The more you know!
Create Tasks
For action items, create Tasks instead of Notes (and add a due date if it's time-sensitive!). Tasks are a great way to keep track of cultivation efforts, LOI submissions, and reporting deadlines.
Due dates and notifications
Once a Task is created: the "Assignee" gets instantly notified, and "Followers" get five email reminders: 2 weeks before, 1 week before, 2 days before, 1 day before and 2 days after the deadline.
When the Task is marked as completed, an email notification will be sent out to both the creator and assignee.
Customize based on grant status
For Researching grants: Create review tasks to evaluate grant guidelines and support decision-making.
For Awarded grants: Set up tasks to track reporting requirements and deadlines.
Manage team collaboration
While a Task can be assigned to only 1 person, you can add multiple Followers to keep them informed. All followers receive reminders as long as the task has a deadline.
Duplicate tasks and assign each one to a different team member to share responsibilities.
Collaborators automatically receive email reminders about upcoming deadlines.
Example Tasks to create
Cultivation: Initiate contact with funder
General: Get board approval to apply
Submission: LOI due on ___
Submission: Financial statements sent to funder by ____
Reporting: Q4 report due ____
Duplicate your saved opportunities
If an opportunity applies to multiple projects, save time for your teammates by duplicating the record and saving it to any additional projects. Keep in mind that you can filter Funder and Opportunity Matches for previously saved in other projects.
Change statuses
Researching (Potential): looked like potential fit at a glance but still need to determine actual fit, have not yet decided to apply for it / not decided to add it to your grant calendar yet.
Grants left as Researching will continually roll over to the next cycle and fiscal year in your Tracker.
Planned (Upcoming Proposals/In the Works): fairly confident you’ll go after it, and will either go for the next deadline or a later cycle.
Unlike grants in Researching, grants in Planned will not roll over when the deadline passes in your Tracker.
Once you change the Status to Planned (or any later stage) you’ll be able to add a Submission Goal and Amount Requested.
You can always edit the Submission Goal if you need to push it back.
LOI In Progress/Application In Progress (Active): you’ve started to build a relationship (e.g., reached out to the funder) or started working on a Letter of Inquiry (LOI) or Proposal.
You can add documents (e.g., a grant proposal template, the submitted LOI, charts that detail a program’s success).
LOI Submitted/Application Submitted: once you've submitted the LOI or Proposal.
When you change the status to Submitted, you will be able to add a Date Submitted.
Awarded - Active: you’ve been notified that you won the grant and have outstanding tasks to complete.
Awarded - Closed: you've been notified that you won the grant, and do not have outstanding tasks to complete.
When you change the status to Awarded, you’ll be able to add an Amount Awarded and Date Notified.
This would be a good time to add any reporting deadlines as Tasks.
You can also duplicate the grant to re-apply in the new year by going to the bottom right corner and clicking More Options > Duplicate. Once you assign this duplicate record to a new fiscal year (FY), this will create a separate record of the grant in your Tracker.
Declined: you’ve been notified that you were declined the grant
You’ll be able to add a Date Notified.
If the funder gave you feedback on why it was declined, you could add this feedback to the Notes.
Abandoned: you started to go after the grant but didn’t actually apply. Perhaps you still want to go after it in the future so you want to keep it on your radar.
Note: grants in Abandoned will continue to show up in your Deadline Digest emails every Monday so you stay up to date on the future deadlines.
Generate Reports
Use case for Reports:
Share out Bi-weekly reports of grants in Researching to the leadership team so they can get approval for which grants to go after, and then change the Status to Planned.
Bonus feature:
PDF reports have clickable Grant names that open a detailed page with that grant's Overview, Eligibility, and 990 data.
Add grants & funders from outside Instrumentl to your Tracker
Look for the + Add New button at the top-right-hand corner of your Tracker. From the dropdown choices, select + Add one to add a "custom grant".
Here's a more detailed guide to adding grants from outside Instrumentl.
You can look up any funder or grant opportunity using Quick find, and save them ad-hoc to your Tracker (even if they did not show up in your Matches tab).
Using Instrumentl with Excel
If you've been keeping spreadsheets of historical grants you've won or lost in the past, or grants you've previously researched, you can import this spreadsheet directly to your Instrumentl Tracker so you have everything in one place.
To import your grants spreadsheet:
Navigate to the right hand side of your Tracker and click +Add New > Import your grants spreadsheet
Download our Grant Template and make a copy to your local system
Fill in the mandatory first five columns of the template, which are required for Instrumentl to map data accurately
Complete any optional columns if you have additional grant details
For awarded grants, you can include reporting deadlines in the 'Task' column using the reporting due date
Submit the completed Grant Template using the Import your grants spreadsheet button
Our team can usually import these within a few business days
*** Important: Double-check that all required columns are completed to prevent processing delays.
Check out our step-by-step guide to importing a grants spreadsheet here.
Contact Us 
Reach out to our friendly support team if you have any questions about tracking. Message us via the chat bubble when you're logged in, or email us at hello@instrumentl.com.