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It’s important to strategise the type of questions you ask in your application form, regularly reviewing the questions in your Grant Management System will help ensure the questions are relevant. Once you understand your organisation’s vision and what outcomes are expected from an application, you can then design your questions around these. This will help gather insights from applicants that determines whether their application aligns with the organisation’s strategic outcomes. This allows the Grant Manager to make an informed decision about whether the requested grant funding matches the organisation’s vision.

An example for a Grant Makers’ vision is ‘Promoting local organisations that provide job opportunities and focus on keeping young New Zealander’s healthy and active.’ Expected achievable outcomes with a vision similar to this would be funding health or sport orientated community projects that provide job opportunities and have an impact on the greatest number of people.

In order to find out whether a grant application aligns with this example’s vision and expected outcomes, the application form will need several different questions such as;

• Is the benefit of this grant going to be put towards our local region?

• Will this grant create employment or self-worth for our local people?

• Does your organisation encourage sport or healthier lifestyles?

• Roughly how many people will this grant affect?

The answers received will allow the Grant Manager to easily identify whether a project aligns with the vision and expected outcomes, contributing to a productive grant application process. Asking these questions initially, will prevent the grant manager from having to follow up with further questions to determine whether an applicant meets the criteria.

Gathering feedback from repeat applicants by asking questions such as whether there was any difficulty understanding a section of the application, will give good insight into whether the application form is structured well. This information can then be used to ensure your Grant Management process is as effective as possible.

BrandAdvantage works alongside Grant Makers to ensure their application form generates the most value from applicants, as this maximises granting efficiencies.

This entry was posted in blog on September 07, 2020.