Grantmaking is a powerful tool to invest in your community, increase local capacity, and create meaningful change. Main Street organizations can leverage grant programs to help support important local initiatives, uplift small business owners, and restore historic structures.

Main Street America works with partners to deliver grants to small business owners and community-based organizations, and this work has helped us develop a deep understanding of how to implement grant programs and the impact they can have on our work. Here are five tips from our team to help you start a grant program at your organization.

Lay out large and small steps on your program timeline

Your first step to running a successful grant program is making a timeline. Keep in mind holidays, planned days out of the office, and expected busy periods. Start sketching out major milestones, which are often public-facing, and thus hard to move once announced, such as:

• Application launch
• Application close
• Application review completed/​grantees short-listed (internally)
• Grantees paid and announced (publicly)
• Spending deadline
• Final reports due

Then, you can fill in all the steps to complete prior to each milestone. For example, to pay a grantee, you need to:

• Draft a grant agreement contract
• Send the grant agreement to your team/​partners to review
• Receive the reviewed documents and make edits
• Inform short-listed applicants that paperwork is needed to formalize their acceptance
• Send grant agreements, other financial paperwork forms (e.g., W9, banking info) to applicants
• Receive completed documents and review for errors
• Set up payments for disbursal in your system

It’s helpful to work backwards relative to the milestone date. If disbursal is on June 1^st and it takes five days to set up payments and review for errors, then completed documents must be due May 25^th, which means if you want applicants to have a week to fill out documents, those documents will need to be sent to applicants before May 18^th, etc. As you fill in the timeline with these smaller tasks, you may need to adjust your milestone dates to ensure you’ve budgeted enough time for everything.

As you build the timeline, note the points where you expect to receive documents, and start building a file repository to organize and store them. If you are expecting to receive video files, architectural plans, or engineering documents, be aware of possible large file sizes and ensure you have adequate storage space prepared.

Understand the funder’s goals and use that to build your application

Many grant programs are ​“pass-through” programs — you receive funding from a funder and pass those funds down to the grantees (minus any administrative costs). Much like grantees send a final report to you, you’re responsible for sending a final report to your funder showing you were a successful partner and steward of the funds.

Knowing your funder’s goals for the program and what metrics they want reported is vital. These goals should be represented in the determination criteria you use to score/​select successful applicants — one funder might strongly prioritize funding high-need applicants, while another emphasizes that projects cannot run late and prefers projects that will finish on time. 

Craft application questions around what you will share with your funder. If a funder wants to know the impacts of the grant, your application should collect ​“before” data on sales, foot traffic, visitors, etc., and the final report from your grantees should collect ​“after” data. Ask for program data upfront, so you aren’t scrambling to find supporting data when it’s time for you to fill out your final report. Knowing your funder’s goals puts you in a good position to potentially renew funding when a funder feels understood and trusts you can supply them with the results they seek. 

Test your application process from an applicant’s point of view

In addition to being a good partner to your funder, you also want to be a good partner to your applicants. As you build your application process, make sure you are testing functionality from your applicant’s point of view. Some questions to consider:

• How easy is it to get to the application page?
• Do they need to log in, and can they save their progress?
• Is the link easy to find and access?
• How long does it take to fill out the application?
• What supporting materials should applicants have ready?

Think critically about the format of your questions. Consider when a response should be single-select or multi-select. Dropdown selections are less prone to typos than an open text field. Long-answer text boxes give your applicant room to show personality and share their story, but take longer to review — and they create more work internally for you to pull out any metrics or data manually.

Take advantage of valuable local resources such as other development organizations, foundations, or nonprofits that have run their own grant programs. Ask them how they developed their application process and see if they are willing to run through your questions to catch any errors or spots that may confuse applicants.

Be clear about eligibility and determination criteria in the application so that applicants develop project proposals clearly aligned with the goals of the program. The more transparent you are, the better user experience for applicants and the stronger applicant pool you’ll end up with, which makes it easier for your reviewers to identify if an application has the components needed to be a top candidate — a win for everyone.

Prepare your review team

Determine how many rounds of reviews will occur. Funders or organizational partners may wish to review a top-scoring subset of applications. Will you create one universal review form, or will you need a different form for each round of reviews? Depending on the focus of each round, your review form may ask reviewers to confirm whether eligibility requirements are met, select numeric scores evaluating key criteria (feasibility, impact, etc.), and provide comments on the strengths and/​or weaknesses of the project proposal.

Make review form questions as clear and simple as possible. Does one question ask reviewers to evaluate three different aspects of the proposal? If so, break it up into multiple questions. This makes scoring more consistent across the review panel, and application scores will more accurately reflect the project’s relation to the review criteria.

Assemble and train your reviewer team. Consider the kinds of expertise you will want to have on the panel. Do these folks already exist within your organization, or will you invite external reviewers who specialize in the topic? Invite reviewers as early as possible and be clear about your expectations. Let reviewers know when the review period will be, how long you anticipate each application review to take (test this yourself!), the estimated number of applications and number of hours you expect to be spent, and whether reviewers will be compensated for their time. Also consider whether you will be asking reviewers to reconvene for scoring discussion(s) after they’ve submitted their review forms and ensure they can block that time in their calendars.

Once you have your review form and review panel, you’re ready to facilitate a reviewer training session. Ensure all your reviewers have access to any logins or technology needed to complete their reviews. Walk reviewers through a sample application and the review form, ensuring that everyone is clear on eligibility requirements, eligible grant uses, and what makes an application especially strong. Provide example applications of differing strengths and allow plenty of time for questions. 

Make the most of the implementation period

Spread the word about these exciting projects! As projects are implemented and completed, consider writing about the work in your newsletter, blog posts, social media channels, or a podcast/​video interview with the grantee. Make sure to obtain permission from the grantee to highlight them on external channels.

As grantees begin projects, host a kickoff gathering, virtually or in-person. This kickoff should:

• Share key info needed for successful project execution
• Lay out timelines for reporting required
• Explain the process to request scope/​budget changes
• Celebrate the grantees
• Provide a space for grantees to learn about each other’s projects

A cohort experience can provide a more intensive but highly valuable interaction with your grantees. You may meet with grantees multiple times over the course of the implementation period to foster intentional opportunities for community building and networking. Cohort meetups support grantees to keep projects on track using regular check-ins, offer relevant educational training and technical assistance, and create opportunities for peer-to-peer idea sharing and problem solving. Consider inviting representatives from the funding organization to cohort gatherings so they can experience first-hand the impact that their funding is having in your local community.

Document the implementation process visually, collecting before, during, and after photos. ​“After” photos highlighting active use of a space, such as during a community event, are especially great at showing the transformative impact of a project. Documenting creative approaches to revitalization in your downtown can help bolster funding support for even more grant projects in the future.

Launching a grant program can seem overwhelming, but with thoughtful planning, it is a fantastic opportunity to expand your impact and support your community. 

Downtown Decorations, a Main Street America Allied Member, is this quarter’s Main Spotlight advertiser. For more information about what they do to support Main Street organizations, click here.