One state in an organization will often administrate forty or fifty grants at a time, and sometimes, it could be a hundred. Administrating the submission, adjudication, and follow-up processes can become a huge and expensive chore.
Managing projects the Horizon Europe program funds can be a highly complex process. Like an orchestra that takes place at varying times, it requires the involvement of various people in specific roles, whether as individuals or as teams. When managing a collaborative Horizon Europe project, the process covers different steps as: initiation, planning, execution, and management of resources to complete deliverables within a timeframe and also a budget.
Although big foundations and companies have a lot of money they can disperse to the public, they don’t; this is because monitoring the process is expensive, despite the tax write-0ffs on the money they can give to business start-ups and charities. At this point, it is necessary to educate administrators, and foundation partners about how straightforward and inexpensive running grant proposal management software from a single office can be.
You Don’t Need a New Skillset
You don’t need additional skills when operating a project and work management tool, except you’re completely computer illiterate. However, if you work in a government agency, art foundation, or research institute, there is no way you were hired without possessing rudimentary computer skills.
Although some administrators need technical people for the initial installation and setup of the management software, the complete customization of the software may take a few weeks, depending on the organization’s complexity. For example, an arts foundation that gives away six grants annually does not need as much setup time as a state organization that gives away 48 grants with over 160 rotating deadlines.
Another issue is the time required to input your basic information. You may have to hire extra people to handle data entry. However, most programs integrate with your already existing databases and branding.
What Skills Do You Need to Handle Proposal Automation?
The skills a grant manager needs are the same for managing automated proposal submissions, evaluations, and follow-up processes. Some of these skills include;
1. Managing various projects and management staff, as well as communicating with them using the various inbuilt features and functions in the software program’s functionality
2. Branding and proofreading information to ensure its accuracy on all forms and information.
3. Responsibility for every aspect of the project’s design and evaluation.
4. Checking the eligibility of people applying for funding.
5. Using emails to follow up on candidates that are awarded grants quickly.
6. Enforcing key elements of the regulatory appliance by configuring them right into your applications and processes that help with the evaluation
7. Providing award statistics and statistics about candidates applying for your grant.
8. Communicating effectively with key stakeholders, affiliates, and funders.
9. Using all your talent for the smooth administration of the grant. Smooth running the grant process, please the public and your funding bodies. Therefore, resulting in more funding for further grant automation.
What Are the Three Features a Good Project and Work Management Tool Should Possess?
Although project and work management tools give you the keys to success, all tools are not equal. This section discusses features your project and work management tool should possess to provide you and your project with full support.
1. Allowing the design and budget of multiple projects work synonymously with team members and stakeholders at any scale or complexity
A good tool allows the planning of projects in a detailed and organized way with team participation. Because project plans always change, you should get a management tool that allows you to replan and reprioritize your project when needed. Also, the tool should be able to handle all these activities while adhering to the project’s scope and resources and keeping everyone involved in the loop
2. Keeping your project on schedule and allowing people to work efficiently together
Project teams should be able to see the objectives and finished deliverables; this guides everyone working on the project in the same direction. The right project and work management tool should visualize project objectives, deliverables, and milestones. Also, the tool should inform all team members of what everyone else is doing, thus, keeping all project teams and partners on the same page.
3. Making data sharing easy and allowing people to work simultaneously on the same document
Project management entails tracking documents, deliverables, project proposals, reports, and publications. A project and work management tool should have a centralized document repository that allows project members to easily store and access files and documents.
Final Words.
Managing a grant project can be pretty stressful, especially if you have to handle multiple grants. Fortunately, a project and work management tool can help you automate the process. You don’t need any particular skill to run the tool. Nevertheless, you should ensure that the tool can handle projects of any complexity at any scale and also allow your teamwork efficiently and simultaneously.
