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Fund Projects from a Grant

Goal: Show what each grant is paying for — which construction projects it funds and how much of each budget line is planned against it — so a shared line, a spent-out award and an over-committed project are all visible before the funder asks.

:::info Planning, not spend Everything on the Projects & Budget tab is a plan: what you intend to charge to the grant. What has actually been charged is on the Fund Tracking tab — see Track Grant Spend. Each allocation's Actual column here is this grant's posted spend on the line, so the plan and the reality sit side by side. :::

Where to find it​

Open a grant from Fundraising → Grants and choose the Projects & Budget tab. The tab is on every grant, but linking and allocating need the Allocate Grant Funds permission, which administrators, staff and project managers have by default. Anyone who can view grants can read the tab.

A budget line can only be allocated to a grant once its project is linked, so linking comes first.

  1. Choose Link project and pick the construction project. Projects already linked to this grant are not offered again.
  2. Enter the ceiling — the most of this grant that may be allocated to that project's budget lines. It is not a commitment and not a payment; it is the share of the award you have set aside for the project.
  3. Add a note if the funder's letter names the project or limits what it may pay for.

On an awarded grant the ceilings of all linked projects cannot add up to more than the award. A pre-award grant plans freely. The dialog shows the running total as you type.

To change a ceiling later, use the pencil on the project's row. A ceiling cannot be lowered below what is already allocated to the project's lines; remove or reduce those allocations first. A link cannot be moved to a different project: unlink it and link the other project instead.

Allocate budget lines​

Choose Allocate to lines, pick the linked project, then the line, and enter:

  • Planned from this grant — this grant's share of the line.
  • Of which committed — the part of that share already under contract. It can never exceed the planned figure.

Two limits apply, and the dialog shows both before you save:

  • The line: every grant's share of a budget line, added together, cannot exceed the line. The picker shows how much of each line is still available once other grants' shares are counted.
  • The project ceiling: this grant's allocations on a project cannot exceed the ceiling you set when you linked it.

A line is never owned by a grant. When another grant, or money that is not a grant, funds the rest of it, the row shows a Shared badge and names the other funders. On a grant with a required match, the gaps between the line totals and this grant's shares are where that match shows up.

Each grant may hold one allocation per line. To change it, use the pencil on the row; to take it back, use the trash icon. Removing an allocation returns that share to unallocated and changes nothing on the line itself or on any other grant.

Use the trash icon on the project's row. A project with allocations from this grant cannot be unlinked until those allocations are removed — deliberately, one at a time — so a grant's plan is never wiped by one click.

What the project sees​

On the project's own page, the Budget tab gains a Funded by column once any grant is allocated to one of its lines. Each line shows the grants funding it with their planned shares, and the non-grant remainder. The budget summary gains a Grant-funded figure with links to each grant.

The project's Linked Entities card lists every grant that funds it as well, marked Grant, with the ceiling and what is planned to lines. These rows are read-only: the relationship is changed on the grant's Projects & Budget tab, which the row links to.

The project side keeps the plan honest too. A budget line cannot be lowered below the grant shares planned on it, a line with grant shares cannot be deleted, and a project that grants fund cannot be permanently deleted; each of these is refused with a message naming the grants. Archiving a project stays allowed, since it is reversible.

Who pays for a budget line​

Every budget line on a project carries a Funded by classification — Grant, General fund, Sponsorship, In-kind, Other or Mixed for a line two funders share — set in the budget line dialog beneath its free-text funding source label. The classification is what reports filter on and what the project's budget summary splits on; the grant's actual share of a line is still the allocation you make on the grant's Projects & Budget tab, not the label.

In the same dialog, typing a Committed amount fills Actual with the same figure, so a line paid in full on contract needs only one entry. Actual stops following as soon as you type into it yourself, and an existing line whose Actual already differs from its Committed is left alone. A line that carries posted costs keeps its Actual read-only, as the sum of those costs.

Lines created from a budget template keep the classification the template carries, and a template made from a project keeps the classification of the project's lines. The Excel export carries a Funding Type column and the import reads it by name, so a file exported before the column existed still imports; a type the system does not know is refused with the row named. Importing with Replace existing now really replaces the project's lines, and is refused while any of them is allocated to a grant.

On the funder's page​

Open the funder under Organizations and choose the Involvement tab. Every grant that organization gave appears as a card, archived ones included, with its status and its award or its ask. Setting the funder organization on a grant is what places it here.

The figures on the grant​

Two of the six figures above the tabs are now live:

  • Budgeted is the sum of this grant's planned shares across every allocated line.
  • Committed is the sum of the committed parts of those shares.

They are distinct from Awarded, which is the funder's commitment, and from Spent, which is what has been posted and charged to the grant. A grant with no allocations shows a Budgeted figure of zero: that is a fact about the plan, not a figure the system does not know yet.