Grants – Review and Plan

Anna RobertsonAuckland-Northland, Central-Wellington, e-News, Member Updates, Midlands, Regional, South Island

The grant funding process is ongoing throughout the year but it’s easy for it to take a back seat when things get busy. However, for many Clubs grants are what get wages paid, facilities improved, equipment purchased or athletes sent to competitions – in other words, vital for the running of your Club.

grant funding applicationBelow are some areas to focus on at this stage in the year:

Reviewing

With more than half the year now gone, it is a good time to review where you are up to in your grant applications.

If you put together a grant plan for the year:
• How are you doing against what you planned? Did you submit the applications you intended?
• Were you as successful as you had hoped?
• If you are not where you hoped to be at this point in the year with grants, it is worth taking some time to consider why? If applications weren’t submitted when they should have been, do you need help with completing them? If you were unsuccessful with your applications have you asked for feedback on why? Understanding what has gone wrong is the first step to ensuring you are more successful in the future.

If you didn’t put a plan together, you should still look back over what you have submitted and ask the same questions about what went well, what didn’t and what you can change. Commit to making a plan for the rest of the year and take a more coordinated approach to your applications.

Acknowledging

If you have received any grant funding in the first part of 2017, or you have recently finished spending a grant that you received in the last 12 months you should be thinking about how you can acknowledge and thank your grant funders.

The following is a snippet from NZCT’s newsletter and shows that Grant funders love to hear about what you are doing with their money.

NZCT – Show us what you’re up to!
We love receiving photos of, and stories about, the sports and community groups we’ve funded. If you have the opportunity to take a few photos or write a few words, we’d love to see them. You can either upload them to your grant listing on our website, post them on our Facebook page or email them to communications@nzct.org.nz.

As well as Facebook and our website, we share our grant stories on Twitter and LinkedIn too. You can find our pages by clicking on the icons at the bottom of this newsletter.

Examples

• Most grant funders have a Facebook page – posting photos of your event, activity, new equipment etc onto your Club’s page along with a thank you and tagging the funders page is an easy option.
• If a funder pays the salaries of your coaches, take a series of photos of the coaches in action working and present it with some figures showing the number of kids who have benefited from that coaches support and any other snippets that show the positive impact that coach has had.

For more ideas on how to acknowledge and thank funders, take a look in the Grant Funding Guide in the ‘Deliver’ section. This guide is only available to Member Clubs – please contact your Relationship Manager or Helpdesk for the password if you do not already have it.

Planning
• What applications are coming up over the next few months? Do you have the information you need to complete them and the time to do it?
• Have you downloaded the Grant Funding Guide for more tips and ideas on maximising your chances of success?

If you didn’t have a grant plan for the year, its worth putting together one for the remainder of the year. It doesn’t need to be detailed, it just captures what you plan to apply for, who from and when the deadlines are and is the best way to ensure that you don’t miss deadlines or submit rushed last minute applications.

2018 – Although it seems like a long way away, if you are going to need funding for activities that take place at the start of the year e.g coach and judge education, you need to think about applying for funding over the next couple of months to ensure you have it secured when you need it.

For a comprehensive approach to grant funding, templates, tips and ideas, use the Grant Funding Guide. This guide is only available to Member Clubs – please contact your Relationship Manager or Helpdesk for the password if you do not already have it.