By Camron Bridgford, JVA Consulting

As a grantwriter for nonprofit organizations before working at JVA, I deeply (and unfortunately) understand the stress that can come with an impending grant deadline that wasn’t plotted out with enough time to spare. I’ve been there at the 11^th hour, frantically attempting to corral numerous employees, budgets, complex attachments and final narrative edits. I’ve witnessed the notorious checking of the watch to calculate the actual time the grant is due in your time zone because you’re cutting it that close to missing the deadline. The immense amount of details to compile and the short amount of time you’ve left yourself are enough to make your adrenaline positively surge.

At JVA, we do things differently around here. JVA works with dozens of grantwriting clients and we successfully write grants worth tens of millions of dollars each year. As a result, JVA can’t afford to be disorganized or behind schedule on writing any grant—whether it’s for $5,000 or $5 million. To ensure the successful submission of the proposals we write, JVA utilizes, and also strongly encourages our clients to use, a grant timeline to keep you and your staff steady and on track for a stress-free submission.

Key Tips for Creating a Timeline

• In the timeline, list out all the elements you can think of that need to take place for the grant to be successfully submitted. This ranges from big-picture items like developing the appropriate collaborations to more logistical tasks such as thoroughly reading the request for proposal or gathering letters of support. Since each task requires a certain amount of time, you want to ensure you’ve given yourself enough leeway to complete each task thoroughly and correctly. It may sound simple, but by physically putting each task into the overall timeline, you can quickly gauge how tight of a timeline you are working with and the pace with which you need to set.
• Work backward from the deadline date: It’s easiest to figure out how much time you have to work with, and how much work needs to be done in that time frame, if you start plugging in tasks backward from the date the grant is due.
• Never intend to submit a grant on the day that it’s due. JVA recommends submitting no less than two business days before the actual due date. This allows for unpredictable hiccups related to errors with technology and uploading, a key person being out sick, or any other situation that may arise and delay your process. Without giving yourself this cushion, your grant may not be submitted.
• As each task on the timeline is completed, check it off so you and your team can maintain a mutual understanding of where the grant lies and what is still left to be done.
• Assign responsible parties to each task on the grant timeline. This helps ensure accountability and keep everyone on track, on time and on the same page.