Using Plans & Steps for Grant Management

Hello - 

I have seen this issue raised, but I've yet to find much specific information on practical application.  I work with individual donors as well as granting organizations. We have recently begun using Portfolios, Plans & Steps for moves management with individual and corporate donors. I would like to transition to using plans and steps for grant tracking as well. Because the cycles and requirements are different for each funder, I am having a hard time wrapping my head around how to set this up. My stumbling block has been: do I need to create fully individualized plans for each funder, customizing steps and due dates for each cycle as I go? If so, this seems time prohibitive? (maybe not in actual practice?).  I have also read some about using STATUS updates to track the progress of grant. It seems to me this would give a good "at a glance" view of the statuses of multiple grants - but I'm not sure if changing a status can trigger other actions like reminders?

In a perfect world I would love to:

• Track all grants and grant tasks along the entirety of the grant cycle
• Use steps to move from one phase of the grant cycle to the next, with due dates and reminders flowing the same way they do with regular plan steps.
• Use reports to communicate status and steps to the development team
• Use templated communications to automate certain steps (Thank you letters, requests for status updates, etc)
• Attach key documents to the plan or the constituent record (Contracts, Award letters, communications, etc)

It "feels" to me like this would require setting up custom plans & steps for each funder. Perhaps a broad array of steps can be included in a generic "Grants Plan", with the ability to go through and add/delete/update steps according to individual funder requirements?  

Thanks!

Joe