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Quality assurance and quality improvement (QA/QI) is a process used in many business sectors to ensure that company products or services are consistent, safe, and meet or exceed the quality expectations of the end users – clients or customers. QA/QI is also a criterion funders often use in reviewing and selecting grant application requests to fund.
Does QA/QI also have a place in a nonprofit organization’s successful grants management strategy? Of course, according to Cheryl Townsel, S.M., GPC, grants proposal manager at the Centre for Sports and Human Rights, based in Geneva, and president of Townsel Consulting,
Below are some insights and lessons from over Townsel’s two decades of experience as a proposal writer for Request for Proposal (RFP) opportunities for for-profit business contracts and as a grant professional for nonprofit grant-seeking organizations. These tips will support a meaningful QA/QI process for grant-seeking organizations.
Quality Assurance Tips
- Prospect vetting process — reviewing potential sources of funding for alignment with your organization’s strategic and programmatic goals, objectives, and capabilities.
- Proposal team development process — identifying and pulling together a team that includes appropriate skills, experience, and expertise: Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) for content, writing and proofreading/editing, budget development, and graphics.
- Proposal management process — a project management process that includes: assignments of different application elements with clearly communicated internal deadlines; early inclusion/incorporation of budget development; and internal review and approval processes that allow sufficient time to refine a final submission package ahead of, not minutes before, the final submission deadline.
- Repository/library of supportive resources and tools — include standardized narratives (e.g., organizational background regularly updated with capabilities, achievements, awards, and certifications), style sheet (guidance on organizational preferred language and naming conventions for example organizational name/acronyms), and, application templates specific to each funding opportunity aligning with application requirements.
- A pre-submission review and approval process — including review of checklists of required application elements, review for consistency among all elements (e.g., consistent allocation of program staff time in project narrative, staffing plan, and budget justification narrative) and, review for responsiveness to published review criteria.
Quality Improvement Tips
- Post-submission debriefing sessions to review and discuss both the process and product(s). This process is timely when conducted shortly after submission (when proposal team members have the best recall). Transparency about what worked, and what didn’t work, and actionable suggestions for process improvement are process goals.
- Post-funding decision debriefings. These debriefings differ from the post-submission debriefings and are best conducted when external data elements are available, e.g., a list of funded projects, reviewer comments on your submission, and dollar value of funded projects.
- Apply “lessons learned” from both successful and unsuccessful grant application submissions to modify your grants management strategy. Employing an ongoing process evaluation and improvement process can help to identify and stop activities or practices that consistently negatively impact an organization’s success in securing grants. It is also an opportunity to identify what does work and build upon that strength.
For more tips, tools, and suggestions consider resources in addition to the Grant Professional Association (GPA) (e.g., peer professional organization the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP))
