CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Hi Eileen - This has come up several times in the past. I suspect some (many) organizations might need BOTH use cases (granting to others AND applying for grants) - so I think an approach that supports both in the same install might be better. For example:

* Allow "Grant Types" to be marked as inbound or outbound by over-riding the use of the civicrm_option_value.filter column. This is the same approach we used for the "Counted" property on participant statuses - and is pretty straightforward.

* Add conditionals to the forms and listings to display appropriate labels / language based on inbound vs outbound.

* Possibly sort and total these categories separately in the CiviGrant dashboard and grant listings (selectors).

If you are up for creating and filing a flushed out spec for this in Jira (Fix for 2.3) before April 29 - then Lobo thinks this would be a good Developer Camp project which you and some other folks at camp can tackle.

From an RFP I was working on - not sure how much it helps, but caused me to finally have a look in CiviGrant and check the fields that existed.

 Due Dates for:
· Letters of Inquiry
· Proposals
· Grant Decisions
· Proposals

Submittal Dates for:
· Letters of Inquiry
· Proposals
· Reports

Response information for:
· Letters of Inquiry
· Proposals
· Reports
· Type of Funding: General, Project, Campaign
· Amount of Grant
· History of past grants

NB - just looking at the post I did on civiGrant a bit over a year ago & the comments

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/CiviGrant+Phase+2

points 1, 2, 6,7,8 It looks like the ones generally agreed to be most useful (configurable grant types, custom data fields & ability to attach documents) have been introduced. And going through my points most are covered by them

point 3 - I note I have a bunch of thoughts about recording i

nformation about the grants on offer (as opposed to the one applied for). This is a planning function for recording all the information about potential grants (it could be another civi-anything tab :-)) I'm only just starting to use relationships - maybe custom fields on relationships could hold this stuff.

point 4 I think configurable statuses would still be useful. But it could just be using a custom data select box

point 5 Wow - just discovered you can add rich text editor custom fields too now! So that is point 5 covered - cool!

- Of the three items I had for grant receivers two aren't really available yet.
assigning people/ activities to the various deadlines (e.g. being able to attach an activity to a date field)

& recording prospective grants. Actually - this might be is now - multi fields mean you could set up multiple dates & in general linking a group of custom fields to a contact & setting up a search profile might do it.

Emily's suggestion about status rules - I'm not quite sure how this would be used

Frig just lost what I wrote    - Ok here's my second attempt at a spec

1)Create  new option groups 'financial_record_type'

name      Description      In_out
grants_in   Grants In      In
grants_out   Grants Out      out

2) Allow custom data fields to be assigned by the new types defined above

3) -rename a few fields
Application Date (renamed field)   - change descriptive text to 'When was the grant application submitted / received?
Report Completed (renamed field)

4) A new tab should show for each if they choose tabbed or a single tab if they choose inline.

5) The display on the tabs can be uniform using the renamed fields

6) Edit this text
q=civicrm/grant&reset=1
CiviGrant allows you to input and track grants to or from Organizations, Individuals or Households. The grantee/ grantor must first be entered as a contact in CiviCRM. Use Find Contacts to see if there's already a record for them. Once you've located or created the contact record, click View to go to their summary page, select the Grants tab and click New Grant

7) Add Record_type and 'In/ Out' to this search
?q=civicrm/grant/search&reset=1

Add a second summary box for outgoing grants on this page q=civicrm/grant&reset=1. Preferable add an aggregate field

9)All searches / code should assume that additional 'financial_record_types' might be able to be configured in some later civi release (e.g. 'contracts', expenses, erm anything)

Nice to haves
Easier
9) Preferably also create a second option list field like grant_type but call it 'Project'
10) Expose grant statuses
11) Add a 'person responsible field' linked to a contact record
12) Add a field to link the grant to an event - I think this is a pretty common use

Future Thoughts
11) allow contributions to be created linked to the grants record. There could be more than one per record per grant
12) allow activity creation linked to some or all dates fields (ideally this would be a feature of the custom data type so that any date field created could have an activity linked to it
13) transform the data from being grant specific into being custom fields & the display & searchin to being derived from profiles which leads to
14) ability to create other financial record types.  People could search by (for example) by project across a few types going in & out (debit and credits some would say) - hey presto - civi-budget.

Hi Eileen. Thanks for putting this back on the radar.  I just wanted to say I would be happy to work with you at the developers camp on flushing out the use cases and workflow on CiviGrant from the grantee perspective.  This is also a common request we hear from our clients.  I'm not a programmer but I have grant writing and nonprofit experience.

Your comments and specs look great so far!

Thanks!
Tony