate effectively with key stakeholders, funders and affiliates through the use of documents that can be viewed publically through sharing online and thus prevent expensive phone calls and travelling from city to city.

You will also be using all of your talents as usual to make the administration of the grant as smooth as possible so that both the public and your own funding bodies are as pleased as possible with the way you do your job. The result is most likely more funding to you for further automation.