Grant guides for small nonprofits
These guides cover the work that starts when a grant is awarded: finding the reporting dates, giving each one an owner, keeping the evidence, and closing the award out. Each one is a working method with a made-up example.
After you accept an award
- Just Accepted a Grant Award? Your First 30 Days: A 30-day sequence for a newly accepted grant: save the signed agreement, list every deliverable, turn rules into dates, name owners, open an evidence folder.
- Find the Reporting Requirements in a Grant Award Letter: A step-by-step way to read an award letter or grant agreement and pull out each report, deliverable, due date rule and approval you owe the funder.
- What Is a Grant Deliverable? Definition and Examples: A plain definition of a grant deliverable, examples beyond reports, and the five fields to write down for each one so nothing is left in the award letter.
- Who Should Own Each Grant Report at a Small Nonprofit?: How to assign one accountable owner to every grant report, split the work with the finance and program people, name a backup, and hand off when someone leaves.
- How to Track Grant Deadlines Without a Grants Manager: A method one person can run alone: one list across every award, lead-time reminders and a named backup. No new hire, no title change.
- How to Track Grant Report Deadlines Across Multiple Funders: A simple system to track grant report deadlines: one register, one owner per deliverable, fixed statuses, timed reminders and a weekly review.
- How to Build a Grant Reporting Calendar From an Award Letter: Turn a grant award letter into a dated reporting calendar: extract the rules, compute each period and due date, add internal deadlines and assign owners.
- Our Grant Manager Left: What Do We Do First?: A first-week plan when the person who ran your grants is gone: find every award, list the next 90 days of due dates, name interim owners, check submissions.
- How to Organize Grant Files So Anyone Can Find the Evidence: A folder structure, a naming rule and a one-page index for grant files, so the report, the proof and the agreement are findable by someone who was not there.
Reports, reimbursements and changes during the award
- When Is the SF-425 Federal Financial Report Due?: Default due dates for federal financial reports under 2 CFR 200.328 (30, 90 and 120 days), a worked example with weekends flagged, and how to check yours.
- Grant Progress Report Template With a Made-Up Example: A seven-part outline for an interim grant progress report, a made-up filled-in example and a pre-send checklist. Use your funder's own form when it has one.
- I Missed a Grant Report Deadline: What Do I Do Now?: What to do in the first hour and first week after missing a grant report deadline: confirm it, tell the funder, submit, and fix the cause.
- What Should a Grant Final Report Include?: The usual parts of a grant final report, programmatic and financial, how to gather each, and what to check before submitting. You write it; this is the outline.
- What Should I Include in a Grant Reimbursement Request?: A checklist for building a grant reimbursement request: the costs, the backup for each, the budget check, who signs, and when to expect payment.
- How Do I Document Staff Time on a Grant?: A plain method for recording staff time charged to a grant: what the records must show, how often to do them and what to save. From 2 CFR 200.430(g).
- How Do I Document In-Kind Match for a Grant?: A plain method for tracking match or cost share on a grant: what can count, how to value volunteer time and donated goods, and what proof to keep.
- How Do I Ask a Funder to Change My Grant Budget?: When a budget change needs written approval, what a modification request should say, and how to keep the answer. Worked from 2 CFR 200.308; funders vary.
- Is This Cost Allowable on a Federal Grant? Seven Tests: Seven tests from 2 CFR 200.403 to 200.405 for whether a cost can be charged to a federal award, a made-up example and the costs the rules call unallowable.
- Grant Expense Tracking Spreadsheet: Columns and Checks: A grant expense tracking sheet with twelve columns, a budget-versus-actual tab and a monthly reconciliation, built on what 2 CFR 200.302 says records must show.
Closing out an award
- Grant Closeout Checklist: Before and After the Award Ends: A step-by-step grant closeout checklist: find the deadline, reconcile the budget, gather evidence, submit final reports, settle funds and keep records.
- What Is a Grant Closeout Letter, and What If None Comes?: What a grant closeout letter is, how to ask for written confirmation, a short request you can send, and what closeout does not end under the federal rules.
- What Is the Liquidation Period on a Federal Grant?: The federal liquidation deadline in plain words: 120 days after the period of performance for a recipient, 90 for a subrecipient, and how to count it.
- How to Request a No-Cost Extension on a Grant: What a no-cost extension is, the steps to ask for one, what the request should say, and how to update every date once the funder approves.
- What Happens to Unspent Grant Money at the End of a Grant?: What to do with grant money left at the end of the award: find the true balance, ask before you spend or move it, and refund what you may not keep.
- How Long Do You Have to Keep Grant Records?: How to find your grant record retention period, what the federal default says, what extends it, and how to write a destroy-after date on the archived file.
- Single Audit Threshold 2026: Does Your Nonprofit Need One?: The federal single audit threshold in 2 CFR 200.501, what counts as federal money expended, a worked example, and when the reporting package is due.
- My Grant Was Terminated: What Do I Do Now? Federal Rules: What to do after a federal grant termination notice: read the basis, note the dates, object in writing, stop new obligations, and still close out the award.
Your award agreement and your funder's instructions are the authority on every date and requirement. These pages are working methods, not legal, audit or compliance advice.