I was awarded a grant, now what?
Congratulations! Follow the steps below to keep the award process smooth and easy.
1. Submit your Grant Agreement
Sign in to your account here and upload your fully signed Grant Agreement. Also upload your Fiscal Sponsor Agreement if you’re using a Fiscal Sponsor.
2. Acknowledge your grant
Mass Humanities requires grantees to tell their elected officials about their grant award. Find your local representatives in the state legislature and your Congressperson, then see your award letter to determine whether your funding came from Mass Cultural Council or National Endowment for the Humanities and include this information in the sample letter provided.
3. Announce your events
Grantees are required to submit grant-related events using our calendar event submission form on this site as soon as they are confirmed. Events will be added to our online calendar and included in our eNews.
4. Publicize your project
Grantees must publicize their award:
- You are required to credit Mass Humanities and either NEH or MCC (see your award letter to determine which) by using appropriate logos on all publicity, including printed materials, posters, brochures, and web pages.
- If you’re on Facebook, tag us!
- We encourage you to contact local media outlets to announce your award.
Please refer to our Publicity Guidelines for requirements and visit our Logo page to download our logo and logs for NEH and MCC.
5. Gather information
Keep track of your project’s outcomes. If you are hosting events, make sure to have participants complete our survey.
6. Complete your reporting
All reporting is completed online, by the Project Director, through the grant portal.
If you were assigned an interim report (for grants $10,000 and over) you may submit that once you’ve spent approximately half your grant award. You may also choose to only submit a final report if you prefer.
Once you have completed your project, submit the Final Report. Click here for a sample Project Grant Final Report.
Important Information
Project Changes & Extensions
If you need more time to complete your project or want to:
- Change major project personnel such as Project Director, Project Scholar, speaker, or partners.
- Make significant changes to your budget by adding or eliminating line-items, or spending $500 more or less on a line-item than anticipated on your original application budget form. All requested changes must still meet the budget rules and requirements found in the grant guidelines.
- Change the content, format, or scope of your project.
Log in to your online account through the grant portal and submit the Extension/Change request form. You’ll hear back about approval within two weeks of submission.
Receiving Checks
- Grants up to $10,000 receive 2 payments – 90% and 10%.
- Grants over $10,000 can receive up to 3 payments 45%, 45% and 10%.
We will send your first payment upon receipt of the signed Grant Agreement which was emailed to you with your award packet. Checks are made out and mailed to the Sponsoring Organization.
For grants over $10,000, the second 45% of your award will be sent upon receipt and approval of the Interim Report. You may choose not to submit the Interim Report and instead receive the final 55% of the grant award upon submission and approval of your Final Report.
We send the final 10% once your project is completed (including all grant-related events and grant products) and all final reports have been submitted and approved. This means you will finish paying project expenses in anticipation of being reimbursed for the last 10% of your grant.
Please allow 4-6 weeks from the time you request a check until you receive it. If you have questions about a payment, contact Melissa Wheaton.
Troubleshooting your online account
If you forget your password:
Go to the grant portal and choose the Forgot Password link.
If you log in and don’t have the option to edit or submit reports:
- Are you logging in as the Project Director? Only the Project Director has access to online reporting. If someone who is not acting as Project Director set up the account and submitted your application their log in will not work for reporting. You’ll need to sign in with the Project Director’s email address and given password as outlined in your Award Packet email.
- Does your sign-on page auto-fill? Sometimes old information remains – type your email address and password over what is automatically filled in and try again.
- Check due dates. Is the form/report you are trying to submit due later than something you have not submitted?
- Has the item you’re trying to edit already been submitted? Submitted reports can no longer be edited. To restore access, contact Melissa Wheaton.
Other issues:
If the above did not solve your issue or you are experiencing other problems, please don’t hesitate to contact your Program Officer or Melissa Wheaton, we’re here to help!