How do you write a great grant report, especially in a year like 2025 that has been full of challenges for the nonprofit sector?
Grant reporting often feels like an afterthought for many nonprofits. Writing grant reports can be time-consuming, frustrating, and stressful. Every funder has their own reporting guidelines and funding priorities, which all require customization. Funders also seldom provide feedback on grant reports, which makes many folks wonder if anyone even read their reports.
But here’s a secret: Whether your program officer reads your grant report or not, grant reporting is a critical part of nonprofit fundraising. And there are ways to make it both easier and more useful for your organization.
How to Write a GREAT Grant Report
At their core, all grant reports are about two things:
- What your organization accomplished
- What your organization did not accomplish
Sounds simple, right?
Yet too many organizations focus on the wrong things when writing about successes and challenges.
Writing about successes in your grant report
Many grant reporting guidelines open with a general question along the lines of:
Tell us about your work and progress toward your goals during the grant period.
Often, nonprofits answer this question by listing activities. Instead, try focusing on impact. Think of the question this way:
What is the measurable change you made in the world as a result of the work funded by this grant?
For example, instead of leading with outreach numbers and following with intake and client-served numbers, start with the number of people directly served. Then describe how you increased this number using new, grant-funded outreach tactics.
Where possible, try to personalize the impact. For example, a national advocacy organization might share feedback from partners or elected officials to demonstrate how stakeholders value the organization’s work.
Not every project or initiative delivers results in one grant period. Sometimes, it can take many years (as in the case of achieving the organizational goals you’ve spelled out in your strategic plan). However, you still need to demonstrate the progress you are making toward measurable benchmarks.
For example, if you are advocating for a new public health clinic in your community, it may take several years to win this change. So when designing your program, be sure to identify clear metrics and benchmarks that can demonstrate your progress to funders and keep them engaged in the long-term goal.
Writing about challenges in your grant report
Not every project goes according to plan. As we’ve experienced in 2025, nonprofits are constantly dealing with changes in funding, in their local community, and in the overall environment in which they’re operating.
Luckily, nonprofits are also incredible at adapting. This is what you want to demonstrate when writing about challenges in your grant report.
First off be sure to own up to any major setbacks for your program. Hiding things is never a good idea if you want to maintain a long-term funding relationship.
But how you talk about setbacks can make a huge difference in how they are received. For example:
- If an external factor affected the success of your program, such as a policy change in your state, focus on describing how your organization responded to and adapted to these changes.
- If an internal problem affected your success, such as a misstep in program design, explain what the problem was, what you learned, and how you have adapted the program going forward.
Sometimes, a setback or challenge leads to an incredible new opportunity. If so, make sure the funder sees this.
Of course, sometimes a setback really is just a setback, such as losing other major funding sources. Even in these cases, funders are looking for what your organization did to adapt and respond to these challenges.
It’s not about the problem. It’s about how your organization has dealt with the problem.
When a funder sees that your organization is dynamic and adaptable, even in hard times, it can lead to an even stronger funding relationship.
Your Grant Report Is a Prelude to Your Next Renewal: Use It Wisely
Grant reports are part of the bridge between current and future grant funding.
A well-written grant report demonstrates how a funder’s investment enabled your organization to create a measurable impact. This helps your program officer make the case to their colleagues and board for why your organization should receive continued funding.
Even for interim reporting, you always want to have an eye toward your fundraising plan, next grant renewal, and setting up the work ahead.
Before you start writing, ask yourself:
- What are you going to be asking for in renewal funding? Will you be seeking an increase? If so, make sure your grant report demonstrates that your organization is well-equipped to manage a larger grant and/or program.
- In which areas of your work are you seeing the most impact or looking to grow? Be sure opportunities for such growth come through in your grant report in a way that demonstrates both the need and the potential for even greater impact.
With this perspective, a grant report can help you and your funders get excited about your vision for the future.
Grant Reporting: Always Get the Basics Right
Beyond writing a great grant report, there are also reporting fundamentals that can make or break your reporting and renewals. Here are the top five basics you want to get right:
1) Meet grant reporting deadlines
It is hard to overstate the importance of tracking all grant deliverables. This includes deadlines for grant proposals and reports. You should also calendar in grant renewal outreach. The renewal process often starts at least three to four months before the end of the current grant, so be sure this outreach gets on your agenda.
2) Follow grant reporting directions
Yes, funder guidelines can be annoying. It can seem like every funder asks slightly different questions, in a different order, and using a different online reporting system. However, it is still on grantees to follow each funder’s directions.
Funders may ask questions in certain ways or provide specific reporting formats because they align with the foundation’s internal processes. By following the reporting guidelines, you make it easier for funders to quickly understand what you have accomplished and how it bolsters their priorities. This makes renewal funding that much easier.
In some cases, funders may allow you to submit an annual report or the equivalent in place of a grant report. It’s a great idea to take up this opportunity to save time. However, keep in mind that it then becomes even more critical to have additional conversations with the funder about your impact and the work ahead.
3) Put in effort
It may be tempting to throw down a draft of a grant report and hit send. Sure, not every grant report will be read. But you never know when a funder will choose your report to read with their morning coffee.
In our experience, a thoughtful grant report really can deepen a connection with your program officer. We’ve had clients receive emails from program officers saying, “Wow, you all have accomplished so much. Thank you for the incredible report!”
What does “putting in effort” look like?
To us, it means:
- Taking the time to plan what you are going to report on and how (see more guidance on this below).
- Doing internal due diligence to get updated information and metrics to demonstrate the impact of your programming.
- Having at least one other person review your grant report and being sure to proofread it.
4) Write to your audience
Now that you have gone through the work of cultivating a donor, submitting a proposal, and receiving grant support, you know what a funder is most interested in. Your grant report should these conversations.
When a funder reviews your grant report, you want them to see how their continued funding of your organization will help them achieve their own impact goals. For example, if a funder is interested in serving one neighborhood in your metro area while you serve the entire metro area, be sure to include extra information about your work in their priority community. You should do this even if the original proposal was for overall program support or even general support.
5) Make sure your grant report narrative matches your financials
Your narrative report and financial report should always align and tell a consistent story about the work supported by grant funds.
For example, if your report narrative says that you hired a new staff member for a project, but your salaries and benefits costs decreased, there is a mismatch between what you say you did and what your budget shows you did. There may be a simple explanation for this divergence (such as other staff member departures). If so, include this explanation in your report narrative to ensure consistency.
Repurposing Your Grant Reporting Content
Especially at year-end, high-quality grant reports can be reused and repurposed for all kinds of content. For example, your grant report content can be transformed into:
- A year-end recap for your email list (one where you don’t ask for money).
- A concise and compelling annual report.
- Updated website content showing your impact.
- Emails to major individual donors sharing insights about how your organization has been adapting to challenges, which naturally leads into what you see as opportunities in the year ahead.
- The “recent accomplishments” section of new grant proposals.
As you can see, grant reporting isn’t just a box you need to check to satisfy funders. It’s an opportunity to step back, assess where you are, and then get that assessment down in writing—which you can then use for all kinds of donor, partner, and public communications.
