January 20, 2025

Securing grants from international organizations is a highly competitive process. Organizations offering grants demand not only innovative ideas but also operational reliability. Good project and program management (РРM) maturity plays an important role in convincing donors that a company is capable of delivering results effectively, while ensuring transparency and accountability. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E), Program / project life cycle management, and risk management are key areas where maturity must be demonstrated to maximize grant success. This article describes how organizations can grow their maturity, implement necessary practices, and reflect these capabilities in grant applications to enhance their credibility.

Why Project and Program Management Maturity Matters

Think Like a Donor: What Do They Value?

Successful grant applications require a shift in perspective. Grant writers should consider the application from the donor’s viewpoint. Donors such as USAID, the European Commission, and the World Bank prioritize the following:

• Strategic alignment: Choose what you are best at
  • Recommendation: Make sure you choose the grant which is aligned with your mission and strategy. This means that you have enough expertise, experience and capacity to execute the grant and that not only you are capable of executing it, but you can also inform and consult the respective donor about the best way to make the change in the existing environment.
• Impact-Oriented Results: Clearly outlined measurable outcomes that align with the donor’s mission. For instance, UNDP often evaluates how projects align with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• Efficiency and Value for Money: Demonstrate how funds will be utilized effectively.
  • Recommendation: Make sure you break down budget in your application to show cost-effectiveness without compromising quality.
• Accountability and Transparency: Availability of a system in place for detailed tracking and reporting fund usage.
  • Recommendation: Explain how your organization adheres to global standards like the OECD-DAC Principles, which emphasize accountability and effective resource allocation.
• Sustainability: How well the project’s impact will endure beyond the funding period.
  • Recommendation: Include outcomes sustainability plans that address capacity-building and local ownership.

Imagine an international donor evaluating hundreds of grant applications. What sets successful applicants apart? Beyond the brilliance of their proposals, they demonstrate:

1. Deep understanding of the problem and circumstances. Donors, especially international ones often seek local expertise. So do not hesitate to show that you have it. This may also mean that you have regular monitoring and control in place, gathering data to show the real state of affairs in the area of your work and sharing it with donors in order to support decision-making.
2. Systematic Project Delivery: Structured lifecycles ensure that projects and programs are planned, executed, and monitored effectively.
3. Robust Monitoring and Evaluation: The ability to track progress, measure outcomes, and adapt to changes.
4. Effective Risk Management: Proactive identification and mitigation of risks to prevent disruptions.

These qualities not only inspire confidence but also reduce perceived risks for donors, making organizations with high PM and PgM maturity more likely to secure funding.

Key Practices to Implement in Your Organization

To grow PPM maturity for increasing grant opportunities, organizations should focus on implementing the following practices:

1. PPM Life Cycle Management

A lifecycle defined for a program and projects ensures that each project phase—from initiation to closure—is systematically managed and clearly structured.

• Establish a Clear Lifecycle: Define project phases, for example, initiation, planning, execution, and closure. Each phase should have defined objectives, deliverables, and responsible parties to ensure accountability and consistency.
  • Demonstration of High Maturity: An NGO structured their COVID-19 response project into phases: needs assessment, vaccine distribution planning, execution, and post-distribution monitoring. This clear structure increases chances of timely delivery.
  • Demonstration of Low Maturity: A community development project failed to have defined phases and thus phase achievement controls. The application was rejected due to a vague vision of how to implement the project, although the idea itself was great.
• Develop Comprehensive Guidelines: Written policies and frameworks for program and project managements are a strong demonstration of good maturity for donors. Such guidelines should outline at least how to manage resources, engage stakeholders, and address risks within each phase of the lifecycle.
  • Demonstration of High Maturity: An organization developed a project management manual tailored to donor expectations, ensuring alignment and easy approval of the application.
  • Demonstration of Low Maturity: An NGO relied on ad-hoc processes without documented guidelines, thus failing to demonstrate the project management practice and competency was in place on the organization-wide level.
• Invest in Training: Equip operational staff with project management skills through trainings and certifications such as CAPM, PMP or PRINCE2. Building a strong foundation of skills ensures teams can adapt to unexpected challenges and maintain alignment with donor expectations.
  • Demonstration of High Maturity: Including personnel with training or professional certifications into the project management team and mentioning them in the application, increasing donor confidence.
  • Demonstration of Low Maturity: Untrained staff misunderstood donor reporting requirements, resulting in application rejection.
• Use Logical Framework Approach (LogFrame): Structure project objectives, outputs, activities, and indicators clearly in line with the expectations of donors like USAID or the European Commission. This ensures both good understanding of donor requirements, of the nonprofit domain, and increases donor confidence in your capabilities.

2. Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E)

M&E processes and policies are crucial for tracking progress and demonstrating impact, as well as higher quality of data.

• Define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Establish KPIs for every project activity. For instance, in an agricultural development project, KPIs might include the number of farmers trained. Using data-driven metrics helps ensure clear accountability and informs adaptive decision-making when challenges arise.
  • Demonstration of High Maturity: A water sanitation project used KPIs to measure the number of functional wells and community usage, which improved donor trust.
  • Demonstration of Low Maturity: Vague KPIs, such as "improve water access," led to unmeasurable outcomes and weak confidence.
• Frequent Reporting: Implement a reporting cadence (e.g., monthly or quarterly) and involve relevant stakeholders in reviewing reports. Frequent updates align with donor expectations for transparency and enable early detection of deviations.
  • Demonstration of High Maturity: Detailed description of M&E practices and policy with weekly data quality checks and dashboards from a renewable energy NGO, maintaining donor trust.
  • Demonstration of Low Maturity: Fully relying on donor’s M&E requirements without description of internal robust practices created uncertainty and reduced donor confidence.
• Leverage Technology: Use M&E tools to collect, process, and visualize data. This not only enhances efficiency but also makes reporting more compelling to donors who value data-backed evidence.
  • Demonstration of High Maturity: A humanitarian project mentioned using Power BI dashboards to provide reporting, impressing donors.
  • Demonstration of Low Maturity: Using spreadsheets updated manually create risks of errors in reporting. Make sure you describe how you’re going to validate data quality.
• Validation Mechanisms: Conduct independent assessments to verify reported outcomes, reinforcing credibility and demonstrating a commitment to transparency. For example, projects funded by GIZ or UNDP often require third-party evaluations to validate results.
  • Demonstration of High Maturity: Description in the application of a recent successful project, where an independent evaluator was contracted, who confirmed success metrics, enhancing credibility.
  • Demonstration of Low Maturity: Description in the application of self-assessments that lacked objectivity, leading to donor questions about transparency.
• Using and Learning from the Data: Make sure you learn from your experience - Lessons learned sessions take place at the end of every project or phase, they are collected and stored in the repository. Make sure you and your team know where you can find the data from the previous projects. Easy access to this data helps not only to fill in any application form in a more efficient way, it also helps you to build up your expert knowledge of the field you are working in. When possible it is also advisable to monitor relevant data beyond projects and programs - any long-term outcomes of your previous activities or information on the current state of the art in your field helps to check the working hypotheses and support decision-making. This will allow you to show your expertise and better prepare grant applications.
  • Demonstration of High Maturity: Put in application the justification of the best way to achieve objectives, outputs and outcomes based on the data and lessons learned you collected from previous projects and/or continuous monitoring of your field or region.
  • Demonstration of Low Maturity: No plausible justification for the proposed way of action was included in the application because the manager of the previous similar project left with all the data on his computer and all the lessons learned in his head.

3. Risk Management

A robust risk management practice in place minimizes disruptions and instils donor confidence.

• Risk Identification and Mitigation: Regularly evaluate operational risks, such as budget overspending or delays, stakeholder resistance, etc. Tools like risk register, risk probability and impact matrix, SWOT analysis, risk breakdown structure, and risk management policy in place provide a structured approach to identifying and addressing risks effectively. Develop action plans for identified risks. For instance, contingency funds can help address financial risks, while alternative plans for delayed activities ensure project continuity. Structured contingency plans ensure projects remain resilient in uncertain environments.
  • Demonstration of High Maturity: A food security project provided a detailed risk register, described supply chain risks in particular, prioritized them, developed alternative sourcing plans and other feasible strategies, and assigned responsible owners for risks.
  • Demonstration of Low Maturity: Risks were described on a high level lacking structure and awareness, resulting in donor doubts.
• Dedicated Staff: Assign risk owners to manage and oversee every risk-related activity. This role reinforces accountability and ensures continuous focus on risk management in your organisation.
  • Demonstration of High Maturity: Providing the role of risk officer in a large-scale education project effectively mitigates risks of low course attendance.
  • Demonstration of Low Maturity: No designated risk owners to critical risks led to unaddressed concerns of donors.

A Path to Grant Success

Good PPM maturity is not just a checkbox for grant applications—it is a competitive advantage. By focusing on lifecycle management, M&E, and risk management, organizations can:

1. Build donor confidence.
2. Deliver impactful results.
3. Secure long-term funding opportunities.

The journey to maturity requires consistent effort, training, and process implementation. But the rewards are well worth it: not only increased grant success but also the capacity to create meaningful, sustainable change.

Authors: Alina Piddubna, Natalia Starynska