Financial Reporting

If your not for profit is struggling to finance the resources needed for your services—especially during times of uncertainty—you’re not alone. In a sector that heavily leans on government funding and private donors, many not for profits have had to pause their “non-core” programs, if not their core services, too.  With fewer resources, not for profits are suffering from staffing constraints—trying to maintain salary expenses at the benchmark of 65–70% of revenue—and they don’t have the people to provide these services. With fewer grants available as we approach year three of the COVID-19 era, to increase the success probability of your grant proposals, you need to prepare stronger, evidence-based submissions. In this blog, we’ll cover three questions every one of your grant proposals should answer, and how—with Vena’s Pre-Configured Solution for Not for Profits—you can strengthen your proposals with quantitative evidence. 1. How Much Grant Management Experience Do You Have? Grantors want to see how long you’ve been doing this. They’ll weigh your grant management experience in their evaluation of your proposal, so you’ll need to demonstrate your experience. Whether fair or not, it’s easier to trust—and award a large grant to—an organization that’s done it before. Take a look at the video to see how you can use Vena’s Grant Income template to report your historical, existing and planned grants. This template lets you create reports filtered by an individual grant or grant category—restricted, unrestricted or undefined—or all grants.   To watch the full episode of The Exchange: Not for Profit Meetup, become a Plan To Grow member and join the community. 2. What Is Your Grant Allocation for This Fund? Grantors need to see how you’ll allocate the grant for which you’re applying. How you’ll spend this grant is, probably, the most important question in their assessment you must answer, so you need to demonstrate that your allocation is cost effective. Grantors want to know their funding will be spent effectively and responsibly. See how you can leverage Vena’s Grant Allocations template to show how you’ll spend this grant by watching this video. This template lets you report your planned allocation by expense, by project and/or by month. 3. What Are Your Historical Grant Outcomes? Grantors want to know your prior grants have made an impact. They’ll consider the outcomes of your previously awarded funding when they review your proposal, so it’s critical to your success that you highlight that impact. After all, grantors want to feel confident that their grants will make a difference. Watch the video to see how you can leverage Vena’s Grant Utilization template to report your overall allocation and post-allocation spending. This template lets you create reports filtered by entity, department, restriction—and perhaps most importantly—by project to highlight the impact that each grant has made toward achieving your mission. Your Grant Proposals To generate more grant funding, your submissions need stronger, quantitative evidence of your grant management experience, your grant allocation and your historical grant outcomes. With Vena’s specially priced Pre-Configured Solution for Not for Profits, you can answer these three questions with evidence—empowering you to write stronger, winning grant proposals. Vena for Not for Profits Plan your grants, create custom reports and submit evidence-based proposals.