Office of Grants Management

The Office of Grants Management (OGM) oversees legal and administrative compliance and effects responsible stewardship for the global grant-making activity of the Open Society Foundations. The office improves and streamlines grant-making operations through the adoption of innovative technologies and industry best practices. OGM educates and guides OSF staff and grantees on grant-making operations, encouraging timely processing of grants. It responds to the foundation's needs for compliance and information by managing the daily flow of grant-related data and documentation for OSF's grants.

History

The Office of Grants Management was created at the end of the 1990s after the Office of General Counsel hired a consultant to engage in a project to recover overdue reports from international grantees (“the Lookback Project”). This consultant became the first director of the GM department in New York. At the same time, a parallel grants management department was created in Budapest. After the departure of the director in New York, Grants Management was put under the Finance umbrella. Budapest Grants Management staff were made employees of AdminConsult Rt. (later AdminConsult Zrt.), a company created to house administrative departments providing services to OSI Budapest. AdminConsult Zrt. was subsequently renamed AdminGroup Zrt.

Grants Management Team:

The Director and Deputy and Associate Directors provide oversight and supervision to the department. Core supervisory functions include: troubleshooting and decision support to grants officers in day-to-day operations, coordination and special projects with other operational functions (accounting, legal, systems), coordination between offices in New York, Budapest, Washington, Barcelona, Baltimore and London related to grant making operations, provision of management information and other support to OSF’s senior management.

Grants Officers are assigned a portfolio of programs awarding a total of about 120-140 grants each year and are responsible for administering those awards from submission for compliance review through grant closeout. Responsibilities include:

•Conducting pre-award due diligence to ensure that grants are consistent with tax regulations and foundation policies

•Preparing, issuing and monitoring grant agreements, payments, and amendments

•Monitoring grantee reporting requirements and evaluating grantee narrative and financial reports to ensure administrative and legal compliance

•Providing ongoing orientation and training for staff on legal, business and system requirements for grant processing

•Working with legal department to develop and maintain templates used by program staff for grant agreements and formal correspondence

•Maintaining grant data in the Foundation Connect (FC) database and providing necessary reports and analysis

Senior Grants Officers manage grant portfolios as well but also have a specialized role in the department, like supervision or training. They are also involved in special departmental projects.

Senior Grants Analyst is responsible for data integrity and reporting from Foundation Connect, works with IT and outside consultants to support users and acts as system administrator. Engages with Grants Management, program and other staff to ensure that Foundation Connect developments and enhancements meet business needs of OSF. Supervises the Grants User Support Specialist.

Grants User Support Specialist provides technical support to the Office of Grants Management, other OSF staff, and grantees related to OSF’s Foundation Connect and the grantee portal.

Grant Assistant handles departmental administrative functions within Grants Management and provides support for users of the Foundation Connect Portal. In New York is also responsible for processing Matching Gifts, a kind of grant made in response to employee donations to qualified charitable organizations.

For the team’s actual org chart please visit Grants Management’s KARL page .

For the actual portfolios of the Grants Officers please visit Grants Management’s KARL page.https://karl.soros.org/communities/grants-management/wiki/who-we-are/

2 Comments

Agnes Almadi

Editorial note:
The function and content of this chapter has an overlap with KARL page.

Krisztina Vlasits

1) "a company created to house administrative departments providing services to OSI Budapest"
I would add: to OSI Budapest and othe OSF entities.
2) "Responsibilities include:" - do we want to replace this list with the actual job description? -not a must
3) "For the team’s actual org chart please visit Grants Management’s KARL page." - we could add the actual link: https://karl.soros.org/communities/grants-management/files/orgchart.pptx/
4) "For the actual portfolios of the Grants Officers please visit Grants Management’s KARL page." the correct lin: https://karl.soros.org/communities/grants-management/wiki/portfolio/

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