Nonprofit Salesforce How-To-Series: NPSP Create and Manage Grants

The Nonprofit Success Pack has made managing incoming grants, a snap! Let’s walk through a quick overview of the features to help you stay on top of applying for grants and meeting upcoming deadlines. Let’s start by going to the Account record for the grant making organization David Weis Foundation. Go to the Opportunities related list and select “New”. When prompted, select the Grant record type. Complete as much information you have about the grant you’re pursuing. Since you’re just getting st

arted, you may need to make some best guesses; don’t worry, these can be updated as you work through the process to apply - and hopefully secure - the grant. For the Requested Amount field enter the amount you’re going to ask for. Set the Stage to Prospecting and, enter a date in the Close Date field. The Close Date should reflect when you think you might win the grant. If you know any additional info, such as Primary Campaign Source; the Grant Requirements Website URL; or Program Area then, ent

er those as well, and click Save. Now that your grant record’s been created, enter information related to your grant. For now, let’s concentrate on the Deliverables related list. These should reflect milestones for securing and retaining a grant. Select “New” and enter “Issue Letter of Intent” in the Name field. In the Due Date field, enter the date when you need to have that done. Select Save & New and enter a second Deliverable named “Apply for Grant”. Enter the Due Date for this deliverable,

and Save. Now, you have two concrete deliverables and, when you need to have them done! As you move through the process to secure the grant, you’ll want to update the Opportunity Stage field and mark Deliverables as complete. As you complete Deliverables, the Next Deliverable Date field on the Opportunity will tell you when the next one will be due. Fast forward to winning the grant! Update the Opportunity Stage to Awarded. Enter the amount you received in the Amount field, and populate the Gran

t Contract Number, Grant Contract Date, Grant Period Start Date, and Grant Period End Date. You may also want to add or update information related to the grant such as: Payment Schedule - If the grant will be paid over time, use the NPSP Payments feature to track when you anticipate receiving the installments. The Payments feature also allows you to track payment write offs, if and when, an expected payment doesn’t materialize. Grant tracking deliverables - Add any deliverables such as mid-year

reports with due dates. Fund Allocation - If your organization allocates funds to different accounting units, consider entering the amounts or percentages of the total amount in the GAU Allocations related list. Lastly, when it comes time to renew this grant, clone the secured grant’s record, update the appropriate fields - including selecting the grant you won in the Previous Grant/Gift Opportunity field and Is Grant Renewal fields as appropriate. Congratulations! We now understand how to enter

and interact with Grant records. Check out the NPSP documentation for more details on incoming grants management and best practices. Thanks for watching.