Grant Tracking Spreadsheet for Nonprofits
Most missed grants are not rejected — they are simply forgotten. A funder with a great fit and a deadline nobody wrote down is the same as a funder that does not exist. Use the free tracker below for your upcoming deadlines:
No deadlines tracked yet. Add your first funder above.
What a real grant pipeline needs
Deadlines are only the alarm bell. A working grant pipeline also tracks:
- Stage — researching, drafting, submitted, waiting, awarded, declined.
- What each funder wants — portals, forms, and attachments differ wildly between funders.
- Attachments — project description, budget, financial statements, board list, letters of support.
- Results — how much you applied for, how much you won, and why the declined ones failed.
What the spreadsheet tracks
The full Grant Application Tracker is an Excel workbook built around the nine columns that actually matter for a nonprofit grant pipeline:
- Funder — name and program, so "Ontario Trillium" and "Ontario Arts Council" never get confused again.
- Grant name and stream — many funders run several programs with different rules.
- Application deadline — with the tracker sorted so the nearest deadline is always on top.
- Amount requested and amount awarded — so you can see your real win rate, not your hopeful one.
- Stage — researching, drafting, submitted, waiting, awarded, declined. A dropdown keeps entries consistent.
- Decision date — when you expect to hear back, so nothing goes quiet unnoticed.
- Reporting deadline — the deadline people forget most. Winning the grant is only the midpoint.
- Responsible staff member — one owner per application.
- Link to application documents — the portal, the draft, the submitted PDF, all one click away.
Who it's for
Small charities and community groups where grant writing falls on one person — often the executive director — alongside everything else. If your "system" is currently a folder of PDFs and a vague memory of a deadline in March, this workbook replaces it. For the thinking behind the columns, see how to track grant applications in Excel.
What's included
The workbook ships as an .xlsx file that works in Excel and Google Sheets: a funder database pre-seeded with four major Canadian funders (Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Ontario Trillium Foundation, Toronto Arts Council), an application pipeline with status dropdowns and automatic tallies of amounts requested and won, and an attachments checklist (project description, budget, financial statements, board list, letters of support) so nothing goes out missing a page. Sample entries are included so you can see how a lived-in pipeline looks before you add your own.
Related guides
- How to Track Grant Applications in Excel — the columns your tracker actually needs, with an example table.
- Nonprofit Administration Checklist — where grant deadlines fit in your yearly admin cycle.