Every grants program needs a dedicated grant tracking system, but a system is only as good as what you track on each individual grant.

What you capture on each grant record is what decides whether you can provide accurate reporting for the funder, the board, or even answer a question about what's going on in your grants program.

After many years of managing grants, I've settled on 6 important details I track on every single grant.

You can track very little on a grant or you can wear yourself out tracking everything.

What really matters is being able to see an accurate picture of your grants at any given moment.

Here's why it's worth the few extra minutes to track these important grant details:

• When your grant records are complete, you always know what's going on in your grants program.
• You can report to leadership and your board accurately, without spending half a day rebuilding your numbers first.
• When a grant wraps up, you can submit the final report with confidence, because what you promised and what you did are already sitting there in front of you.

You may want to add more than what's below, and that's fine. But do these at a minimum so you always have the best information available when you need it.

What You Should Track for Every Grant

1. Grant Deadlines and Status

Track: Due Date, Submitted Date, Status

One of the most important fields - the Due Date! The due date tells you when the grant application has to be submitted. Some funders have set due dates, while others have no set due dates, but rather have an open cycle all year long. No matter if it's a set date or open date, add one to your grant so you're accountable to when the grant is due. Once the due date is in, Grant Frog sends automated email reminders at 60, 30, 14, 7, and 3 days out, to you or to your whole team.

The Submitted Date tells you when you hit the Submit button or emailed or mailed the grant request. This field lets you show your board or leadership exactly how many proposals went out this quarter and the requested amount.

Status is what keeps you and your team updated on grant progress. Upcoming, In Progress, In Internal Review, Submitted, Pending, Awarded, Declined. At any moment you should be able to look at your list and see what's grants are upcoming, what's been sent, and what you're still waiting on.

Optional but useful: add an Expected Response Date. Funders don't always tell you when they'll decide on a grant, but if you know a foundation's board meets in April, you can add that as the expected date.

2. Grant Amounts and Program/Project

Track: Amount Requested, Amount Awarded, Program/Project

You need to know the Amount of Grant Funds you requested and what Programs or Projects the grant will be used for. This is vital for knowing your potential grant award amounts and for accurate grant reporting and expenses.

Your Amount Requested is likely based on many factors, such as what your organization or program needs, what the funder typically grants, and other factors. Ensure you know what you requested and what amount was Awarded.

Most grants are restricted to a specific Program or Project. You'll need to use this so your final grant report shows outcomes for the program. It's also important for your finance team who will need to code the revenue and expenses tied directly to the grant.

And having the Program on the grant gives you a history of which funders have supported it before and what they gave.

3. Funder Grant Cycle, Grant History, and Director

Track: Funder name, Foundation Director/Program Officer, Grant Cycle Guidelines, Grant Amount History

You don't need every detail about a foundation. You need four things.

You have the funder name, a connection or name to the foundation director or program officer, their grant cycle guidelines, meaning when they accept applications and what they fund, and an overview on what grant amounts they've given in the past several years. You can see all of this in Grant Frog's Funder Intelligence.

That's enough to know whether to apply and when you can start. Everything else (grant history, notes from a site visit, their portal link) builds on top of these. See how funder profiles work in Grant Frog.

4. Expected Outcomes and Grant Reports

Track: Expected Outcomes, Report Due date, Budget Compliance

Every grant is submitted to support a program and project, along with goals and outcomes the program will have. On your grant records, you should track your Expected Outcomes from the grant application. Example: This grant will support feeding 525 children this summer with an expected 85% return rate for next summer.

Then, the moment you receive notice of a grant award, create the Grant Report record in Grant Frog and set the due date.

This does 2 things - In Grant Frog, your Expected Outcomes carry over to your Grant Report record. So when you sit down to write the grant report 11 months later, what you committed to is right there on the record you're working in. You're not trying to dig through old grant files in a shared storage drive folder trying to find the version you actually sent.

Second, you start receiving automated email reminders long before the Grant Report is due. This will ensure you have plenty of time to gather final grant details - if you achieved the outcomes you set, how much was spent, and any stories of the clients you helped.

Every funder reports differently. Some require nothing. Some want one report. Some want several across the life of the project. Giving reports their own record with their own due date is what keeps them from disappearing into your grant notes.

If you want to go deeper on this, I wrote a full walkthrough on building a grant reporting system.

5. Tasks and Cultivation Actions

Track: Team tasks, phone calls, emails with the funder

Two things live in Tasks. Your to-do list and your funder cultivation.

Your and your team's to-do list are things like who needs to get the latest financials, who's writing the narrative, who's getting board sign-off, and when each is due.

You're also tracking your funder cultivation history. Every phone call, email, and site visit with the funder. When you go back to that funder next year, you've built and cultivated that relationship throughout the year.

Both tasks and cultivations are connected to the grant itself and the funder, not floating in a separate to-do app.

6. Your Team

Track: Primary Team Member, Additional Team Collaborators

Every grant needs an primary person who ensures the grant is ready to be submitted. You also may have additional staff who are part of the grants process.

Grants are a team sport. Your CFO manages the the budget, your program director has the outcomes data, your CEO or board may need to provide a final signature on the grant.

You need to identify who's on the grant so everyone can see it, and so the deadline reminders reach the people who actually need them. Here's how team collaboration works in Grant Frog.

Accurate Grant Frog Reporting: The Top 10 Fields to Track in Grant Frog

For every individual grant, I recommend you track these specific fields. These are core fields on every grant record in Grant Frog, they're used to create your Overview Reporting, and they're what make your grants process and reporting work:

• Funder, who you asked
• Owner, who on your team is responsible
• *Due Date, when it's due
• *Amount Requested, what you asked for
• *Status, where it stands right now
• *Submitted Date, when it was submitted
• *Response Date, when you heard back, whether Awarded or Declined
• *Amount Received, what amount you were awarded
• Program, what it funds
• Expected Outcomes, how you'll use the grant funds

Fields with an asterisk (*) are used for accurate reporting in Grant Frog's Overview Reporting Dashboard and are HIGHLY recommended to complete.

How to Use This Grant Data in Your Board Reports

When you're pulling a report for your board or leadership, these fields are the difference between a list of grants and a real picture of your program.

• Due Date for when the grant must be sent
• Submitted Date shows total proposals and dollars requested for the quarter
• Amount Requested on your grant request
• Amount Received for grant awards and forecasting
• Status shows your pending pipeline and what grants are pending
• Response Date shows what fiscal year the grant was received in

Where to Start

You don't have to go back through your entire grant history. Start now by tracking these important grant details.

1. This fiscal year. Update every grant for this fiscal year
2. Every grant awarded in the past 12 months. Create the Grant report record and set the due date now, while you still remember the details.
3. Everything going forward. Fill in the fields when you create the Grant, not later.

Good Grant Tracking Makes Everything Else Easier

Here's the good news: you can start doing this for all your upcoming grants and your grants for this fiscal year and you'll be miles ahead of many grant teams.

Complete these fields when you create the grant, and everything after - grant reporting, board reports, knowing your grants program - gets much easier.

Your reminders fire before a deadline is a problem. Your outcomes are waiting for you on the grant report record. Your board report is a couple of button clicks instead of an afternoon with a spreadsheet. And when someone new joins your team, everything your organization knows about a funder is right there for them.