Grant Management Skills Every Successful Program Officer Should Have (and Teach)

When some grantseekers apply for funding opportunities, they adopt a widespread approach and apply for every opportunity they find.

However, this can create situations where funders and award recipients suffer from misaligned missions or strategies. Importantly, this inefficient allocation of awards significantly minimizes the impact of both organizations.

It’s not a situation that helps anyone, especially not the communities or causes you serve.

To prevent these outcomes, program officers must develop their relationship-building and grant management skills. They must identify the meaningful partner organizations, people, and workflows that will achieve the greatest impacts.

And if you’re looking to deliver those impacts sooner (or help up-and-comers avoid a lot of trial and error), our overview of crucial grant management skills gives program officers the best head start.

Why grant management skills matter more than ever

At some point or another, all of us have spent far too long trying to determine if something was the right fit, a college major, a new job, or a new relationship. So, you likely understand the amount of time, energy, and resources that are wasted in those instances.

That’s precisely what a program officer helps funders avoid. They reduce that waste by ensuring a public grantmaking organization or private foundation only partners with highly compatible recipients.

Sometimes, program officers also need to operate like talent scouts or mentors who proactively remove barriers to funding access. When connecting with representatives or grant writers, program officers must identify nonprofits that align with their foundation, even if those organizations could use some help navigating the application process.

The potential grantee may need to frame their project in a certain way to meet strict program requirements; they may also need to provide specific data that their nonprofit hasn’t collected before.

Once a grant is awarded, program officers are responsible for building deeper relationships with the recipients. As everyone collaborates, program officers must determine how and where to proactively offer guidance and support, without becoming too rigid on compliance and reporting processes or too overbearing when tracking progress. Those types of restrictions not only affect funder-recipient relationships but can also inhibit a program’s progress and impact.

However, while program officers have always fulfilled an important front-line funding role when managing all these duties, they prove particularly indispensable today.

Grant management processes continue to grow faster, becoming more data-driven and collaborative. With the rapidly increasing amount of funding opportunities, it’s more challenging than ever to determine which partnerships to pursue at the expense of other applicants.

Program officers must become especially discerning to keep their foundation aligned with its mission and strategies, support equitable funding access across potential partners, and ensure every dollar goes further and achieves more.

To that end, successful program officers must hone six specific skills.

Skill #1: Strategic thinking and big-picture alignment

Program officers must weigh numerous considerations when evaluating funding applications. For example, the proposed project’s merit, feasibility, and costs all factor into decision-making; grantmaking organizations need to demonstrate accountability to their stakeholders, and accepting unrealistic proposals does the opposite.

But more importantly than mulling over a project’s merit, program officers first need to immerse themselves in strategic thinking and consider the ‘big picture.’

Start by determining the alignment between the funder and the nonprofit or specific project.

This involves firmly connecting all funding decisions to:

Organizational missions: Do the funder and applicant pursue the same goals or operate within the same philanthropic sphere? For instance, housing stability has a direct impact on children’s ability to learn and their educational outcomes. But a Habitat for Humanity affiliate wouldn’t make a good fit for a grant intended to achieve better education outcomes via more culturally or linguistically inclusive early learning.
Strategic fit: The methods funders and grant recipients use to achieve their missions also determine which partnerships may be ideal. For example, Teach for America aims to match tutors, teachers, and principals with underserved communities; however, its methods don’t align with the Department of Education’s GEARUP grants and statewide initiatives, which often prioritize parental involvement and curriculum enrichment for low-income students.

Ultimately, program officers need to recognize the compatibility between their foundation’s and applicants’ intended, long-term community outcomes, as well as how they plan to achieve them.

Skill #2: Process design and workflow management

As part of their efforts to ensure mission and strategic alignment, program officers must also be heavily involved with application and reporting processes.

To start, knowing how to structure and refine applications enables them to better filter the nonprofits seeking grants. Understanding how the foundation’s decision-makers review proposals helps program officers provide guidance to applicants they’ve identified as mission- and strategically aligned.

What’s more, streamlined reporting processes reduce friction while keeping all stakeholders informed, allowing applicants to focus more on driving the outcomes everyone wants to achieve.

Developing these processes will require program officers to become familiar with workflow management skills, such as process mapping (i.e., organizing and visualizing complete sequences) and decision-point documentation (i.e., informing criteria-based decision-making at different junctures of a process map).

Program officers will also need to gain experience with various technological tools to create and launch these processes. For example, learning how to create templated forms for submitting applications or progress reports improves efficiency by minimizing time-consuming and error-prone manual data entry.

Skill #3: Communication and relationship building

As the relationships between funders and grantees become increasingly collaborative, program officers must frame and position award recipients as true partners. This cross-organization relationship building depends on trust built from clear, compassionate communication and consistent feedback.

Every facet of communication should be designed accordingly:

Written instructions and guidelines (e.g., applications, progress reports) should be clear and easily understood to minimize errors and reduce the need for clarification requests.
Expectations should be as universal as individual projects allow, finalized before funds are awarded, and managed according to ongoing progress (or setbacks).
Written communications and phone calls should be answered with timely replies, both out of respect and to minimize delays grantees experience while trying to advance their mission or project.
Providing regular feedback helps ensure that all parties and stakeholders stay informed, expectations remain reasonable, and partners can adjust goals and workflows as needed.

Skill #4: Data fluency and reporting savvy

Nearly everything is data-driven today, and grant management is no different. However, program officers need to acquire a few types of data fluency.

For instance, they must understand and know how to use internal program data as well as the data provided by the grantees they collaborate with. Both are crucial for maximizing the effectiveness of programs and officers.

Determine and track key metrics, including channel-specific or search engine traffic, the number of page visitors, where potential applicants typically abandon forms, and the frequency of applications submitted by organizations.

With this information, program officers can optimize internal process design and adopt strategies to generate more awareness among mission- and strategically aligned organizations. These efforts will resemble general marketing or customer experience analysis.

Conversely, interpreting grantees’ reporting data will likely necessitate specific knowledge to track the program outcomes, such as scientific knowledge, statistical analysis, or familiarity with industry standards. Without these understandings, program officers will struggle to accurately assess a grantee’s ongoing efforts or communicate their impacts to boards and stakeholders.

The ability to understand budgets and accounting will also be useful for monitoring whether grantees spend the awarded funds appropriately and responsibly.

Skill #5: Compliance awareness without rigidity

Compliance reporting remains a fundamental aspect of all grants, and program officers must ensure that grantees continually meet all requirements for the duration of the funding. However, it's also easy for grantmaking professionals to inadvertently become 'bureaucratic blockers' if they adhere to these requirements too rigidly.

Compliance may be mandatory, but the more time grantees spend double-checking whether they've dotted every i and crossed every t, the less time they spend pursuing intended grant outcomes.

To strike the appropriate balance, take the time to establish audit needs, documentation practices, and a mutually understood regulatory context before awarding funds. If possible, this should be communicated during the application process to inform potential grantees what to expect.

Additionally, implementing purpose-built grant management solutions will help funders maintain audit-ready workflows and log activity, minimizing compliance risks and better protecting all parties.

Skill #6: Teaching and mentoring new grant professionals

Program officers who feel comfortable with their skill development and have established a grant management groove should regularly take opportunities to share their knowledge and experience with their teams. During less busy periods of the grant cycle, explain the intent behind processes and decisions.

As program officers train up-and-coming professionals, teams become stronger and the entire organization becomes more resilient. Moreover, these efforts free up time for program officers to address higher-value tasks.

How program officers choose to pass on their knowledge to the next generation of grantmakers likely depends on their organization's structure. Those working for large foundations might see more improvement from formal onboarding and mentorship programs, whereas less formal peer guidance might suit smaller operations better.

Start a conversation about building stronger grant management skills

Whether you’re a new program officer building your own grant management skills or a seasoned pro reflecting on tips and tricks of the grantmaking trade for mentees, implementing the right technology and tools can dramatically affect workflows and program capabilities. And as a solution purpose-built by developers with philanthropic expertise, Foundant’s Grant Lifecycle Manager streamlines and simplifies end-to-end programs.

From customized application forms and online reviews to automated communications, grantmakers can build the processes and engagements that foster collaboration with their grantees.

With real-time data gathered for reporting and analysis displayed in easily accessible dashboards, all team members and stakeholders can coordinate operations and refine programs to achieve better community outcomes.

Reach out to learn more about how Foundant’s GLM helps program officers simplify grant management and stay focused on impact.