How-To Guides

When do grant budget modifications require prior approval? A practical guide to the 2 CFR 200.308 rules, line-item flexibility thresholds, how to request rebudgeting approval, and what documentation to keep.

Post-award grant compliance requires restricted fund documentation, reporting deadlines, and audit evidence. This guide covers what compliance software must do, where generic CRMs fall short, and how to evaluate options for mid-sized nonprofits.

Grant compliance requirements specific to food banks — USDA TEFAP, EFSP, and CDBG compliance, inventory tracking as documentation, distribution records, income eligibility verification, and what USDA grant audits examine.

Federal grant compliance requirements for environmental nonprofits — EPA grant requirements, Clean Water and Clean Air fund restrictions, environmental outcome reporting, multi-year restricted fund tracking, and common EPA audit findings.

The terminology overlap between grant compliance software and grant management software explained — where grant discovery tools stop, what post-award management includes, and a decision guide for nonprofits evaluating their options.

Federal grant compliance requirements for youth-serving nonprofits — 21st CCLC program requirements, performance measure reporting, participant documentation, common compliance failures, and what funders audit in youth programs.

A comprehensive grant documentation checklist covering financial records, programmatic evidence, personnel files, and organization strategy — so you are audit-ready at any point in the grant period, not just at closeout.

How grant management software, donor CRMs, accounting software, and grant discovery tools each serve different purposes — where each breaks down for grant-heavy nonprofits, and how to evaluate your current stack.

How to build and maintain a grant reporting calendar that covers all deadlines, report types, responsible parties, and submission status across your entire grant portfolio — without missing a deadline.

A practical guide to grant matching requirements — what counts as cash match versus in-kind contributions, how to value and document both, timing rules, and common match disallowances at audit.

How to know when spreadsheets have stopped working for grant compliance, what to inventory before migrating, how to clean your data, how long migration takes, and how to run parallel systems during transition.

How to build a nonprofit audit evidence binder (PBC binder) — the standard sections auditors expect, what to prepare before fieldwork begins, how to organize grant files for audit, and digital vs paper approaches.