Grant Application Form Planning

Why Plan?

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” ― Yogi Berra 

NPact strongly recommends that Foundation Cloud users prioritize planning as the first step of creating new online application forms. Time set aside for planning and outlining will be well spent, as the planning document will serve as your roadmap for the future steps (i.e., building, configuring, and releasing the online application).

During your configuration stage with NPact, a member of NPact’s Implementation Team will set up your first grant application (please reference your Scope of Work for exact details) and walk you through it. This article serves as a guide for you to reference as you set up future grant applications.

Successful Planning Strategies  

Application planning often starts in a Microsoft Word document. Use the document to sketch out and design your thoughts and requirements for each element of the application, build out the pages of your application, and identify the data fields. If you have paper or PDF applications that you will move to the portal, take an opportunity to rethink how the questions are presented to applicants across the pages in the form. 

Below are instructions for the application process, followed by an application planning outline document, along with an example planning document. There are slight differences in the planning process for a Grant Application versus a Scholarship Application. As such, the process outlined below is specifically for planning Grant Applications.

For reference, definitions for bolded NPact product terms can be found here.

Planning Process – Grant Application

A Grant Application is intended for grants to organizations or individuals.

1. Is the application Single-Stage or Multi-Stage?

• If the application requires applicants to complete only one stage, it is Single Stage, and will not require Preliminary Pages. Proceed with using Standard Pages. 
• If the application process includes an initial stage of questions that must be reviewed by the foundation staff before the applicant can proceed with their application (e.g., Letter of Intent or eligibility questionnaire), it is Multi-Stage. It will require Preliminary Pages for the initial stage, and Standard Pages for the main stage.

 2. How many Pages of questions should be presented to the applicants?

• Determine how the application questions will be grouped into sections. These sections would each turn into their own Standard Page. Below are examples of sections (which will become Pages) and the corresponding questions:
  • Organizational Information (e.g., contact information, mission, background)
  • Project/Program Information (e.g., project description, population served, evidence base)
  • Attachments (e.g., timeline, project visuals, marketing materials)
  • Financial Information (e.g., Budget, funding sources)
• Create a new Word document with separate pages for each section of questions in the Application Form. If Multi-Stage, decide which pages will be Preliminary and which will be Standard. 

3. Once the Standard Pages and/or PreliminaryPages are laid out, begin to add application questions (called Fields) to each Page. Fields are where applicants provide answers to questions presented. For each Field, decide the following: 

• Is this field required or optional? 
• Is this an essay question? If so, will the applicant be provided a long text field? If so, is there a word limit or character limit? Or are you asking them to attach their essay answers as a file?  
• What will the field’s data type be? 
  • Field data format options: Single Line Text, Multi-line Text, Number, Date, Yes/No, List, File Attachment, URL, or Hidden. 
    • If it is a Single Line Text or Multi-line Text field, is there a word or character limit?
    • If it is a Number field, is the value entered manually or calculated? 
    • If it is a List field, the list options (called Characteristics) will need to be determined and created in Foundation Cloud Grants before proceeding. For example, if a scholarship applicant is prompted to choose their ethnicity from a predefined list, an Ethnicity Characteristic will need to be defined in Foundation Cloud Grants with the appropriate codes.
    • If it is a File Attachment field, is there a specific file type required? Is there a size limit on the file attachment?
• If scoring applicant submissions, will this field be scored? If so, how will it be scored?
  • Application scoring options: Text (e.g., excellent, good, poor) or numeric (e.g., 1, 2, 3)
• Will this field be conditional? If so, what other field(s) depend on this one?
  • For example, Question 1: Have you already secured funding for this project? Yes or No. Question 2: If yes, how much? Question 2 is a conditional field and is only visible if the applicant answers “Yes” to Question 1.

 4. After Standard and/or Preliminary Page design is complete, begin additional pages:

• Will there be a follow-up report or a required check in? If so, design your Supplemental Pages. These Supplemental Pages will not be visible to the applicant on the portal for a pre-determined time, based on the workflows determined and set-up during implementation. However, building them now can help avoid disruptions in the application cycle later. 
• Will references be required? If so, design Reference Pages for coaches, counselors, clergy, etc. 
• Is there information or questions only visible to Reviewers (e.g., overall rating of the proposal, meets all requirements, special exceptions, notes)? If so, use the Review Only Page(s) and present those exclusively to them.

Grant Application Planning Sample

Download a sample planning document to use for page and field design.