Name: From Requirements to Relationships: Rethinking Grant Reporting
Uploaded: 2026-08-25T18:30:48.823Z
Duration: 1 h 28 s
Description: From Requirements to Relationships: Rethinking Grant Reporting

Transcript for "From Requirements to Relationships: Rethinking Grant Reporting": Hi, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining us for our webinar today from requirements to relationships, rethinking grant reporting. My name is Rachel Croyle Tovey, and I'm a member of Blackbaud's financial and grant making team, and I'll be your host today. Today, we're going to be exploring how organizations that award grants can gather the information they need while reducing unnecessary work for their nonprofit partners. More importantly, we'll look at how thoughtful reporting practices can help strengthen trust, improve communication, and create more meaningful funder grantee relationships. So before we dive into everything, here's just a preview of what we're going to be covering. We're going to begin with a few housekeeping notes and introductions, and then you'll hear some practical strategies for rethinking grant reporting, including how to make requirements more purposeful, reduce duplication, and better use financial information that you may already be producing. Towards the end, I will share a brief intro into Blackbaud grant making and how technology can support a more connected grant making process, And then we'll close with a q and a. So before we dive in any further, just a few quick housekeeping notes. The platform that we're in is called Goldcast, and you'll find the chat, documents, polls, and q and a tools on the right hand side of your screen. We'd love for you to be interactive and participate in polls and share your thoughts in the chat throughout the presentation. You can download today's slides from the documents tab and we'll send the recording after the webinar. If you do have any questions, please put them in through the Q and A. It just helps us keep track of what we've answered and what still needs to be answered. We'll try to address as many as we can during the session, but any that we don't get to, I will flag and save for the end. If you experience any streaming or connection issues, refreshing your browser usually helps. Okay. So like I said, my name is Rachel and I'm a principal growth marketer at Blackbaud and I'll be hosting today. But I'm really pleased and happy to be joined by Rachel J. Mateo, wonderful name. She's a CPA and director with your part time controller, and she brings a deep experience working with nonprofits and foundations, including that firsthand insight into financial reporting and challenges that can arise on both sides of the funder grantee relationship. So Rachel, thank you for joining us and I will intro you again in just a moment so that we can? get things started. Before we hop in, I just wanted to give a quick overview of Blackbaud in case you're not familiar with us. So we build solutions designed specifically for the social impact sector. Our technology supports the many ways that organizations create impact from fundraising, financial management, education, grant making, corporate social responsibility, and workplace giving. And that breadth really gives us a unique perspective of the full ecosystem. So we work with organizations providing fundraising as well as things for nonprofits, schools, communities, and put all of those resources into action. Action. So with that context, I'm excited to turn things over to Rachel who is going to get things started for us. So Rachel, take it away, ma'am. Alright. Thank you so much, Rachel, and thank you to Blackbaud for having me today. I'm excited to talk about this topic, and I appreciate the introduction from Rachel. I'll just also introduce myself, Rachel Dimitayo. I am the director of YPTC's New York market, and I lead our foundation specialization nationally. I am a CPA who has been doing accounting for foundations and nonprofits for the last twenty years. From that seat, I've had the opportunity to see both sides of the funder grantee relationship, and I've even been the one preparing the grant reporting from the grantee side. Being that I am an accountant, seeing things through the finance lens, today we're gonna be specifically focusing on the finance side of the reporting. And just quickly before we dive in, a brief overview of your part time controller, YPTC for short. We build stronger nonprofits and foundations with over three decades of experience helping mission based organizations strengthen their financial systems and financial reporting. Our work is focused on flexible accounting solutions that fit each organization's needs. We serve clients nationwide through regional offices as well as many remotely, and our role is often to help nonprofits build stronger financial information for decision making accountability and long term sustainability. And our learning objectives today, there are three main objectives. First, we're gonna look at how reporting requirements can affect grantee capacity and the relationship between funders and grantees. Second, we'll distinguish between internal financial reports, audited financials in the Form nine ninety reporting, and then we'll apply practical strategies to simplify reporting, reduce duplication, and make better use of financial information that nonprofits may already have. The larger goal is really to help grantmakers evaluate whether their current reporting requirements provide useful information while minimizing unnecessary burden on grantees. So I'd love to start us off with a poll today to help us tailor the message. So what is your biggest challenge with grant reporting today? Is it reports are hard to compare across grantees? Maybe information is being submitted in inconsistent formats. Grantees may skip or misunderstand what we're asking for. Or grantees struggle to provide the requested information. I see a few things in the chat. I think the poll has launched, And, Rachel, I am not sure. Oh, I see. A and b are tied. Thank you for that, Rachel. So a and b are tied. Thank you so much for your engagement, and we're really going to address many of these points through our discussion today. And here's the agenda. We are gonna start by looking at why grant reporting deserves our attention, especially right now. Reporting requirements affect more than compliance. They really influence how nonprofits spend their time and how grantmakers and grantees work together. Then we'll explore a simple idea. Start with purpose, not the template that we already have. Before asking for information, it's helpful to understand why it's needed and how it will be used. From there, we'll look at the financial reports that nonprofits already produce and discuss what information those reports can provide. We'll then focus on practical strategies for designing reporting requirements that reduce duplication while still giving you meaningful information. And finally, we'll look at how reporting practices, specifically simpler ones, can help build organizational capacity and stronger funder grantee relationships. Each section includes practical steps you can adapt to your own grant making process. Alright. We're going to start by looking at why this deserves our attention in the first place. I know most reporting requirements are created with good intentions. They're intended to provide accountability or due diligence, demonstrate progress, help grantmakers make informed decisions. They may have been added over time in response to perhaps a specific question by a trustee, and these things tend to get added more easily than they get subtracted. Right? But reporting requirements also have consequences. They affect how nonprofits spend their time, how information is shared, and how funders and grantees interact with one another. Before we talk about specific reports or practices, it's important to just understand the environment that nonprofits are operating in today and why organizations are asking for reporting processes that are simpler, more useful, and less duplicative, which is really the foundation for the rest of today's discussion. So starting with a broad question, how can we improve interactions with grantees? One of the most common themes emerging in philanthropy is the desire to make reporting more useful, more relevant, less burdensome for nonprofits. Center for Effective Philanthropy found that nonprofits spend significant time responding to reporting and evaluation requirements for individual funders. I can attest to this from personal experience. It takes a long time. At the same time, many organizations are managing multiple grants, each with different deadlines, different formats, different expectations. That means resources that could support mission delivery are instead spent reformatting information to meet different reporting requirements. And I know these requirements exist for good reason, but there may be opportunities to make them more useful and less duplicative. What's important to recognize is that this isn't just an administrative challenge. This is also one of the most visible interactions between a grant maker and a grantee. The questions you ask, the formats you require, and the information you request all shape that experience, and that creates an opportunity. If reporting requirements are designed thoughtfully, they can provide meaningful information while reducing unnecessary effort, and that's the idea we'll explore today. We'll look at how reporting requirements affect nonprofits. We'll look at information they already produce, discuss practical ways you'll simplify reporting. You can simplify reporting while still getting the information you need. Going a little deeper here about the state of the sector, these are some of the pressures that nonprofits are under. These findings come for the Center for Effective Philanthropy's 2026 State of Nonprofits Report. It highlights a sector that's facing increased demand, greater funding uncertainty, financial pressure, and rising burnout among nonprofit leaders. It found that 39% of nonprofits reported operating deficits in their most recent fiscal year. Nearly three quarters reported increased demand for services, and 46% of nonprofit CEOs said burnout was very much a concern. Why does that matter for today's discussion? Because every reporting requirement consumes time and organizational capacity. When nonprofits are operating in a more challenging environment, thoughtful design becomes even more important. The goal isn't to collect more information. The goal is that the information we collect is meaningful, useful, and worth the effort required to produce it. This is making sure the information you request from grantees provides value for both you and the grantee. So let's look at some of those dynamics next. Now, this information comes from the Nonprofit Finance Fund. Most nonprofits rely on government and foundation funding, but that support often comes with challenges. Government dollars rarely arrive on time and usually don't cover the full cost of services. Government funded nonprofits often struggle with covering their overhead, for example, And unrestricted funding, which gives nonprofits the most flexibility, is often discussed in philanthropy, but, unfortunately, it is still the exception, not the rule. The encouraging news is that the shifts that funders are already making toward flexibility and trust are exactly the shifts the sector needs more of. And while many of you, thank you, have loosened restrictions, nearly half of nonprofits say grant sizes have gotten smaller. You as grantmakers are making important decisions in a climate where information, funding, and timing can all be uncertain. Alright. So this is our takeaway from the 2025 nonprofit finance fund survey and our current climate. Nonprofits are doing a lot to adapt. They're being resourceful, calculating and communicating their true costs, collaborating to stretch limited infrastructure. Where funders can make the biggest difference is to simplify and listen, streamline applications and reports, reduce custom formats, and incorporate what grantees tell you they are already tracking. Fund fully and flexibly, cover true costs, offer multiyear and unrestricted support, and avoid piecemeal project budgets and create extra work that create extra work. Collaborate and provide connections, align requirements, and share information. Introduce grantees to a funder that you think may be inspired by their work. These types of shifts move reporting from a transaction to a relationship. Each one builds the trust that make the funder grantee partnership work. Alright. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of background about where we are right now and the struggles that the nonprofit sector is facing. So as we are designing our reporting requirements, we wanna start with purpose, shifting from the why of the discussion to how. Before deciding what information to request from grantees, it's helpful to step back and ask a more fundamental question. Why are we asking for it in the first place? Because the best reporting requirements aren't built around the way we were doing them in the past. They're built around purpose. So I'm curious in this next poll, how often do you review your reporting requirements? Is it every grant cycle, every few years, after strategic planning or major shifts, or we mostly are using the same? Alright. I think the poll was launched, but I'm also seeing a few answers in the chat. Alright. And it looks like a is the most common every grant cycle. Thank you so much for sharing. This poll really highlights something important. Reporting requirements are strongest when they're reviewed intentionally. So that's really great to hear so many are reviewing every grant cycle because we know a question can get added more easily than it can be subtracted in some cases. And over time, that means requirements can tend to accumulate if we aren't reviewing regularly. So we talked about the pressures that many nonprofits are facing today with limited capacity, increasing demand, funding uncertainty. Against that backdrop, it's worth remembering a simple idea. Every reporting requirement has a cost. Every question we ask requires someone to gather information, verify it, format it, review it, submit it. Those resources come from the same limited pool that supports programs, services, and mission delivery. That doesn't mean reporting is not important, but it does mean every requirement should have a clear purpose. This connects to the idea behind Simon Sinek's book, Start with the Why. Right? Think about the why here. Before focusing on the format, let's start with the reason. Why are we asking for this information? How will we use it? What decision will it help inform? That's what we mean by every requirement should earn its keep. If a requirement does not meaningfully inform a decision, build understanding, support accountability, it's worth reconsidering whether it still belongs. And this isn't about collecting less information. It's about collecting information that provides enough value to justify the effort required to produce it. So on the next slide, we're going to look at a simple tool, the purpose test, that can help evaluate whether a reporting requirement is earning its place. Okay, here it is, the purpose test. In a lot of cases, we might start with last year but it's better to start with a question. What decision are we trying to support? And this slide is a simple tool for evaluating any requirement that you are asking of your grantees. Review a typical report and ask which questions actually survive the purpose test. The first question is what decision will this information inform? That really gets to your focus and your thoughts on the why that we just spoke about. For any request, if no one really reads the answer, discusses it, or uses that answer to make a decision, it may not belong. Also consider what already exists. Do we have this information somewhere else? Much of the information funders request exists in audited financials, form nine nineties, annual reports, prior grant reports, grantees' website, or regular conversations. Reusing existing information respects grantee time and reduces duplication. And I know it can feel hard to remove things. There might be worry that we're doing something wrong, but take a moment to ask yourself or ask a trusted adviser for their advice. What happens if we don't collect it? The goal is not to ask fewer questions. The goal is to ask better questions. Before asking a grantee to create a new report, schedule, or narrative, first ask whether the information already exists somewhere else. If it does, consider whether you can use that instead. When reporting requirements are built around purpose rather than habit, funders get more useful information and grantees spend less time on administrative work. Okay. So far I've been talking a lot in generalities about asking better questions. This slide makes things a little more concrete. When you request financial information from a grantee, what are you trying to learn? In many cases, it comes down to these three areas. Can you trust the numbers? Is the organization following the rules, so to speak? And are proper systems and controls in place? So let's go through these sections. First, reporting. Can we trust the numbers? Start here because it tells you how reliable everything else is. And we're talking about organizational financial information here and organizational practices that the grantee is using in the normal course of their business, not necessarily for preparing reporting for one grant. But when they're doing financials, hopefully, it's each month. Monthly is best practice. Who approves them? Who is reviewing those monthly? And are the variances making sense? Are they being explained clearly? And I can let you in on something, being an accountant myself, that variances happen. We almost never operate exactly to budget. A budget is just a plan. But variances can also happen if someone forgets to record something, if something is duplicated. And that's what really goes into understanding underlying controls and reconciliation practices because those are the things that catch, those anomalies. And we'll discuss that momentarily. Next, compliance. This is where donor intent lives. How is the grantee recognizing revenue? How are they, tracking restricted awards? How are multiyear funds being tracked and shown within their reporting? And how are we monitoring our spending? And then the third section, governance. Are strong internal controls in place? What are the internal controls over approvals? How are shared costs, also known as overhead, getting allocated? Do we have procurement policies for selecting vendors? So to summarize, none of these are new requests. These are really the questions that the funder might want to answer. From there, we can find which reports that already exist might already answer these questions. So once you're clear on what question you're trying to answer, we can start to look for the simplest and most useful source of that information. And as I said, often, nonprofits are already producing reports that contain these types of answers, which we will review in the next section. So use what exists. We just looked at how to test whether a reporting requirement has a clear purpose. Now we'll look at the other side of that question if the information already exists. Many nonprofits are already preparing financial reports for their board, their auditors, the IRS known as the nine ninety, lenders potentially, government agencies potentially, and the general public. When funders understand those reports, they can often ask for less new information while still getting better context. Alright. Once we know why we need the information, we focus in on where the information already exists. Many of the questions that grantmakers are trying to answer can be addressed in these reports that are routinely prepared. Nonprofits produce several kinds of financial reports, and each exists for a different audience and purpose. Understanding the purpose of each report helps funders match their question to those existing reports. So on the left here, we've got internal reports. These run the organization day to day, things like budget to actual reports, cash flow reporting, board financials. These are prepared on the organization's own schedule for their own internal needs, hence the name. They're really for internal parties like management, like the board, and like, leaders of different departments, thus the name internal. And that's really where the real operating picture lives. Then on the right side, we have external reports, which are reports for external parties. The first one is the audited financials. This is information that has been independently verified. It's prepared to a recognized standard called U. S. GAAP and used to demonstrate accountability and financial health to funders, potentially lenders, and the public. Audits give a high level of assurance over the numbers because of the review by an independent outside party. However, they are only produced once a year, and usually, they come out many months after the end of the year. And I'll share a little bit more on benchmarks for timing on the next slide. Then there's the form nine ninety, which is the public regulatory filing. It's basically the tax return for nonprofits, that it's called an informational return since they're tax exempt. It's useful for transparency and comparability across organizations. And then we've got some other reports listed here like debt covenants, which would only apply if they have debt, grant compliance, and many nonprofits also do an annual report which can be valuable sources of information and we're going to touch on each of these on the following slides But the takeaway here: internal reports run the organization, external reports show accountability, and when it comes to the audit and the nine ninety show things in a consistent way. And next, we're gonna walk through the most common external reports and how you can use these. The goal is not to just collect all of these reports, but it is to match the report to the question that you need answered. Okay. So if we're asking the first question on that slide with the three questions, can we trust the numbers? The audit is a great place to start. The audited financials assess a grantee's financial health through that independent lens. An audit starts, if you're looking at the audit report with the auditor's opinion letter, There, you wanna see an unmodified or clean opinion, but it's also important to check the date that the audit was issued. A significantly delayed audit can signal limited internal capacity even when the numbers themselves are sound. Timeliness might tell you something that the figures don't. And to give you a benchmark, the absolute best practice is to complete the audit within ninety days of the end of the fiscal year, but most well run organizations will complete it in six months. If it's issued after the deadline for the 990, which is ten and a half months after the end of the year, that could indicate capacity issues. Then the next thing in the report is the statement of financial position, also called a balance sheet. You can scan this report for three main things. First, liquidity. Do they have enough cash and unrestricted cash specifically to operate? Looking at the composition of assets and liabilities like do they have a lot of debt? Are there assets tied up in things like land and buildings or do they have investments and receivables? And how are the restricted funds? Large restricted balances aren't a red flag on their own, but you wanna see enough unrestricted that they're able to operate. An organization may have a lot of cash, but if most of it is restricted, that is an operating concern. Then going on to the statement of activities, also called the profit and loss or the income statement and the statement of functional expense. Between these two, you can see revenue diversity. For example, is the organization mostly getting only one type of funding source, or do they have a nice mix? How is there expense allocation between program, administrative, and fundraising? We don't wanna starve our nonprofits of overhead, but it's just helpful information to understand how they're spending their funds. And then looking at deficits or surpluses, a single year's deficit is usually nothing to worry about, but a negative trend across multiple years is what deserves a conversation. Then there are the notes to the financial statements. These really give you context. We talked about revenue diversity above, but the notes might tell you if there is a single funder or group of funders that makes up a large portion of the revenue. It also tells you their accounting policies, if there are related party transactions, or if there's doubt about the organization's ability to continue as a going concern, meaning they might not make it another year financially. So the notes are an important element of the audited financials. And then finally, the management letter. This is something that you would usually have to request separately. It might not be given automatically if you ask for an audit report, but this is where an auditor would flag internal control deficiencies. And having a management letter doesn't mean that something is wrong, but it's good to have a conversation. How are they taking that feedback? What steps are they taking to address those deficiencies? That conversation often tells you more than the statements alone. Alright. And then we talked about compliance as being another area where grantmakers have questions. The Form nine ninety can often provide useful context. And but before I get into the compliance piece, I do wanna highlight that a required part of the nine ninety is the statement of functional expense, which is shown here. This is helpful to understand that nonprofits are preparing this information anyway. At the top, it's got the expenses by function, whether that's program management in general and fundraising. But then from top to bottom, they are reporting what are called natural expenses, which are things like wages, office expenses, legal expenses. I wanted to highlight this here because if you do choose to have your own template for funder for grantees to fill in, you could consider using these categories for your expense categories so that grantees are not having to recreate something. They are already having to group things in this way for the nine ninety. But beyond this statement of functional expense, other parts of the nine ninety include useful information about governance practices, board oversight, policies, and compliance related disclosures. We're not getting into all the parts of the nine ninety today, but it can help funders understand how the organization approaches accountability and transparency. And we're not asking funders to become tax experts, but we do wanna recognize that nonprofits are already preparing this information, and it might be useful for you to use this while you are, gathering information. The takeaway is really that funders don't always need to create a new template from scratch. In some cases, reporting requirements can be aligned with categories that nonprofits already use, including the nine ninety categories, to make reporting easier for the grantees and more consistent for funders to review too. Alright. Let's summarize the most common sources of information available from nonprofits. First, the annual reports. Those can provide context about priorities, impact, and outcomes. Then we have the audited financials, which can answer, can we trust the numbers? What risks or important context should we understand? Then the nine ninety can tell us more about expenses, the what and the why, and give things in consistent categories. It also gives information about governance policies and board practices, Grant compliance reports prepared for another funder may already answer many of the questions you would ask about how funds were used. And then at the bottom, cash flow projections or debt covenant reports. Not every nonprofit has this. If they don't have debt, they won't have the debt covenant reports, and they may or may not be doing cash flow projections. But if available, these can help answer, is the organization sustainable? The main point is not that every funder should request all of these reports. The point is to ask, does the information already exist and would accepting that report give us what we need without creating extra work for grantees? There is a growing trend in philanthropy toward accepting reports that nonprofits have already prepared for another audience, including another funder, which can really reduce duplication and help grantees spend less time reformatting information. So let's apply the idea of use what exists. Imagine you want to understand whether a nonprofit has strong governance and financial oversight. Where would you look first? Alright. And it looks like we got the most, the most votes. I think the audit is very important. But in terms of governance and oversight procedures, the nine ninety is gonna give you that type of information. But the point is not whether everyone had the answer today. It's really to ask whether the information already exists before requesting something new. Alright. And then this may have happened to you before. Maybe you request two things from the same grantee, and you notice the audit has one number. The nine ninety has a different number. The instinct might be that something is wrong, but most of the time, it isn't. Different reports are built to answer different questions, so they may not match dollar for dollar, and that's normal. Why are some reasons that this happens? Most have simple explanations like different timing, a program year versus a fiscal year, or a grant year versus a fiscal year, different basis of accounting. Maybe there's some cash basis happening during the year and the audits on an accrual basis. The nine ninety basis is even different from accrual basis. There's a few, variations. There could be different scope. Maybe one reports just for a single program versus another, the whole organization. Restricted funds might be reported or multi year funds might be reported different ways in different places. So a mismatch doesn't necessarily mean that the organization isn't following the rules. So I invite you to lead with curiosity, ask the grantee, help me to understand the difference rather than focusing on the question why don't these match. You'll usually get a clear answer and only dig deeper if they can't explain the gap. And the takeaway is that a mismatch is a conversation starter not necessarily a compliance flag. And hopefully reconciling these differences feels like a dialogue, not like another audit to the grantee. So when funders approach differences with curiosity, they often gain a better understanding of the organization. So how will you design requirements that encourage those kinds of conversations while still giving you the information you need, we're gonna go into some practical approaches next. Alright. This next section focusing focuses on practical choices you can make to simplify reporting while still supporting accountability. We find that funders reporting requirements often fall along a spectrum. On one side, you've got highly structured, customized reporting. On the other side, organizations that are primarily replying relying on grantees' existing reports. Some funders use on the the left side here use custom templates or forms. This is very helpful for the funders but can be challenging and time consuming for grantees to complete. For example, to make this better, perhaps you could align your budget template with those functional expense categories from the nine ninety rather than using the categories that you've used previously, which might be foreign to the nonprofit. That allows the nonprofit to use information they're already tracking. If you're on the other side and you're relying on the grantee's existing internal reports, you might decide to ask more questions or have a series of questions that you typically ask to help with interpreting different financials because you're gonna get something slightly different from everyone. So you could create those clarifying questions to help you fully understand what you're reviewing. But many grantmakers find the best answer lies somewhere in the middle to protect consistency for funders while reducing unnecessary reformatting for grantees. Alright, we spent a lot of time talking about why reporting matters, the reports nonprofits already produce. Now let's focus on some practical changes that funders can make. The good news is that it doesn't require a complete redesign of your entire process. Think about just one small adjustment that you might make. For example, accepting a report already prepared by the grantee, replacing a requested schedule with existing financial reports, using a short update instead of a lengthy narrative, align templates with existing categories such as the form nine ninety classifications, coordinate requirements with peer funders where possible so that the requirements are more consistent, and use a conversation where it provides better context. Excuse me. So consider taking just one of these steps to start. So looking across these examples, there's a common theme. The goal isn't to remove diligence entirely. The goal is to collect the right information in the most useful way When reporting requirements align with the information organizations already track and use, nonprofits spend less time translating data into different formats and more time focusing on their programs and mission. Funders can benefit too. The information you receive is often more complete, more accurate, and easier to understand. You may already be experimenting with some of these approaches on your own grant making. The shift is from collecting data to building understanding, from one way reporting to a two way conversation, from asking more questions to asking better questions. And, ultimately, it's a shift from thinking about reporting as a requirement to thinking about reporting as a tool for learning, partnership, and impact. Alright, we've talked about how to design reporting requirements that are clearer and more useful. Now we're going to zoom out and ask what those practices communicate to grantees. Reporting can either strengthen capacity and relationships or unintentionally stretch systems further. Nonprofits have very different needs depending on where they are in their own organizational life cycle and funders can make the greatest difference when their support aligns with that stage. To understand how to do that, it's helpful to look at the four major stages that nonprofits move through, the startup phase where they're building basic systems, and they may operate there for a while being small and often using homegrown systems with a very small team. Then they may go into the growth stage which sometimes happens suddenly and strains capacity. Systems that worked well at one size may need support as complexity increases. Then there's maturity where operations are more stable and often complexity may increase. And then renewal. When an organization may be shrinking, shifting direction, or reinventing itself, this can be tricky because in some ways, they need more support to be strategic in their thinking and managing their remaining resources well. But there's also pressure to cut costs to match smaller budget sizes. Each stage brings its own set of challenges as well as opportunities for funders to provide the right kind of investment at the right time. We're gonna walk through a few examples of what nonprofits experience in each phase and how funders can meet partners where they are. So this shows us how organizations at those different stages have different needs. A startup may be building basic systems, growing organization may be managing increasing complexity. Mature organizations may be focused on sustaining capacity, while organizations in renewal are navigating significant change. What we often see at YPTC is that investments in capacity are often postponed until a challenge becomes urgent, when reporting is delayed, systems are strained, or key staff have already been stretched too thin. You as funders have an opportunity to help earlier. Support for systems, training, and organizational capacity can be transformational when provided at the right time. And the result is that better reporting, stronger financial management, and that makes a healthier organization overall. So I'm curious in which life cycle does your foundation tend to support most? Is it the start up, growth, maturity, or renewal? And maybe you do a little bit of everything, so just pick one that you wanna focus on. Awesome. So a lot of mature organizations here. And the main point here is really that the same reporting request will not feel the same to every grantee. So the more that your expectations match the organization's reality, the more useful and accurate the reporting process can become. And next, we're going to look at a few ways that you can support nonprofits beyond the award itself. We spend a lot of time talking about reporting requirements, but one of the biggest opportunities may have nothing to do with the reporting at all. Many nonprofits need more than just grant dollars. They need strong systems, financial management support and training, strategic planning, and connections to others who can help them grow. As I mentioned before, often, we see that these investments are not prioritized until things start to break, and this is where funders can really make a meaningful difference by supporting these types of systems, which can be transformational when provided at the right time. Better reporting is often the result of stronger organizational capacity, so investing in the health of the organization supports the o supports the reporting that you get from your grantees. But way more than that, you're helping them build the foundation to allow them to grow, adapt, and sustain their impact over time. So we've talked about a lot today. Underneath all of those decisions is something bigger. Reporting practices communicate values. Every reporting requirement you create sends a message to the grantee. When a funder accepts information that already exists, it communicates we trust your work. The funder is trusting that the organization understands its mission, knows its programs, and is already tracking essential information. When reporting requests are focused and purposeful, it communicates we value your time. When questions are designed to understand context, it communicates we're learning. When funders support systems, trainings, and capacity, it communicates we're investing in your success. And when reporting becomes a tool for dialogue rather than a one way exchange of information, it communicates we are building a partnership. We may think we're simply designing a reporting process, but from the grantee's perspective, these choices help define the relationship. And that's why reporting design matters. The strongest reporting practices aren't just about getting information. They're about creating trust, understanding, and a shared commitment to mission and impact. So as you're thinking about your own practices and everything we've covered today, here are four places you might start, use what already exists except one existing grantee report, reduce translation report, align one of your templates with existing categories, keep requirements purpose driven, and be cost aware, removing a question that isn't earning its keep, and make room for conversation. Replace a written response with a conversation. The goal is more useful information, less duplication, and reporting process that works better for both you and your grantees. You don't need to redesign your reporting process overnight, but every reporting choice shapes the experience of working with your organization. And what relationship do you want your reporting process to build? So thank you for your thoughtful approach to this work and the support that you provide to nonprofit partners. And thank you to Blackbaud and Rachel for having me today. I think there's one more poll launched, and, also, there's my LinkedIn QR code if you'd like to connect. Hi, Yes. Rachel. Rachel, thank you so much for going over this with us today. Really appreciate you. It's up here. Oh, can you hear me now? I I think it's a little bit better now. Yeah. It was a little bit in and out. Sorry about that, guys. My computer decided to Fritz at the very end. But I was saying thank you so much for joining and going over this with us today. We really, really appreciate it. As Rachel mentioned, there is a poll that's open right now. So if you're interested in connecting with Rachel, just let us know there and I will make sure that you guys get connected. And I know that we've got just a few minutes left. So instead of going through what Blackbaud grant making is, because you guys will get these slides at the end of this presentation, I'd rather take the last four ish minutes that we have and just open, the conversation up for you all to ask any questions that you might have for Rachel or for myself. So we can go check the, chat for that and then also the q and a section and see if we've got anything that has come in. And I don't see anything yet, which means that you've done a wonderful job presenting and sharing everything. But we'll give it just another moment to see if anything comes through. Yeah. And I do see a note about whether audits are required. There are, in in the the chat, it mentions the 750,000 threshold of federal money for a single audit. But oh, and there's a reply on here too by someone else. But, many states require nonprofits to have audits, so that is one of the main drivers of of audit requirements depending on the states that they're fundraising in. Perfect. Well, I don't see any other oh, here we go. We've just gotten a few in. Okay. So Jill asked the question, we are an established organization that has relied only on fundraising. We are starting to seek grants. Do you have information about what we should be, what we should prepare for in terms of reporting? So if you are looking for foundation grants, I think it really varies a lot, sort of the spectrum that I was talking about. Sometimes it is in their very specific templates, whereas on the other side, other funders might not ask you for much new information. But if you're a smaller organization, I would definitely make sure you have an accounting system and that you're tracking all your revenue and expenses in your accounting system. We have another question from James. I was wondering if there were AI prompts we could provide to grantees that would help them reformat information to match any specific format we may need. Well, Sounds a little bit like a million dollar question and how. maybe. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know of one. Whenever a nonprofit designs their accounting system chart of accounts, like, they are choosing different categories based on their internal needs. So that underlying information is gonna be different for every organization, and perhaps there is gonna be a great AI tool that can navigate through all of that, but I don't know it offhand. I don't know if we're there yet. Sounds like a million dollar question. Let me just go back to the chat and see if there's anything else. I am not seeing. anything, so I think that wraps up our q and a. Oh, wait. You guys keep popping them in. Dorothy asked is there a list of the most commonly asked reporting questions? I'm, not aware. sure we could come up with one, Dorothy. Yes. I am not aware of a list. Apologies, guys. My concern. grateful. Let's. I. mean, sometimes it's questions like, you know, who. who, is on your board? Oh, go ahead. Rachel's, a little bit lagged. But it sounds like we're wrapping up in a few seconds here. So alright. yes. I was just going to say, I'm sure there's something that we could dig up on our website and share with you. So I'll see if I can find something and then, pop it over to you, Dorothy. But want to thank you all for joining us today. We really appreciate your time, and we hope to be in touch soon. And thank you again, Rachel. Yeah. Thanks, everyone. Have a good one.