5 Ways to Encourage Your Board Members to Advocate for Your Organization (Copy)
On August 7, 2025, the federal government issued an executive order entitled “Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking,” intended to streamline and simplify the process for applicants and recipients of federal grant funds. You can read the executive order yourself and draw your own conclusions about the value of the changes – or you can read the position that the Grant Professionals Association has taken.
Regardless of your opinion of it, evaluating the executive order requires a basic understanding of how the federal grant process works – from requests for proposals to project completion. For the sake of brevity, I provide a 10,000-foot overview. Some programs may have slightly different specific steps, but this will give you a general concept of how federal grants operate and your role as the applicant or recipient in the process.
The federal government allocates funds to specific agencies – currently 12 – to pay for its priorities thought the annual budgeting process or in specific legislation. For example, the Transportation and Infrastructure Act specified which federal agencies would have responsibility to implement each aspect of the program.
Federal agencies release a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) – also called a Request for Proposals (RFP) – to let interested parties know that funding exists, the qualifications to apply, and application instructions. The government publishes funding opportunities in the Federal Register and in grants.gov, a searchable government database. The federal agencies often load them on their webpages as well. NOFOs can run 100 or more pages for some programs.
Applicants set up an account on grants.gov and SAM through which the government accepts and administers grant applications and makes payment. Some agencies also have their own project management databases to which you must subscribe to work with that agency.
Applicants submit a formal application, most often through one or more federal online systems. Most applications get submitted through the grants.gov portal; some federal agencies have their own through which applicants submit some or most of the application.
Applications can run dozens or even hundreds of pages depending on the specific requirements of the funder and the type of grant. They all require very detailed explanations of the program for which you seek funds and an extensive budget along with at least half a dozen other standard and specialized forms. The budget usually requires that you breakdown direct costs into personnel – outlining the number of hours each person will spend on this project and their salaries – equipment, supplies, travel, construction, and other costs. Many will allow you to claim indirect costs, the administrative and overhead costs you cannot easily quantify. These include things like the time your finance office spends drawing down funds and completing reports, electricity usage, insurance, etc.Once you submit the application, the review process begins, usually with an administrative review during which the agency staff assure that you have submitted all the pieces of the application, submitted it on time, and met the minimum eligibility criteria. The online portal does some of this as well; that is, it will not accept an application that you try to submit even a minute after the deadline or with a section missing, although it only knows you have uploaded pages, not what information those pages contain.
Peer review follows administrative review. Each grant program has a group of experts external to the agency who reviews applications for accuracy and intellectual soundness. The definition of “expert” depends on the level of sophistication for the subject matter of the grant. A cancer research grant, for example, has oncologist and other medical personnel and researchers review it. An education program might have lay people in addition to education professionals and pedagogical specialists. Reviewers must declare any conflicts of interest and do not review applications where a conflict might occur; some applications also ask the applicant to disqualify potential reviewers.
Peer review panels operate a little differently for each funding opportunity. In general, the reviewers read and score the applications individually using a published rubric that they include in the Notice of Funding Opportunities to help the applicant adequately address the review criteria. Once they review applications individually, reviewers gather as a group to discuss the applications and make a final recommendation to the staff whether to fund, not fund, or seek clarification.
Staff review the results of the panel’s recommendations and adjust the list of awardees based on internal goals, such as assuring geographical distribution or meeting benchmarks in terms of supporting both rural and urban organizations. Often the Notice of Funding Opportunity will outline these factors so applicants know up front how the agency will make final funding decisions.Based on the administrative review, the agency makes a final decision of which applications to fund based on their budget and sends a notice of funding award that outlines the amount of money and any stipulations for the grant, such as the number of years of the award, any unallowable expenses, and reporting requirements. Sometimes the recipient will get assigned to a staff person to help administer the grant which can include negotiating the final budget and requirements for the funds and program. Based on that negotiation, the agency sends a final notice of funding award that the recipient signs to accept.
While the recipient implements the program or research as outlined in the application, they keep careful records of time spent, inputs, outputs, and outcomes to report to the funder on the agreed upon schedule. Often, they will submit quarterly program updates. They also draw down funds from the federal agency to reimburse them for the funds spent, again based on the signed agreement and using the appropriate federal portal.
At the conclusion of the grant, the applicant submits a final report that summarizes the goals of the project and their results. They also complete a final budget close out report and, depending on their level of funding from the federal government, might also participate in an independent audit of their funds.
As noted at the beginning, different agencies may have slightly different processes at different stages throughout the process. But, in general, they follow these 9 steps.
