Further Reading — Chapter 26: Managing the Grant After You Win

Post-award rules vary by funder and mechanism and change over time. Treat this chapter as durable craft and verify specifics with your funder, your award's terms and conditions, and your grants office — the notice of award and the funder's current post-award policies govern.

Official, Primary Sources (the rules)

  • Your notice of award and its terms and conditions. The single most important post-award document — the binding terms, reporting requirements, and obligations specific to your grant. Read it carefully on receipt (Section 26.1).
  • The funder's post-award / grants-management guidance. Funders publish post-award handbooks covering reporting, rebudgeting, prior approval, no-cost extensions, and closeout (e.g., NIH's grants-policy resources, your foundation's grant-agreement terms). Read your funder's before you need them.
  • 2 CFR Part 200 — Uniform Guidance (ecfr.gov). For federal awards: the cost, procurement, financial-management, audit, and closeout rules that govern post-award compliance (Sections 26.5–26.6, and Chapter 19).
  • NIH RPPR instructions (grants.nih.gov) and equivalent progress-report guidance for your funder. How to file the required progress reports well (Section 26.4).

On Setup and Compliance

  • Your institution's office of sponsored programs / grants-management office. The practical authority for setting up and administering your award — account setup, subaward execution, reporting routing, prior-approval requests. Engage them from the award date (Sections 26.2, 26.5).
  • Your IRB / IACUC and other compliance offices. For research, the approvals that gate the work — start immediately, as they run on their own timelines (Section 26.2).
  • Single Audit (Uniform Guidance, Subpart F) resources. What triggers and what's involved in the audit of federal awards (Section 26.6, and Chapter 19).
  • Records-retention requirements (in your award terms and the Uniform Guidance). How long to keep financial and programmatic records after the grant ends (Section 26.6).

On Reporting and Stewardship

  • Chapter 18 of this book (Foundation Grants). Stewardship as the path to renewal — the foundation register of this chapter's threshold concept (Section 26.7, Case Study 26.2).
  • Chapter 19 of this book (Government Grants). The compliance regime, Single Audit, and the trusted-grantee logic that operate post-award (Sections 26.5–26.6).
  • Chapter 12 of this book (The Budget Justification). Budget-narrative coherence, now in execution as financial reporting that must reconcile with programmatic progress (Section 26.4).
  • Guidance on writing effective progress and final reports. Many grants offices and funders offer templates and advice; a strong, honest, specific report is both a requirement and your next application's seed (Section 26.4).

On Project Management for Grants

  • Project-management resources adapted to grant projects. Tools and practices for tracking deliverables, timelines, budgets, and reporting deadlines across a multi-year award — the operational backbone of good stewardship.
  • Subaward / consortium management guidance. For multi-partner awards, the prime's responsibility to monitor subrecipients and coordinate reporting (Chapter 23, Section 26.2).

Connections Within This Book

  • Chapter 4 (The Proposal Development Process). The early-start, backward-timeline discipline, now applied to the first-ninety-days setup.
  • Chapter 25 (DEI in Grant Writing). The equity and community commitments that become real post-award obligations (Section 26.3, M1).
  • Chapter 33 (Building a Sustainable Funding Strategy) and Chapter 35 (The Grant Writer's Career). Where the stewardship-to-next-grant arc becomes a long-term funding strategy and career — the natural sequel to this chapter.
  • Chapter 1 (What Is a Grant?). The mission transaction that post-award delivery completes — the funder buys progress, and stewardship is where the progress is delivered.

A note on durable principles

Post-award mechanics vary and change, but the durable core holds across every funder: read the award as the contract your proposal became, set up fast, deliver what you promised, report on time and honestly, manage the money within the rules, keep clean records, and steward the relationship — because stewardship of this grant is the strongest application for the next one. Build your practice on that, and you'll adapt to whatever the specific rules require.