Save the Grant Portal: https://myapplications.my.site.com/gsgrantee
This article provides guidance on submitted required narrative and financial reports.
On the Home tab, scroll down to My Reports Table.
Here you can see all reports for all grants. To view reports for just one grant, access from the grant record, by scrolling to the My Grants table and opening the grant record. For more information on understanding the grant record, view this article.
This table shows the Report Id, ER, Report Type (Financial/Narrative), Due Date, Grant Id, and Status.
Please note that both narrative and financial reports must be submitted to comply with your grant terms. The system will send alerts and reminders if one report is submitted without the other.
Submitting the Narrative Report
From the My Reports Table:
- Under report type, select Narrative.
- Click on the action arrow and select [Edit].
This section allows you to reflect upon the goals identified in your proposal. If you submitted an application through this portal previously, your originial application answers will be shared back with you. Otherwise, please refer back to your original application when responding to these questions.
Editing reports period dates
Reporting dates reflect the dates that you are reporting on. If these dates are not correct, click and edit dates to reflect the accurate dates.
Providing response to goals
Reflecting upon your original goals and the progress made towards them allows us to learn about how change happens. This enables us to improve our understanding of your work and the challenges you may be facing during this grant.
Click on the text box under, Progress Towards Goals, enter response
Please note that this text box does not support rich content, such as bold or italics. To enlarge the box, click and drag the three diagonal lines located at the bottom-right corner.
Guidance for providing Goals
This section should:
- Describe your progress against your goals during the reporting period.
- Share data, including numbers, stories, and examples that support how you assess your progress towards your goals.
- Identify any shifts or changes to your goals and outcomes and why the changes were needed.
This section should not:
- Focus solely on outputs or the completion of activities. For example, instead of reporting on the number of people who attended a workshop, or how many downloads a publication had, give examples of how the workshop participants are now applying their new knowledge/skills, or how your publications are being used by policymakers or practitioners in your field.
Providing response to challenges
Understanding the challenges our partners face and how they respond to them helps us to learn how to better support our partners and help them anticipate and respond to challenges in the future.
Challenges might be internal or external. They might include issues influencing the capacity of your organization to successfully do the work originally outlined in your proposal and achieve impact, such as financial challenges, leadership and governance challenges, reputational challenges, challenges deriving from critical relationships with other partners, or political and environmental factors (e.g., laws and policies, national security issues, corruption, discrimination, harassment, surveillance or detention affecting staff, etc.).
Click in text box under, Challenges, enter response
Please note that this text box does not support rich content, such as bold or italics. To enlarge the box, click and drag the three diagonal lines located at the bottom-right corner.
- Click [Next] to save and move to the next section.
- Click [Save for Later] to save, exit and return to the Home page.
Guidance for providing response to Challenges:
This section should:
- Describe the internal and/or external challenges that impacted your work and progress towards your goals.
- Describe any substantial changes to the context you are working in, such as developments in the field, and if there have been any significant changes to your organization.
- Share how you mitigated or plan to mitigate the challenges, if possible.
- Identify any new potential challenges on the horizon that may impact this work and how you might mitigate them.
This section should not:
- Document sensitive challenges that are best discussed directly with your Open Society contact, for example, issues of harassment and surveillance.
Providing response to Lessons Learned and Additional Information
This section allows us to understand how and what you learned during the course of the reporting period, and how it is informing your future work.
We want to understand how you are making use of what you have learned and how that learning is informing your strategic decisions about this work. Additionally, we seek to understand insights that can help inform Open Society’s strategy and ongoing work.
Click in text box under, Lessons Learned, enter response
Please note that this text box does not support rich content, such as bold or italics. To enlarge the box, click and drag the three diagonal lines located at the bottom-right corner.
Guidance for responding to lessons learned:
Describe external and internal insights from your work and/or on the issues on which you focus, or on what your organization and staff need to be successful.
Providing response to Additional Information
This is an optional question in case there is more you would like to share or have been asked to share. If there is nothing to add, you can leave it blank.
Click in text box under, Additional Information, enter response
Please note that this text box does not support rich content, such as bold or italics. To enlarge the box, click and drag the three diagonal lines located at the bottom-right corner.
Guidance on providing additional information:
This section should not:
- Be lengthy.
- Cover topics best discussed in conversation with your Open Society contact.
Confirmation on activities
This section allows us to understand any changes between your original proposal and the activities that occurred during the reporting period.
Respond to questions by clicking Yes/No:
- Do you confirm that the activities supported under this grant were aligned with the approved project and work plan?
- Do you confirm that you have complied with all terms and conditions of the grant specified in the Grant Agreement?
If No is entered for either question: - Please add a reason in the Explanation of Activity Changes text box.
If there were no changes to your budget, enter "None" under Explanation of Budget Changes.
Why we ask: We know plans change. Please explain any significant changes to your budget here.
Upload any additional documents
Optional: if there are any updates to share about the progress of the project, please upload the corresponding documents here.
To Add/Upload a new document
- Click on the [Upload] button.
- Select Document Type and click on the drop-down.
- If a Financial Reports was selected, the field "Year" will appear. Select the year for the document.
- Click on [Upload Files].
- Select file from your local computer network (hard drive or network drive).
- Click [Open].
- The file will automatically upload and a success window will appear.
Submitting the Narrative Report
Once complete, click [Submit].
Congratulations, you have submitted your narrative report.
Submitting the Financial Report
Please provide actual expenditures against your original proposed budget for the reporting period. You do not need to provide line-item budgeting for the Open Society grant unless specifically required by the terms of your Agreement Letter.
If you used our budget template, please follow the instructions in the template. To view the budget previously submitted with your application, click on the link on the top of the Financial Report Record.
If you used your own format, please provide your actual expenditures alongside your original budget.
Editing reports period dates
Reporting dates reflect the dates that you are reporting on. If these dates are not correct, click and edit dates to reflect the accurate dates.
- Amount Expended (This Report Period): enter total amount spent.
- Year Expended (This Report Period): click on drop-down to select year.
- If not in US Currency, enter Currency & Exchange:
- Payment Currency: click on drop-down to select currency.
- Exchange Rate: enter rate used for the budget template update. (Note that this is a number value.)
Upload Updated Budget Template
- Click on the [Add File] button.
- Select Document Type, click drop-down and select Financial Report.
- On Year, select the year for the Budget File.
- Click on [Upload Files].
- Select the file from your local computer network (hard drive or network drive).
- Click [Open].
- The file will automatically upload and a success window will appear.
- Click [Done] to complete.
Submit Financial Report
- Enter Notes if needed (optional).
- Click [Submit].
Congratulations, you have submitted your narrative report.