How do you work with Grants in Tessitura? any advise

Hi all,

We use Plans in Tessitura to track deadlines for grant proposals, reports, calls, meetings, etc. We also use them for forecasts projecting income from foundations, corporations, and government agencies with Analytics. Generally, we create a campaign for each fiscal year for each type of institutional donor (e.g. FY23 Foundation, FY23 Corporate, FY23 Gov, etc) that we expect to contribute to the annual fund. We have a separate Capital campaign type. Then within each institution's record, I create a plan for each grant we intend to pursue, so if they generally give us 2 separate grants I create 2 separate plans. Within each plan, we create steps for each major action item, e.g. submit proposal, submit report, etc. I also try to record that we completed significant cultivation steps like meetings and phone calls, but I prefer to record notes from those meetings in the Research tab so they are easier to find years later. Every week-2 weeks, we run a Step Detail report covering open steps with deadlines up to about 6 weeks in the future to create a deadline spreadsheet that can be printed out. 

Whenever we get a new grant, we immediately enter report steps in their plan, and make sure we have a step to reapply in a future year plan. We try to create the reapply step when we submit the proposal so we don't forget, and I do an audit 2-3 times a year to make sure we didn't miss creating any steps.

For forecasts, we use the "Goal" amount field in the plan as our projected amount (my real goal may be higher), and then have created a Analytics report that pulls that info as well as actual contributions/pledges to date, the ask amount, and the prior year's amount from that funder. 

I generally don't attach many files to plans - plan steps are more reminders to work on something. We save emails, award letters, proposals, etc. outside of Tess.

I find plans particularly helpful for keeping projects with soft or no deadlines alive, like moving forward cultivation for prospects; otherwise, they tend to fall off my to do list. For renewing donors, it is helpful to keep all of their deadlines and info in Tess so everything is in the same place and accessible to all Tess users current and future. And I love Plans for keeping track of steps that need to happen several years in the future, e.g. for foundations that make you wait 3 years between applying. 

Hi all,

We use Plans in Tessitura to track deadlines for grant proposals, reports, calls, meetings, etc. We also use them for forecasts projecting income from foundations, corporations, and government agencies with Analytics. Generally, we create a campaign for each fiscal year for each type of institutional donor (e.g. FY23 Foundation, FY23 Corporate, FY23 Gov, etc) that we expect to contribute to the annual fund. We have a separate Capital campaign type. Then within each institution's record, I create a plan for each grant we intend to pursue, so if they generally give us 2 separate grants I create 2 separate plans. Within each plan, we create steps for each major action item, e.g. submit proposal, submit report, etc. I also try to record that we completed significant cultivation steps like meetings and phone calls, but I prefer to record notes from those meetings in the Research tab so they are easier to find years later. Every week-2 weeks, we run a Step Detail report covering open steps with deadlines up to about 6 weeks in the future to create a deadline spreadsheet that can be printed out. 

Whenever we get a new grant, we immediately enter report steps in their plan, and make sure we have a step to reapply in a future year plan. We try to create the reapply step when we submit the proposal so we don't forget, and I do an audit 2-3 times a year to make sure we didn't miss creating any steps.

For forecasts, we use the "Goal" amount field in the plan as our projected amount (my real goal may be higher), and then have created a Analytics report that pulls that info as well as actual contributions/pledges to date, the ask amount, and the prior year's amount from that funder. 

I generally don't attach many files to plans - plan steps are more reminders to work on something. We save emails, award letters, proposals, etc. outside of Tess.

I find plans particularly helpful for keeping projects with soft or no deadlines alive, like moving forward cultivation for prospects; otherwise, they tend to fall off my to do list. For renewing donors, it is helpful to keep all of their deadlines and info in Tess so everything is in the same place and accessible to all Tess users current and future. And I love Plans for keeping track of steps that need to happen several years in the future, e.g. for foundations that make you wait 3 years between applying.