2. Grant Management Support
Purpose of presentation
• To take you through the grant management lifecycle
• Identify key monitoring requirements of our terms and
conditions of grant
• Provide support on how to measure and evaluate the
impact of your project to enable longer-term
sustainability
3. Grant Management Lifecycle
Grant set-up stage
Telephone introduction
•Grant offer letter
• Setting up your grant form
• Bank or Building society account details form
• Starting your grant form
• Bank details verification
• Agree a formal start date
• Arrange Induction call
4. Grant Management Lifecycle
Induction Call
Duration – 15 to 60 minutes
• Additional funding
• Awards pack – Terms and conditions, additional, grant offer pack CD
and URN.
• Review targets – activities, indicators and outcomes
• Monitoring – Risk level, grant management process – telephone
monitoring, end of year/grant reports and accounts, recruitment
requirements.
• Payments – Lead in, start date, payment schedule, revenue/capital
• Publicity – Embargo, logo and materials
5. Activities/indicators/outcomes
Targets based on need and demand from initial
consultation at application stage.
• Current success rate – 96%
Measuring targets:
•Simple but effectively linked to targets
•See example
Variations:
•Reporting changes and approval
6. Continuation funding
Introduced last year and has a success rate
approximately 10%
•Timelines – Application process takes 11 months.
Mandatory evaluation report:
•Evidence how the existing project is making a difference
•Demonstrate that there is still a need for it to provide
evidence of changing needs
•Show what worked well and what could be done better
with further funding
7. Benefits of Evaluation
•Evaluation can:
-help you to make strong relationships with your beneficiaries
-ensure you know where improvements to your service or activities
can be made
- provide evidence about the effectiveness of your work for current
funders and future funding applications
- provide you with information that my help you to promote your
service
- let you know if you have reached your goals
- help you to develop new partnerships
8. How will you MEASURE and
EVALUATE your activities?
Decide on the data you will collect and how you will
collect it
Example
• The number of people taking part using sign-up sheets
• The feedback from beneficiaries on their experience of the
session, after they have participated
• Feedback from people who didn’t take part to find out why
• Feedback from partners/external agencies on how the activity
was delivered, what worked well and any issues that arose.
9. Monitoring Methods
Advantages Disadvantages
Informal chats Allows people to Can be difficult to
open up capture information
Questionnaires Easy way to collect Response rate may be
lots of data poor
Comments cards Quick and easy to May only get a low
organise level of response
Interviews Can reveal honest Very time consuming
feedback to organise
Discussion groups Good for insight, One person may
especially at the dominate/lead the
beginning of a discussion
project
10. Evaluation Checklist
Checklist
What is your goal? Outcomes
How will you measure your success? Monitoring methods
What were the outcomes? Results
Were the aims and objectives Analysis
achieved?
Were there any unexpected Evolution of project to meet
outcomes? changing needs
Richard to run through the grant management lifecycle. Michelle to run through evaluation. Both to cover support we can offer.
Establish contract and agree signatories, start date and seek verification of bank details. Agree budget for year one.
Monitoring calls – six monthly or quarterly – overview on progress on outcomes, activities and indicators, how the project is being promoted/marketed, budget update, staffing information, any changes to the organisation’s legal status, signatories or contacts – a chance for grant holders to raise concerns or ask questions/seek advice. End of year reports/end of grant reports – more formal approach to updating us on progress made and confirming expenditure to date. Also an opportunity to send us evidence of branding. The compliance review process involves establishing eligible expenditure, performance against outcomes and agreeing action in the event of variations. Monitoring requirements linked to payment release: Financial accounts and end of year reports.
Measuring targets: Considerations Aimed at specific groups. Example – Clients or volunteers Gained from most appropriate source – Client or qualified person. Sample range and proportional representation. Variations: Changes to targets may be revised with justification but the BIG Lottery Fund will always discuss alternative strategies first such as marketing, publicity or partnership links. Approval of moving underspends forward must be based on a good business case. Any changes should be discussed and agreed with Funding Officer. Significant changes should be presented in a Changes to your Grant form. Retrospective variations identified at the end of year reporting stage may not be approved and result in potential grant reduction.
Introduced in recognition of impact of recession on funding cuts and those successfully delivered projects that have a continued demand and need for services. Expectations – Expansion and longer term impact
Evaluation is the process of monitoring your work against the goals that you have set. Targets and partnerships should be reviewed on a regular basis It is important that you review your targets and partnerships as you go along, rather than at the end of a project, campaign or event to highlight any areas that may become problematic so that these can be addressed.
It is important to use a range of methods to capture the evidence to support the fact that your project is making a difference and having a real positive impact on the lives of those most in need. How you do this is up to you – you need to work out what best fits your project and your target audience – consider their needs when devising mechanisms to track their progress and ensure that you check the ‘distance travelled’ at regular intervals so that you can demonstrate an improvement and that your project is effectively meeting the needs of your beneficiaries. Give samples of monitoring forms to look at?
There are many different ways that you can collect information from people. Remember that some people may have difficulty with reading or writing, so for any method that you use, also have an alternative method for people to respond and feedback. Make sure you abide by data protection laws when collecting any information. Be realistic about what you can achieve.
A clear planned evaluation strategy will enable projects to ensure that they make a difference and can evidence the difference made.
Planning cycle of sustainability – Continuation funding – demonstrating that the project is making a difference is key to this – we have to be convinced that the project is successful and addressing an identified need. It should also evolve to meet changing needs of the beneficiary group.
In summary – your named Funding Officer is your first point of contact – their role is to guide and support you through the grant management lifecycle. Any queries use them as a resource for guidance. Happy to help.
