Managing Grants in Rural Alaska

1. Managing Grants in Rural Alaska Presented by Alaska Project Solutions, Inc. BIA Providers Conference Helping Grantees Achieve Success

2. Congratulations! You’ve been awarded a grant! I have to do what?When? How?

3. What We’ve Learned In a Perfect World... In the Real World... Grantees would achieve all outcomes of their projects, and reports would all be submitted on time. Cultural gaps in communication, unreliable technology and attrition contribute to non-compliance, late reports, and frustration.

4. Common Program Challenges • Administrative change • Council elections (change of leaders) • Hiring staff • Staff turnover • Staff inadequately trained • Not understanding what projects are intended to do • Missing deadlines • Lack of local participation

5. (even more!) Common Program Challenges • Wearing too many hats • Timelines and deadlines • Making revisions • Procrastination • Technology challenges • Shortage of project documentation • Communicating with the project funder (time differences and internet issues)

6. Navigating the Complex Federal Requirements Maze Start By Reviewing: Award Notification Project Proposal Grant Regulations Project Period Grant Number Reporting Dates

7. Financial Policies & Procedures • Understanding your budget will help you complete a successful program with lasting results! • Good communication between the project manager and financial manager will result in a balanced budget.

8. Understanding the Grant Requirements • Get to know your project like it’s your new best friend. Find out the project goal, intended activities, and how much funding you have to spend. • Memorize your reporting dates! • Get to know your funder; Call them up and introduce yourself. It’s okay to let them know you’re new at this process.

9. Understanding the Grant Requirements Components of a Grant: • Grant Award Letter • Program goals • Timeline to complete • Project Budget • Project objectives / components • Planned activities / commitments • Evaluation, deliverables, & outputs

10. Understanding the Grant Requirements • Get organized. Check your grant award for the requirements on what to keep in your file. • Use a management tool that everyone can access like projectKEEPERS. • Read your grant application and grant award—from top to bottom, then create a calendar timeline for all of the activities that have been proposed.

11. Gathering Your Survival Tools • Organize your paperwork: Set up a working, desktop manual– FOR YOU ONLY! (and one for the main office, too!) • Identify a calendar system that works for you. • Purchase a notebook like the one in your packet: Use it daily. • Commit to a timeline. • Review and understand your budget. • Document everything. • Use tools such as tabs for separating information.

12. Understanding the Grant Requirements Components of a Grant: • Grant Award Letter • Program goals • Timeline to complete • Project Budget • Project objectives / components • Planned activities / commitments • Evaluation, deliverables, & outputs

13. Community Involvement & Sustainability Building a sustainable project for your community: • Partner with local agencies, schools, businesses and other resources. • Prepare regular Tribal Council reports to keep the community aware of the project. • Coordinate program activities (and expenses) with other Tribal programs – it stretches program $$ and gets people involved! • Stay in touch with your program official.

14. Community Involvement & Sustainability • Publicity is vital to project success. This means posters and flyers in the community, Tribal Council reports, and school board presentations. Often, these are considered ‘outputs’ or ‘deliverables’ in your grant. • Agency newsletters are an excellent way to ‘get the word out’ with success stories and photos about the program. • Get involved with a community calendar or website and keep it updated!

15. Community Involvement & Sustainability Ways you can Inform or Engage Your Local Team: • Meetings • Small Groups • Teleconferences • Written • Look for good ideas • Identify problem areas • Identify supporters & detractors

16. Community Involvement & Sustainability Some suggestions to save you the headaches at reporting time: • Add all project activities (planned and not planned) to your calendar/timeline. • Take photos of your project activities. • Most reports are due Quarterly: January, April, July, and October. • Acknowledge, recognize, and thank your project team and program partners.

17. Community Involvement & Sustainability A Quick Recap: • Spend time working out the details. It helps to share the burden!!! • Keep the project moving forward. • Inform & Engage your team and partners, both internal and external.

18. Evaluation and Reporting • Document –daily – your activities! When it’s time for reports, you’ll be so glad you did! • Document participants in the project. This could mean Elders, youth, teachers, parents, Council members, and other community members. • Set baseline data when your project starts.

19. Evaluation and Reporting When you evaluate according to your grant proposal, your results often can: • Help with future funding • Bring in new partners • Help participants

20. Evaluation and Reporting Tips for helping with your evaluation: • Identify information requirements early in the program such as the number of youth or Elders involved in project activities. • Establish evaluation processes in the beginning of the project…instead of at the end! i.e., how willyou gather data and information? • Document success stories; theyare very valuable for reporting.

21. So...Why Do We Do What We Do? Because it makes a massive difference in the lives of people we care about and for our communities. Only YOU can make that difference, so please manage your grants well, and remember to dream BIGfor your community!