Grant readiness checklist
- Hours to close the gap
- 21
- Items missing
- 7
- How ready you are, percent
- 61.111111111111114
- Weeks to ready at the hours you can give it
- 5.25
Where these sheets touch federal rules they cite the Uniform Guidance at 2 CFR part 200 rather than paraphrasing it: 200.414 sets the de minimis indirect rate at up to 15% of modified total direct costs for a recipient with no negotiated rate, and 200.334 requires award records to be kept for three years from the date the final financial report is submitted. Every other number in the sheets is one you type in, because your partners, your sections and your hours are not ours to guess.
The figures above are one application worked as an example (21). Put your own partners, sections and hours in and the answer follows as you type.
Download the Grant readiness checklist worked example (CSV)
Grant readiness is the set of things a funder will ask for that have nothing to do with your programme: current registrations, audited or reviewed financials, a board list, the policies, a logic model, an evaluation plan. Every office knows roughly which of these it is missing and nobody knows what the gap costs. This sheet asks how many items your checklist holds, how many you actually have in a form you could send today, and how many hours each missing one takes, and turns that into weeks and into slack against your next deadline.
Where the constants in this tool come from
What a grants manager asks before using the Grant readiness checklist
What counts as having an item?
Current and findable. A conflict of interest policy adopted in 2019 that nobody can locate is not an item you have, and discovering that at eleven at night before a deadline is how offices learn the distinction.
What belongs on the checklist?
Registrations and identifiers, the most recent financials, the board list with terms, the core policies, the logic model, the evaluation plan, and your standard programme descriptions. Eighteen items is a normal count for a small nonprofit.
Is readiness the same as eligibility?
No. Eligibility is what the notice of funding opportunity says about who may apply. Readiness is whether you can assemble the package at all, and an organisation can be eligible and completely unready.