5 Must-have metrics on your grant management dashboard

For some organisations, a grants management dashboard can feel like an “extra” tool—something nice to look at that provides some data about your program.  

But, in truth, a dashboard, which showcases program status, applications, funding amounts and more, is one of the most effective and essential tools for facilitating grant programs that are accessible, equitable, user-friendly and most of all, impactful.

However, not all grant dashboards are alike. While some only track application status or the number of applicants, others allow organisations to go deeper into the progress of their programs—and become more strategic every day.

In this article, we’ll cover why a grants management dashboard is essential, as well as the top five must-have metrics every successful grantmaking foundation should have on its grant management dashboard—and why.

What is a grants management dashboard and why is it important?

Before we jump into the specifics of what type of data your grants management dashboard should have, let’s first understand why a dashboard is so important for funders in the first place.

While organisations can keep track of their programs through Excel spreadsheets and generate reports with third-party tools, this manual method doesn’t offer funders a simple, visual or accurate way of quickly understanding how their programs are progressing in real-time.

Think of it this way—instead of looking at a spreadsheet with rows of data, or pulling a one-time report for stakeholders, a grants management dashboard shows a live, visual, dynamic overview of exactly what’s happening with your grant programs—all without manual data collection or analysis.

The newly enhanced Good Grants program dashboard offers customisable insights into program status, funding, impact and more.

As a result, funders can become proactive, agile, and strategic, making their programs more impactful than ever.

1. Cross-program visibility

Busy foundations often manage multiple programs simultaneously—each with distinct goals, timelines, requirements and funding amounts. That’s a lot to keep track of in just a spreadsheet.

A grants management dashboard with cross-program visibility, however, lets organisations quickly get a holistic view of all their programming as well as how different programs relate to one another, including whether they complement each other or perhaps are duplicating efforts.

With this data in hand, grantmaking foundations can also easily identify which programs are thriving and which are struggling—all of which can help funders make strategic decisions around resource allocation, so that all programs succeed.

2. Application data

For a lot of organisations, “application data” might sound pretty unimportant when it comes to assessing meaningful metrics.

But in fact, numbers like total applications submitted, applications in progress, average time it takes to complete an application and even the rate of rejection vs. acceptance can provide your team with a wealth of information.

Here’s why: Not only can this data help you anticipate workload and plan accordingly internally, but it can also tell you something about the demand for your organisation’s support as well as your organisation’s marketing efforts.

For example, if you notice one program has had a surge in applications but another has barely received any, your team might drill down into specifics around where your grant was publicised and to whom, to make strategic decisions for the future. You might ask: What channels did we use to market the popular grant? The unpopular one? What audiences did we miss—or successfully target—and why?

Application data can help your team more easily identify inefficiencies, too. For example, if applications are bottlenecking at the review stage, you might need to adjust staffing or streamline your evaluation process. Or, if you notice a high amount of unfinished applications, you might dig into why—is our application too cumbersome? Is it asking irrelevant questions?

3. Grants data

While tracking grants data might seem obvious, it’s crucial for really assessing exactly where funding is—and how it is or isn’t creating meaningful change.

Data like total funds distributed by time period, program and geographic region, helps you ensure that your funding strategy aligns with your mission. For example, in viewing this data in your dashboard, you might notice that you’re inadvertently concentrating too much funding in a certain region, or your support for established organisations is much greater than your investment in smaller, grassroots groups.

A grants dashboard with this information lets you pivot seamlessly, and make a strategic switch.

4. User data

For organisations that are used to spreadsheets and manual reporting, user data might feel a bit foreign. But in truth, tracking exactly how your most important stakeholders—including staff, board members, applicants and grantees—interact with your program‚ helps you keep people at the center of your mission.

A grants management dashboard should let you track login frequency, session duration, most commonly accessed features and resources and more—all of which can help you understand how effectively your platform serves these different groups.

For example, if your data reveals that grantees click away from your application at a specific point in time, it might mean that the application is too tedious. In turn, that might signal to funders that they need to streamline questions or even check for technical problems.

5. Funds data

From data on available funds by program and restriction type, to multi-year commitment obligations and committed versus distributed amounts, funds data is pretty critical for success. Essentially, these metrics allow organisations to quickly view their financial health and capacity to fulfill their commitments—and potentially avoid costly headaches.

What makes this data extra important is its ability to help organisations both on a high-level and a day-to-day one—organisations can use these metrics to identify how much money they have available today, as well as how much they can realistically commit to future grants tomorrow. For funders, that’s certainly critical information to have.

Track all your most important data with Good Grants

Unlike spreadsheets and manual reports, a dashboard offers a consistent, visual overview of exactly where your programs are at every single day—including how they impact the very people you’re looking to serve.

With Good Grants’ newly enhanced grants management dashboard, foundations can view and access all of the above data at any time. From cross-program visibility to funds data, Good Grants helps organisations make informed decisions, simplify grant reporting for grantees, and strengthen the funder-grantee relationship—so everyone can focus on what matters most: creating impact.