Grant lifecycle: Planning for compliance, monitoring, and reporting

Receiving a grant award is a significant growth step for an organization; however, managing the grant funds appropriately is essential for a successful experience.

Understanding grant compliance requirements, regularly monitoring various aspects of the grant process, and fulfilling reporting requirements can help position your organization for success, avoid audit findings, and use funding as intended.

Understanding the four phases of the grant lifecycle and the steps within each phase can help organizations manage their grant effectively and facilitate compliance.

The grant lifecycle

There are four phases to a grant and each phase includes several steps.

• Grant award
• Post-award, internal
• Post-award, subrecipients and subcontracts
• Grant close-out

Common grant compliance requirements

Compliance requirements guide the use of grant funds, expenditures, and reporting, and are used to ensure that funding is used as intended. These requirements can help establish a robust grant management and administration framework within your organization.

Adherence to proper compliance procedures ensures that both you and your subrecipients act as responsible stewards of the funding received and maintain continued eligibility for future funding.

Common grant compliance requirements include:

• Period of performance
• Specific costs and specific activities
• Eligibility
• Financial programmatic reporting
• Matching and level of effort
• Procurement
• Program income