Community College Grant Management Solutions

PRLog (Press Release) – Aug 07, 2009 – You are sitting quietly in your office sipping on a cup of freshly brewed coffee reviewing e-mail from the inbox before you begin a busy day to get that NSF grant proposal submitted. There is an urgent message from the college president: “Good morning!  Please provide me with a list of all grants that are funded, pending or completed in the last 3 years to include the following data:  title, funding agency, duration, total dollars awarded, name of principal investigator (PI), and indirect funds projected. I apologize for the short notice, but the Board of Regents has requested this information by 5 pm today.”

Does a similar scenario sound familiar? How often are you asked for information like this? As grants administrators or directors for community colleges, we are viewed as the keepers of the grants information. Many of us have assumed administrative roles that are evolving as “grants offices” for community colleges become more prevalent. Historically, community colleges have been awarded a variety of grants with the information maintained primarily by the departmental office that competed for the grant and/or the business office.

As cutting edge leaders for community colleges, we must establish a system for collecting and maintaining the “grants” information. I assumed the role of Grants Administrator for Del Mar College 18 months ago and set out to develop the new Grants and Sponsored Research Office. When the first request came for a list of all grants at the college, it meant searching through a variety of documents and asking questions in order to compile the information in a Microsoft Word or Excel table that became outdated in a matter of days. A nightmare! Right? Once was enough for me!

In the quest to organize the “grants” information, Del Mar College purchased a component of the Department Manager from IT Works, Inc. called the Grant Module. The Grant Module is one facet of the comprehensive IT Works software designed to compile a wide variety of data stored in a user friendly, report retrievable format. We purchased the software in January and downloaded it to a networked server. Our department developed a grant information request form that is used to gather information from PIs. A part time technical assistant has diligently collected and entered the data using the grant information forms.  Additionally, he has extracted information from hard copies and electronic grants files and conferred with grant directors via e-mail and telephone. It has taken approximately 6 months of ongoing effort to collect and enter the data and we are still in the process of finalizing details. Through this labor intensive effort, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  

IT Works has been with us every step of the way providing technical support, teleconference training and software updates as they have become available. With the click of a mouse and few buttons we can print and retrieve reports such as principal investigator activity, indirect dollar projections, current and pending support, funded grants, active grants, submitted grants and so much more.

We haven’t even touched the tip of the iceberg with what the Department Manager can do which includes personnel management, accounting, facility management, and space/inventory management. We are pleased to be where we are today, updating information as new grants are submitted, funded or denied and will move forward with other facets as time and money permit.  The next time the question arrives in my inbox, we will utilize the IT Works software to print the report and distribute it hard copy or electronically. No more rummaging through files and index cards. Pronto! It is done!