5 Key Competencies for Aspiring Federal Grants Management Pros

A job in Financial Assistance Management might not have topped your career wish list when you first entered the job market (unfulfilled professional basketball aspirations notwithstanding). But some people who take a government job or work for a nonprofit eventually stumble into a grant manager role – and they end up loving it.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) defines federal grants management as work that “involves implementing and managing federal grants and cooperative agreements and providing grants-related assistance and services.”

If a grants management role sounds like it might be up your alley, the CFO Council has identified nine functional competencies that are standard performance requirements. Below, we have highlighted our five favorites (and summarized the other four).

1. Accountability

• Ensures that effective controls are developed and maintained to assure the integrity of the organization
• Holds self and others accountable for rules and responsibilities
• Can be relied upon to ensure that projects within areas of specific responsibility are completed in a timely manner and within budget
• Monitors and evaluates plans, focuses on results, and measuring attainment of outcomes

Become a Workspace Wizard: How to Add Outside Collaborators

Federal grant applicants who work as a team sometimes need to collaborate with people who are not part of their organization.

It’s easy to add these external collaborators to a workspace as long as they have a Grants.gov account. You will just need their username.

Grant Writing Basics: 3 Tips to Avoid Last Minute Problems

Applying for a federal grant can be a lot of work involving many moving parts. On top of strategizing, conducting meetings, and writing a compelling proposal, there are other little-but-necessary tasks on the path to successfully submitting your application that you should do well before the closing date.

Here are 3 tips to avoid some of those last minute problems:

How the Government Prepares Grant Application Forms – Part 3

In Parts 1 and Part 2 of this series, we discussed the two phases of developing grant application forms: content approvals by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and technical development by Grants.gov.

The time required to deploy new or updated forms largely depends on the amount of technical development that is needed.

The graphic below estimates the different deployment timelines for cosmetic, minor, moderate, and major form changes. Click on the graphic to view its full-size version.

What Is a Grant Manager? (Part 2) Grant Recipients

The grants lifecycle is complicated and requires an array of skills to manage. That is why grant managers are so important. In Part 1 of What Is a Grant Manager? we discussed federal grant managers, and in part 2 we will focus on the staff who manage grants received from federal agencies.

First, the job title “grant manager” is not necessarily the title everyone will have, but to keep it simple we use this term to refer to the grant professionals working to plan, write, implement, and report on federal grants.

Roles for Applying with Workspace #3: AORs Submit

Before your organization can receive a federal grant, you must first submit the grant application (among many other things, of course). This is why the Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) role in Grants.gov is important.

A user with the AOR role is authorized to submit applications on behalf of the organization. When the E-Business Point of Contact (EBiz POC) assigns the AOR role to a user, the Manage Workspace role is automatically added as well.

Submitting a Workspace as a Team

If we continue to think of each workspace team as a basketball team, the team member with the AOR role is like the go-to scorer—the person who has the ball in clutch moments at the end of the game.

Grant Writing Basics: Look for the Little Details

Planning and completing a grant application is a lot of work, so in the rush to meet the application deadline it can be easy to overlook little details. That is why it is important to identify all requirements listed in the funding opportunity announcement (FOA) near the beginning of the process (even if it does not seem like a big deal).

Examples of “Little” Details (that are actually important)

These are specific examples of requirements for certain FOAs—these are NOT requirements for all grant applications.

Grant Writing Basics: Ensure Mission Alignment before Applying

The mission of a public, private, or nonprofit sector organization is the ultimate driver of their actions. To translate often lofty and theoretical missions into specific actions, organizations set goals to direct their organization’s activities toward accomplishing the mission.

When it comes to federal grants, no one works alone. Government grants involve at least two parties—the federal awarding agency and the award recipient. So, to promote the public good and to accomplish the goal of the grant program, it is critical that the award recipient and federal agency share the same mission and goals.

Grant Writing Basics: Make Sure You Are Eligible before Writing

Welcome to the Grant Writing Basics series, in which we will provide you with tips and advice for writing grant applications on Grants.gov. Our goal is to provide the essential info—the basics to begin building (i.e., writing) on a solid foundation.

The first grant writing tip? Save yourself time by confirming you are eligible to apply for the grant before you begin strategizing or writing the application.

This may seem, well, basic, but we want to avoid assumptions. If you (i.e., the organization you are applying on behalf of) do not meet the specific eligibility requirements, then you cannot receive the grant funds.

New Grant Events and Trainings Page on the Blog

To improve our service to you, the grants community, we have added a Grant Events and Trainings page to the blog.

Bookmark the events page and check back periodically to find out about upcoming conferences, workshops, and other events.