How Grants Are Awarded

APPLICATION SUBMISSION & INITIAL REVIEW

Once you have completed the grant application and completed a
proposal, you must submit it according to each individual organization’s
direct instructions. Many times the application gets forwarded to a
specific department(s) within their organization thereafter who will:

• Review the application to ensure the proposal meets the program guidelines, and to ensure the request is appropriate.
• Complete a technical review to ensure the application has been completed accurately.
• Conduct a legal or regulatory review (financial and administrative),
  to determine if the request meets the relevant laws, regulations, and
  policies of the organization

APPROVAL

Once the initial review is complete, the next step most organizations
take is to review the applications that have made it past the first
review, and conduct an initial acceptance which narrows down the pool. Important note: You will NOT be notified that you made it past this step. You will only be notified of final acceptance.

Although it is very hard to determine what guidelines each
organizations use for initial acceptance (because all of the
organizations have their own policies etc.) we have found through our
past experience that most times applications that have been received the
earliest tend to get the advantage. This is not necessarily true in all
cases, but being early surely does not hurt!

This also does not GUARANTEE that if you get in early you will
receive grant funding, however it seems in many cases the early bird
tends to get the worm. By preparing your application and proposal early,
you may be well ahead of the pack!

AWARDING GRANTS

Once the grantees have been accepted, the approved proposal will then
get passed to another technical department for payment processing where
all of the paperwork is done to ensure that recipients are in fact sent
their funds in a timely manner.

For the most part, most organizations do not call you. Recipients who
have been awarded grant funding will most likely receive a computer
automated “snail mail” with the good news. Once you receive this letter,
you are for all intents and purposes home free!

When will you receive the funds? Most organizations have what they
call an, “allotment schedule”. What this means is you may not receive
the funds immediately if you have your project planned at a later date.
Yes funds are given to recipients in order of “date of need”.

Once you receive the letter, you may be contacted by a representative
to congratulate you and give you the complete details of the award, as
well as ask you what form of payment you would like. Many times you can
accept a direct deposit as well as a bank wire.