Asking for progress updates during a disaster

Alexis Fish

So many clients are asking us if they should not ask their grantees for progress updates during COVID-19. There are two schools of thought on this:
1) Allow grantees to skip reporting for now because they are busy and then ask for follow-up when things calm down;
2) Still require regular reporting to help the grantees keep track of what is happening now and not have work todo later or have trouble tracking impact later. 

What is your organization doing? What would grantees prefer? 

 

Sheree Norton

We have decided to send the report reminders with this paragraph added:

You are receiving this email at this time because your report is due on x, 2020.  However, we are flexible on the date of your report submission given the impact of COVID-19 on your operations.  Please let us know what you think a realistic timeframe is for turning in a report, and we will adjust the due date on a case-by-case basis to meet your needs.  Once receiving your requested extension, we will send you back formal approval via email of the new reporting deadline date.  If you and your staff are still capable of submitting a report by the deadline (or soon thereafter) then by all means please submit and our staff looks forward to reviewing your progress.

 

To date, one of our grantees asked for an extension and another replied that they would be submitting their report on time. It's also been a good opportunity to reach out to active grantees to find out how they are doing in these challenging times.


Feel free to use our language.


Sheree

 

Alan Welch

We are notifying our grantees that they don't need to do a formal report, but simply a brief email update for the time being. Later we will work to get more formal reporting back online.

Stacey Miller

We are working with Blackbaud to actually remove our 6-month progress updates, so we will only require a year-end update at the end of the year.

Cynthia Gasparro

We are letting the notices go out, but around March 20th we sent a blast email to our grantees explaining that grant reporting is low on their list of priorities at this time.