How to make grant measurement and monitoring easier

Few business owners would say they like doing tasks just to tick a box. So, it’s important that you understand why you’re doing grant measurement and monitoring and what’s in it for you, to motivate yourself or others in your team to do it early and regularly.

A useful first step is to ease any gripes and resentment you might feel about those boxes by putting yourself in the grant-maker's shoes. Many grants come from public funding or charitable donations, so the awarding organisation has a duty to be transparent in its use of the funds and to demonstrate it has delivered value for money.

To do this, it needs to have conditions attached to the funding, requiring you to keep records and report on things that the grant has enabled you to achieve.

These tend to be called various names including outputs, outcomes, impacts, or results. There can be technical differences between these terms, but to avoid any confusion, we will stick to outputs. 

Conditions vary between grants, but in general they will want you to show evidence that the money is being used for what you said you would use it for, in the timeframes agreed, and that it is achieving the expected outputs.

There are also benefits to your business of being organised and regularly collecting and monitoring performance.

It helps you:

• Reflect on your organisation’s work and its impact, providing regular opportunities for positive PR.
• Attract further opportunities and motivate your team as you share your success.
• Uncover learning for future projects and grant applications.
• Secure future grants by demonstrating a track record of good performance with an existing or recent grant, as you’ll be deemed less of a risk.
• Strengthen your environmental, social and governance (ESG) processes and reporting.

When you’re researching grants to apply for, start thinking at the outset how you could measure the types of outputs that the organisation providing the grant specifies.

To do this, look out for:

• An indication of how many outputs they require, or if they allow you to decide.
• Definitions for the outputs and when they should be reported.
• Instructions for what evidence you must provide to show that you have achieved required outputs.

Read through everything carefully. The number of outputs you commit to achieving may be a deciding factor in whether to award the grant or how much to award. It is important to be realistic about the type and number of outputs you can achieve because there may be penalties if you don’t achieve them.

You also may not be allowed to claim the grant until you have reported the expected outputs, so knowing exactly what you need to report and how is vital. 

Look for or ask if they provide a form or template for recording and reporting your outputs, or if they require you to report them through a website.

Getting familiar with all this before you apply will help you to write a strong application and be well-prepared for report time, saving you lots of time and hassle.

Once you’ve been awarded a grant, it’s time to celebrate and get organised. There are two main elements you will need to monitor and record – outputs and spending.

Monitoring outputs

If the organisation providing the grant doesn’t supply a template for recording or reporting outputs, it’s a good idea to create your own. An Excel spreadsheet usually works best, and you should always record the date the output was achieved. 

You can download and adapt our template to make it easier for you to get started.

This may be revenue growth, productivity, full-time equivalent jobs created or safeguarded, carbon reduction, training delivered, people using services, etc.

Monitoring spending

You’ll also need to ensure that you keep track of all spending on the project. How you do that depends on your set-up, from a simple Excel spreadsheet such as our template to using accounting software with a project code to help identify that the cost belongs to that project.

It’s likely that you will have needed to create a budget as part of your application. You should monitor your spending against the budget and note any variances – such as prices increased, or you had more or less demand than expected for an activity. Funders will expect you to explain, so it’s better to record as you go than try to remember later why there’s a variance.

Involve relevant people in your business or professional support providers at this stage – such as an accountant or HR advisor – they will appreciate an early heads up that you’ll require regular input from them. It’s also likely they will have some good ideas on how to measure and monitor your project, and you can set a regular review schedule together.

Be aware of Minimal Financial Assistance

Since the UK left Europe, most grants are subject to the Subsidy Control Act, and many are awarded as Minimal Financial Assistance (MFA). The organisation providing the grant will tell you if the award is MFA and if it is, you must keep a record of the amount and the date it was awarded. There is a limit to the amount of MFA you may receive in any three-year period, and you may be asked about any MFA you have already received if you apply for another grant.

What other evidence might be needed and how long should I keep it?

In addition to outputs, the organisation providing the grant may also require you to keep other records, such as procurement evidence and copies of any publicity. 

You may also be required to take part in an evaluation and provide information to the evaluators, and this may take place some time after you receive the grant. 

Some – particularly for the charitable and social enterprise sectors, but increasingly in the private sector too – will require you to measure the social impact of your project on your communities and capture your learning. Therefore, you may need additional measures such as feedback on your services, case studies and estimates of savings to the NHS, for example.

You can find some great resources on The National Lottery Community Fund website and from Make An Impact CIC, and Anj Handa, Founder of Inspiring Women Changemakers.

It’s advisable to check what records you are expected to keep and how long you need to keep them for. As a general rule, records should be kept for a minimum of six years, just like financial records, but do check your grant agreement before disposing of anything. If in doubt, keep it.

If you’re not clear about the outputs and what is expected, don’t be afraid to ask for clarification and more information early on while making an application, or once you have been awarded the grant. They may also be willing to review how you’ll be recording outputs and purchases and give you feedback. This will save them any headaches in the future as well as you.

The requirements may be listed in the grant agreement, but often these are not the easiest of documents to digest.

Grants can be complicated and there is no such thing as a silly question, so don’t be afraid to ask. Advisors get a great deal of satisfaction from successfully helping businesses to apply for and celebrate the progress of their grants. After all, your success is their success, too.