Grants Management Handbook
QUICKSTART: Grants Pitfalls and Red Flag Issues
Success or failure is often determined by what transpires in the first weeks or months of the grant. For those who are interested in a quick overview of the potential pitfalls and “red flag” issues that are guaranteed to challenge or cripple a grant, we offer the following list of examples:
- Slow project startups due to vacancies—Slow initial hiring and filling of vacant positions is a surefire way to get the project implementation so far behind that its objectives cannot be accomplished in time for performance reporting. Filling a vacant position typically takes 8 weeks or more during which time nothing may be getting done.
- Purchasing mistakes—Project startup provides ample opportunities for making all kinds of mistakes such as improperly authorized purchases, failure to get bids, ordering inertia due to ignorance about the electronic requisitioning system, purchase orders, purchasing quote requirements, ordering from friends and relatives, etc.
- Unauthorized travel—Failure to get appropriate permission in advance to travel out of the county, state, or country is a sure way to ensure that travel won’t be reimbursed.
- Contracting for services—Failure to use the correct way of “contracting” for services and monitoring the results is an excellent way to get off on the wrong foot with your supervisor, the Legal Department, Grants Accounting, and Human Resource personnel. It also causes your paperwork to move like a ping-pong ball between departments.
- Where’s my budget?—This situation can arise when the Project Director or responsible administrator fails to follow the process to get the grant accepted by the College and the District. No approval? No budget.
- Budget Amendments—Project Directors and Administrators who fail to keep both the Grants Accounting and the District Grants Development and Management Department informed about Budget Amendments run the risk of credibility problems with the funding agency and the two grants departments. Funding agencies are not impressed with organizations where “the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.”
- Approval to accept the grant—The Project Director is not the authorized person to accept a grant, so do not sign blanks that say something like "authorized signature". An award is not accepted until proper procedures are followed to get the grant accepted either by the Governing Board or through the administrative acceptance process. Board Action Items or Administrative Acceptance of Grant cannot be submitted for approval until the award notification is received.
- Equipment orders—“Splitting” an equipment order to qualify for less demanding purchasing requirements is a great way to get yourself crossways with Purchasing Officials. Purchasing equipment that was not approved in the grant or by the funding agency is another way to get in hot water since the College will have to cover the cost of it from operational dollars when the cost is refused or disallowed.
- Informed consent and assent—Collecting personally identifiable information about individuals, especially about individuals in vulnerable populations, without getting the permission of the Institutional Review Board and proper informed consent and assent from the participants in advance is a surefire way to get into trouble with violalting federal law for failing to protect human subjects.
- Match—Trying to document required match “after the fact” can be aggravating if you fail to pre-identify and set up a system to capture match costs at the beginning of the grant.
- Effort Reporting—Failure to see that all employees working on federally sponsored grants projects report and certify their effort is a violation of both District procedures and federal regulations. This includes both grant paid individuals and individuals whose effort is contributing as cost share to a grant or contract. Erroneously certifying effort can be viewed as fraud.
- Supplanting—If someone asks to use grant funds to replace funds that were previously obtained from the College’s operations budget, what should you say? Your answer should be, “Sorry, I can’t do that! Supplanting college funds with grant funds is illegal.”
- Co-mingling of funds—So to make things easy for yourself, you want to put all your budget funds, including grant funds in the same budget account; is that okay? No! That’s called co-mingling of funds, a practice that is prohibited by both District policy and funding source rules and regulations.
- Failure to perform—It is hard to believe that anyone would fail to make a strong effort to perform the scope of work and accomplish the objectives but when it happens, the situation is very serious. Accountability for satisfactory performance is more demanding in grants than in most other community college functions so consequences for failure to perform are very serious. Not only can it endanger future funding for your College, it can endanger future grant funding systemwide.
- “Free money syndrome”—Some people have the misconception that grant funds are “free money” and they will decide how the grant funds should be used after it is awarded. Wrong! The grant proposal already clearly and specifically identified how the funds would be spent.
- “Outside the box” Project Directors—Individuals who have difficulty understanding and following directions should not be applying for and running grants. Project Directors have to carefully follow the program guidelines and funding source regulations as well as District policies and procedures.
- Data collection—Projects that fail to collect data will find it impossible to demonstrate that they have succeeded in accomplishing their objectives. Project Directors who fail to look at project data analytically lose the opportunity to identify what is working and what isn’t and to make continuous improvements in their project.
Now that you’ve seen a few examples of the kinds of things that can and do interfere with a grant project’s successful startup and implementation, we hope you will read the rest of this document which has been prepared for the benefit of both new and experienced Project Directors.
This Handbook is divided into three sections:
Discusses the activities involved in negotiating the award, obtaining Governing Board and Administrative Acceptance Approvals to accept funding, setting up the budget, hiring project personnel, setting up the evaluation process, addressing Human Subjects Research requirements, and certifying effort on the grant.
Covers managing project budgets and spending grant funds, recordkeeping and preparing for an audit, communicating with the funding source, project evaluation and reports, publicity and promotion, dissemination of results, and completing and closing out the project.
Includes a variety of forms commonly used by Project Directors as well as commonly used institution numbers, budget codes, web addresses, and grant terminology.
The District Grants Development and Management Department provides leadership, coordination, technical assistance, and support for the planning and development of externally funded proposals submitted to both public and private sources of funding. In the interest of brevity, the Department will also be referred to as "District Grants". The Department also provides programmatic and grants management training and technical assistance after a grant is funded. Grants personnel review proposal drafts, provide feedback and assistance, and arrange for authorized approval and signatures. District Grants also plays a central role in finding and disseminating information about funding opportunities, and in the administration and submission of electronic grant proposals and reports. This includes adding Project Directors or Principal Investigators to the systems so that they have access to use them. Most external funding sources now use electronic systems or websites to submit both proposals and performance reports. The District Grants also provides technical assistance related to grants management, performance reporting, and evaluation. District Grants website is: www.maricopa.edu/grants. The District Grants Development and Management is a deaprtment within the District's Division of Academic and Student Affairs.
One college, GateWay Community College currently has a Grants Director, who provides support and technical assistance related to proposals and grants at that college although others may be added in the future. College-based Grants Directors work in close collaboration with the District Grants Development and Management Department which provides support for their grants-related activities.
Another department with grants-related responsibilities and services is located in the system office's Division of Business Services. Grants Accounting is responsible for post-award fiscal oversight of externally funded grant projects. Grants Accountants monitor grant budgets and prepare fiscal reports, as well as provide technical assistance related to externally funded project budgets and expenditures. Grants Accountants also answer budget-related questions, address fiscal problems, provide fiscal guidance, and prepare for audits of grant projects. See the Grants Accounting website at: www.maricopa.edu/business/grantsacctg.
