The grant lifecycle explained, stage by stage

The grant lifecycle is the journey a grant takes from an idea about what to fund to a published record of what was funded. Seeing it as a single, connected lifecycle, rather than a series of disconnected tasks, is the key to running grants well. Here is each stage and what good looks like.

1. Programme and round setup

Decide what you are funding, the budget, the deadline, and the criteria you will assess against, with weights. Publish the criteria to applicants. This stage sets up everything that follows. See how to set up a grant programme.

2. Intake

Open applications. Let applicants check eligibility first, see the criteria, and save drafts to return to. Aim for an account-free, low-friction experience that does not lose good applicants at the door.

3. Due diligence

Check applicants against the relevant registers, Charity Commission and Companies House for UK organisations, and flag anything for a human. Keep the evidence with the application.

4. Assessment

Score against the published criteria with cited evidence, using reviewers and managing conflicts of interest. Keep any AI to decision support. See grant application scoring and assessment.

5. Decision

A panel weighs the scores alongside budget and fit and records each outcome with a rationale in their own words, on a tamper-evident trail. The decision is human, and it is recorded.

6. Award and agreement

Turn a decision into an award: an agreement, signed, with conditions attached. Capture who signed and when.

7. Payments

Release money in tranches as conditions are met, and reconcile with finance. See grant payments and disbursement management.

8. Reporting

Collect proportionate reports from grantees, chase them kindly, and review what comes back. See proportionate grantee reporting.

9. Publishing

Share your awards as 360Giving open data, completing the loop with transparency. See publishing to 360Giving.

The point: one connected record

The reason to see this as a lifecycle is that each stage feeds the next. When an application carries its own due diligence into assessment, and a decision flows into an award and then payments and reporting, you remove the re-keying and the lost context that plague disconnected processes. That is what a grant management system is for, and what Grantledger does end to end.