Hi all,

This may have been discussed before but I wasn't able to find an example which matches our situation.  We are a non-profit who relies partially on grant support.  We do not have the Prospect Module but our new Development Director wants to track when we submit a grant application.  Previous Development Directors kept track of this in an Excel spreadsheet.  Obviously this isn't the best way to accomplish this as the information wasn't available to everyone.  Does anyone track grant applications, resolutions, etc. without a special module (Prospect or other)?

Thanks for your advice and feedback.

Ray Mauder

Ray,

If you don't have the prospect module, you can use Actions (and Action Tracks) to keep track of all of that information.  It'll take a little work to figure out what works for you, but I'd suggest reading the help PDF on Actions and Action Tracks (depending on what you actually do with the propsoals and schedules), and you should be okay.

 The nice thing is that it's in RE for everyone to review, and there are some canned reports that could be very helpful to run and see the status of your grants/proposals.

 I wrote a user guide for tracking propsoals with the prospect module, but I'll see if I can write one using Actions for those who don't have that add-on module.

Just out of curiousity, what are you tracking in the excel sheet?  What info do you want to see?

Regards,

Joe

Hi there,

We also used the Action tab for a while. We basically had everything we needed for the time being. We created the types of categories like grant proposal, proposal submitted, proposal re-submitted, and rather if it is pending, or if it is in process. Also, we entered categories of whether the submission of the proposal was opened or closed. There's also a section where you can enter the campaign, fund and appeal to indicate where the funding, from the grant, will go to.  You can use the Action tab’s Attributes to track your communication progress with the funding source. The tricky part was where to enter the grant ask amount.  We put it into the Action tab's Attributes. 

We basically used the Action tab until we out grew it and looked to expand a bit. Although we have the Prospect Menu, which our grants manager uses extensively, my boss continues to use the Action Tab to make her own notes on meetings with Foundations and such, following the same format as the Prospect Tab. And she is quite satisfied with that. 

Hi Joe,

I support our development department here, and the staff are gearing up to being new campaigns.  I'd like to support them with the prospect module, but I'm not very familiar with it.  If you don't mind, could you share your user guide for tracking proposals with me?  I think this will give me a jump start on the project.  Thanks in advance.

jwant

I think Blackbaud has it posted here: Check out http://forums.blackbaud.com/forums/p/8225/29233.aspx#29233

I set it up to work with the canned reports for the prospect module.

Regards,

Joe

It looks great.  Thanks for sharing and pointing me in the right direction.

 jwant

Hi Ray:

Would you mind telling me how you decided to track grants?  Our Executive Director would like to track our submissions in RE, but doesn't want to purchase the Prospect Module.  Any help you can give would be great!

Thanks,

Eleanor