Grant reporting best practices: 6 ways to leverage data 

While grant reporting is often a necessary requirement of any grant funding, the importance of the grant report goes far beyond checking off a box on a to-do list. A grant report — a treasure trove of crucial insights — can pave the way for real impact and success.

In fact, grant report data can help your nonprofit succeed in more ways than most realise, even acting as an equaliser between grantmakers and their grantees. Especially in an era of trust-based philanthropy, when transparency, trust, and communication are paramount, the sharing of essential information helps establish strong partnerships and paves the way for lasting impact.

More specifically, reporting from grantees can help both parties measure success, better allocate resources, and make more strategic decisions. And with great data in hand, grantmakers can refine funding approaches and consider new kinds of grantmaking — both of which maximise impact and strengthen their relationships with grantees at the same time.

To make the most out of this crucial data, consider these grant reporting best practices.

1. Don’t forget qualitative data

Often, grantmakers can become caught up in quantitative data — understandably so. Raw numbers and measures of success and impact are essential for making strategic decisions and assessing the success and pitfalls of certain initiatives.

However, quantitive data often lacks nuance or context, and often doesn’t show the entire picture of a nonprofit’s work. From a grantmaking standpoint, a lack of context can impede decision-making. From a grantee perspective, the inability to report on other crucial measurements of impact can feel restrictive and rigid.

To avoid both, and make the most out of grant reports and the data within them, grantmakers should encourage the inclusion of qualitative data like:

Testimonials: Ask grantees to include quotes from communities impacted by the nonprofit and the grant.

Stories: Encourage the inclusion of beneficiary narratives to help paint a more holistic and vivid picture of the grant’s impact.

Context: Allow plenty of space in the grant report itself for grantees to provide further explanation or information about specific statistics or data sets.

Survey results: Consider asking grantees to conduct data collection that goes beyond raw numbers. This might include qualitative surveys that assess different success metrics like community attitudes, feelings, and overall sense of improvement.

2. Cultivate compelling narratives

While raw data within itself can be compelling and important, the numbers alone often fall short of telling the story of the nonprofit and the initiative. And, as most grantmakers and grantees know, storytelling is essential — it’s one of the most important tools for honing in on a mission or vision, and garnering appropriate support.

Within the grant report, encourage grantees to consider how the data collected might:

• Tell a larger story about the organisation’s values or mission
• Pave the way for or inform future goals and initiatives
• Support or even contradict the organisation’s attitudes or beliefs about the issues at hand

Not only will this kind of narrative direction help contextualise data, but it will also make the data more easily understood and shareable for other purposes, like for a wider audience (other important stakeholders, the public, etc.).

3. Encourage data visualisation

Encourage grantees to utilise data visualisation techniques to present complex information in an accessible and engaging way. Not only does this allow grantees themselves to better understand the data at hand, but it allows grantmakers, too, to more quickly grasp the success and setbacks of specific initiatives — and how best to respond strategically.

Visual elements might include:

• Charts
• Graphs
• Infographics
• Images

Not only will this enhance the nonprofit’s ability to convey and explain the data, but it will also facilitate a deeper understanding of the outcomes achieved for grantmakers and other stakeholders.

4. Support failure

While every grantmaker wants to receive a grant report that’s filled with success metrics — impactful initiative results, positive testimonials and stories, etc., it’s important to acknowledge setbacks and failures too, which are inevitable.

In order to receive the most accurate data possible, and to put grantees at ease simultaneously, enforce grant reporting requirements that ask grantees to report on specific challenges and setbacks they encountered — whether through qualitative or quantitive metrics.

Not only does this create more accurate and reliable data, but it also strengthens the bond between both parties through trust and transparency — essential for trust-based philanthropy.

5. Facilitate data accessibility

Well-crafted grant reports, as we’ve discovered, are a wealth of information and knowledge that can be used for various different purposes.

Grantmakers should consider publishing reports on their organisation’s website, sharing them through newsletters, or utilising online platforms for easy dissemination. By making this data widely accessible, if appropriate, grantmakers can promote transparency and trust with a broader audience, including the public and other stakeholders.

6. Use the right technology

In order to leverage grant reports to share data, the right technology and tools need to be set in place. Without it, grantees can be overburdened with administrative tasks, make reporting errors, or feel lost altogether.

With the right grantmaking software, funders can ensure that data is accurate and compliant. Beyond that, the right platforms offer tools for data visualisation, real-time progress reporting, grant report format customisation, enhanced insights and more.

Using grant reports, and data, for good

While grant reports are a fundamental, and often required, piece of grantmaking, their importance goes far beyond regulations and compliance.

With the right strategy, grantmakers can leverage these reports and the rich data that exists within them to help inform their mission and goals, build trust and transparency between stakeholders, and ultimately, create more impact.