Today’s research and higher education institutions are more dependent on grant funding than ever. As a result, administrators must take measures to effectively manage what can be referred to as a grant pipeline. A grant pipeline consists of both new/pending grant proposals as well as existing grants. Managing a steady income of new grants is a pre-award issue and involves continually applying for new grants. How we manage existing grants, i.e. making sure we are spending these monies in the correct way and at the correct rate, is a post-award issue.

Grant pipeline management involves answering questions such as:

How many proposed grants do I have that are outstanding?

Of my outstanding proposals, how many are competitive versus non-competitive?

How much money is in these proposals?

How many of my active grants are ending this year?

How much money is left on these active grants?

When are these funding sources ending that are paying for the research staff?

We will address these and other questions in the following 4 articles of this series:

1. Tracking pending grants – a pre-award issue
2. Tracking active grants – a post-award issue
3. Managing grant budgets
4. Monitoring salary coverage on active and pending grants

Posted by Linda Lejnar October 15, 2008 blogger@itworks-inc.com

Managing the pre-award side of a grant pipeline is all about quantifying the big picture, it’s a numbers game. Unlike golf, this is a game in which you want big numbers– and the bigger the numbers– the better. The key numbers are how many submissions do you have outstanding and how much money is in each one. Obviously, again, the more– the better.

Another piece of information that helps with this numerical analysis is an estimate on the likelihood of a grant being funded. While this may be a lot like predicting the stock market, you can narrow this down with information such as who is the PI (and we’re not talking about Tom Selleck in Magnum, PI), what is their track record, and whether or not the application is competitive or not.

If you were a sales manager in the private sector, you would be tracking comparable information with a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software product. For a Grants Administrator or a Director of Sponsored Programs, your choice for this problem would be a grant tracking software package. If your organization is new to the grant submission game, you can use Excel for this but once your pipeline is established, you will quickly outgrow its capabilities and require a solution with a database backend.

Grant tracking software has a database backend that allows you to attach numerous attributes to each application. These attributes include but are not limited to the following: PI, funding agency, proposal type (new continuation, competitive renewal, supplement, no cost extension), award type (R01, PPG, Title III, Training), budget period, project period, effort, department within your organization, direct and indirect (F & A) dollars requested and received, status, and submission date. These attributes allow you to drill down into your numbers at more detailed level.

Maintaining this information enables you to view how many proposed grants that are outstanding, of those how many are competitive versus non-competitive, how much money is in these proposals, the
relative success of each PI in your department or school, the relative success of each department you manage, and how many proposals has each PI submitted.

Over time you can track how many proposals eventually get funded which gives you a peek inside the “crystal ball” as to the future likelihood of a grant being funded for a particular PI. It also gives you the information needed to put guidelines in place as to how many proposals each PI should submit.

If you can’t currently do this, then maybe it is time for a grants tracking system.

Posted by Jim Wrenn October 20, 2008 blogger@itworks-inc.com

Managing the pre-award side of a grant pipeline is all about quantifying the big picture, it’s a numbers game. Unlike golf, this is a game in which you want big numbers– and the bigger the numbers– the better. The key numbers are how many submissions do you have outstanding and how much money is in each one. Obviously, again, the more– the better.

Another piece of information that helps with this numerical analysis is an estimate on the likelihood of a grant being funded. While this may be a lot like predicting the stock market, you can narrow this down with information such as who is the PI (and we’re not talking about Tom Selleck in Magnum, PI), what is their track record, and whether or not the application is competitive or not.

If you were a sales manager in the private sector, you would be tracking comparable information with a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software product. For a Grants Administrator or a Director of Sponsored Programs, your choice for this problem would be a grant tracking software package. If your organization is new to the grant submission game, you can use Excel for this but once your pipeline is established, you will quickly outgrow its capabilities and require a solution with a database backend.

Grant tracking software has a database backend that allows you to attach numerous attributes to each application. These attributes include but are not limited to the following: PI, funding agency, proposal type (new continuation, competitive renewal, supplement, no cost extension), award type (R01, PPG, Title III, Training), budget period, project period, effort, department within your organization, direct and indirect (F & A) dollars requested and received, status, and submission date. These attributes allow you to drill down into your numbers at more detailed level.

Maintaining this information enables you to view how many proposed grants that are outstanding, of those how many are competitive versus non-competitive, how much money is in these proposals, the
relative success of each PI in your department or school, the relative success of each department you manage, and how many proposals has each PI submitted.

Over time you can track how many proposals eventually get funded which gives you a peek inside the “crystal ball” as to the future likelihood of a grant being funded for a particular PI. It also gives you the information needed to put guidelines in place as to how many proposals each PI should submit.

If you can’t currently do this, then maybe it is time for a grants tracking system.

Posted by Jim Wrenn October 20, 2008 blogger@itworks-inc.com

Managing grant budgets is a post-award, grant accounting issue. It involves the detailed financial record keeping, reconciliation, and reporting of individual grant expenditures. It also includes the encumbrance and projection of future expenditures. This is particularly important for managing personnel costs. From a grant pipeline management perspective, it insures that the grant budget is neither over-spent nor under-spent. In this article, we will look at the overall budget. Next week, we will drill down into the grant personnel budget.

Grant budget management usually involves two people, a grant accountant and the principal investigator of the grant. The financial record keeping, reconciliation, encumbrance/expense projection, and report generation is usually the job of the grant accountant. The principal investigator is responsible for reviewing the reports generated by the grant accountant, providing necessary feedback, and directing his or her staff or research team accordingly. Thus, a key to grant management is good financial reporting. This includes the timely delivery of accurate information in easily interpreted formats. Why is a report so important? A good report will show whether a grant is going to be over spent or under spent (before it’s too late) as well as provide possible “corrective steps” if needed.

While the “best” format is a matter of opinion, a one page summary report is a good starting point. This report should contain two easily identifiable numbers: the overall balance and the balance of personnel costs. Both numbers should include total expenditures to date, known encumbrances, and projected personnel costs. We emphasize monitoring personnel costs because they account for 70 to 80% of the budgets of many research grants. In our next article, we look at monitoring salary coverage on multiple grants. We will devote several future articles to more in-depth discussion on reporting.

Posted by Jim Wrenn, December 1, 2008 blogger@itworks.com

Monitoring salary coverage is both a pre-award and a post-award challenge. The purpose in monitoring coverage is two fold: 1) to help satisfy effort and budget requirements for individual grants and 2) to keep a research team intact. The first purpose is often addressed from the point of view of an individual grant. The second purpose is usually addressed from that of an individual employee. In this article, we will be addressing the second purpose.

The underlying management issue behind keeping a research team intact stems from the fact that salaries for individuals of successful teams are funded by multiple grants. And, these grants usually have different budget periods, few of which align with your fiscal year. When a grant ends, another funding source must be identified to take its place in order to keep the individuals on payroll.

A helpful way to address this situation is to utilize a report that helps identify when an individual’s grant funding is going to fall short. Here is an example of a salary coverage report for an individual employee:

This example reflects a report for a research faculty member and identifies by month all of her funding sources. The top section includes both awarded grants and other departmental funds. The lower section shows the committed effort on proposals that have been submitted and what portion of salary would be covered should that proposal be funded. Gaps in the rows of the awarded grants starting in July, October, January, and February identify when these sources end. Her salary coverage drops from 100% to 99% to 97% to 77% and finally to 65%. At the 65% level, there is a shortage of $6,870 per month.

In the pending section of the report, we learn that while there is no guarantee, additional funds may be available in October. In any case, we might use this information to modify the percentage paid from another funding source, locate additional internal funds, or spur the principal investigator to submit additional proposals

A while back, we briefly introduced what sorts of questions you might ponder when managing a grant pipeline. To briefly review; a grant pipeline consists of both new/pending grant proposals as well as existing grants. And in the areas of research and higher education institutions where many programs are dependent upon grant funding, it is even more important that we are able to discern the various complexities of what is involved in the process.

Planning

In the planning phase, it is important to set goals as well as determine whether or not there is a valued need for a grant scheme. Look for alternatives (if there are any) as well as any possible economic consequences to the grant. Because the ratio of grant applicants to available grants is usually high, the decision to allocate specific grants inherently intimates the decision not to use other grants for other research purposes.

Communication

Of the grants that are received and reviewed, there is an increased chance that the applicant has already applied for multiple versions of the same grant. Therefore, any and all information about the grant recipient should be obtained, as long as it is pertinent.

In order to more effectively manage a grant, all grants should operate under clearly defined operational objectives, which should then be documented. At this time, relevant performance measures should be set so as to ensure the accountability of the grant as well as its intended purpose of use. Some of these performance measures include items such as the following:

• Input- This indicates the financial and physical resources utilized by the grant with a focus on addressing economical/efficiency issues.
• Grant scheme output-This demonstrates the extent to which the predetermined goals of the grant have been achieved.
• Impact- This measures the outcome of the grant with regard to the grant’s aims and objectives.

Next week, we’ll take a look at grant management accountability as well as go through a checklist of points to remember when planning a grant. If you have a topic you’d like to hear us discuss in depth or to voice your thoughts on grant management, leave a comment below. For more information about grant management, visit our website.