Grants
Answers on grants in Muin — tracking the grants you have applied for and won, recording restricted funding, meeting reporting deadlines, and reconciling spend against an award.
41 questions
How do I make a grant to another organization?
Go to **Nonprofit > Grantmaking > Disbursements** and click **New Grant**. Enter the **Grantee Organization**, the **Amount** and currency, the **Purpose** and program area, the **Grant Period** start and end, the **Fund** the payment comes from, any **Restrictions** on how the money may be used, and whether a grantee report is required with its due date. Save it and it enters the queue. From there it moves **Pending → Recommended → Under Review → Approved → Awaiting Payment → Disbursed → Completed**, with **Declined** as the other outcome. Approval enforces maker-checker: the person who created a disbursement cannot approve it. Some governance settings add a second signer, which routes the first approval to **Under Review** and requires a different person to finish it.
Why can't I approve this grant disbursement?
Three gates run at approval, in this order: 1. **Sanctions screening (OFAC SDN)**: not overridable. A match reads: "Sanctions screening matched this grantee against the OFAC SDN list ({type}, score {score}). This block cannot be overridden. Resolve the match before approving." If the list could not be refreshed you get "Sanctions screening could not be completed, so this grant cannot be approved. Try again shortly…", which is also a block, because an unscreened grantee is not a cleared one. 2. **Zakat eligibility**: not overridable. A zakat fund may only be disbursed to a zakat-eligible (asnaf) program. 3. **Fund spending rules**: overridable with a stated reason: "Fund spending rules blocked approval. {violations}. Provide override_reason to proceed." And remember maker-checker: you cannot approve a disbursement you created. Ask a different authorized user.
The grant is approved but the payment won't go. What's wrong?
Two different things block a payment. **The bank gate**, for automated payments only. It fails with one of: - **"No bank account linked for grantee"**: the grantee has not linked one. - **"Bank account verification failed"**: the account could not be verified. - **"Bank account not yet approved by admin"**: they linked it, but nobody approved it. Wire and check payments skip this gate entirely, because there is nothing to verify. **Separation of duties.** Depending on your governance posture the person who approved a grant may not be the one who pays it, and a single-operator setup requires a note explaining why the same person did both. Also check the status: a disbursement must be **Approved** before it can be marked disbursed, "Cannot disburse grant in status '{status}'. Must be approved first."
How does a grantee give us their bank details?
They link the account themselves in the grantee portal, at **Bank Account** (`/grantee/bank-account`). You never type their account details in. 1. They connect their bank, or enter the account manually with the account holder name, bank name and account details. 2. They tick **both** attestation checkboxes: the submission is refused otherwise with "Both attestation checkboxes must be checked". 3. The badge reads **Pending Approval**: "Your bank account is pending approval from the grant administrator." 4. Someone with grant disbursement permissions approves it. The badge then reads **Approved** and ACH payments can run. If it is rejected the grantee sees **Rejected** with a prompt to contact you or link a new account. A grantee with no contact email on their profile cannot be contacted about this at all: Muin says "Add a contact email to the grantee profile first". Add the email on the grantee record first.
How do I get a set of grants in front of the board?
Select the rows on **Nonprofit > Grantmaking > Disbursements** and click **Send to Board**. Muin builds a board review package from them, creates per-member access tokens and vote rows, and emails the board members. The toast tells you how many were emailed. Only disbursements in **Recommended** or **Under Review** can go into a package: an already-approved grant is not a decision the board is being asked to make. The structure of the package comes from your templates at **Nonprofit > Governance > Package Templates**, where a template defines the sections every pack carries. One thing to know: a **disbursement batch** is the only path that requires a passed board resolution. Individual approvals run on the approval ladder instead.
How do I track whether a grant achieved anything?
Define metrics on the grant program, then submit reports against them. 1. Go to **Nonprofit > Grantmaking > Grant Outcomes**. The screen is program-scoped: pick a **Grant program** from the selector if you arrived without one. 2. Click **New Metric** and set the **Metric Name**, **Description**, **Target Value** and **Unit (e.g., people, dollars, hours)**. 3. On the metric, click **Submit Report** and enter the **Actual Value**, the **Period (e.g., Q1 2025, Jan 2025)** and any notes. Reports appear under **Outcome Reports** showing **Period · Actual Value · Notes · Submitted**, so you can compare across periods and pull the data into a board package. Define metrics at the program level from day one: every grant under that program then collects the same data, which is what makes the comparison meaningful.
How do I stop a restricted grant being spent on the wrong thing?
Put the restriction on the fund, as a spending rule. Go to **Nonprofit > Giving > Fund Spending Rules**, open the fund and click **Create Rule**. You can set: - **Allowed expense types**: only these may be charged to the fund. - **Spending limit by category**: a ceiling per category. - **Salary cap (%)**: the maximum share of the fund that may go to salaries. It reads your salary allocations, so without allocations on record it cannot be evaluated. - **Admin cap (%)**: zakat funds only: the maximum share of zakat spend allowed for admin costs, defaulting to 20%. The rules are checked when a vendor bill, a grant disbursement or an aid disbursement is approved. A violation blocks the approval until someone records an override reason, and at 90% of a limit you get a warning instead so you see it coming. The zakat asnaf restriction is the one rule no override clears.
Where do I see upcoming grant deadlines?
The **Grant Calendar** puts them on one surface with four layers: **Grant deadlines**, **Space bookings**, **Volunteer events** and **Board meetings**. It has no sidebar row. Open it from **Grant Seeking > Find grants**, from **Find grants** on **Received Grants**, or from the grants card on the **Nonprofit Overview**. Use it for incoming grant application deadlines, report due dates and payment dates together. If it reads **No deadlines this week**, nothing falls in that window. Widen it rather than assuming nothing is due. For the grants you have won and the money inside them, use the budget tracker on the received grant itself; for outbound grants, the **Overdue Reports** tile on Disbursements counts grantee reports that have missed their due date.
How does Muin find grants for us?
Go to **Grant Seeking > Find grants** and click **Scan**. The **Grant Finder** agent runs in the background over federal listings (Grants.gov), IRS records of what foundations paid, program pages for your state, county and city, community foundation and company grant pages, and the pages you watch. Results are saved with the time of the scan, so you can leave the page and come back. Each match shows a **Match score** (80% and above is a strong fit), the funder's full name, the status as read on a date, and the deadline. Grants you are not eligible for are left out with a reason, for example "3 grants left out because you are not an eligible applicant". **Change what we search** opens the Grant Finder settings.
How do I search for grants for one specific need without losing my list?
On **Grant Seeking > Find grants**, type the need in **Look for something specific (optional)**, for example "Van / transportation purchase", and click **Search for this need**. This is a one-off search. Your list of matches stays as it was: it combines your last three full scans. When the search finishes, the page opens its results and says **You are viewing your targeted search**. Click **Back to the main list** to return. Later, open it again from **Scan history**, where it is labelled **Targeted:** with the need you typed. Tracking a grant from a targeted search adds it to your pipeline like any other match.
How do I add a funder's page for Muin to watch?
On the Grant Calendar (**Grant Seeking > Find grants**), click **Add a page** on the **Pages you watch** card. Paste the **Page address** (it must start with https://) and give it a **Name**, then click **Save and read now**. The page is read at once and on every scan, and its status shows with the date it was read. A page that cannot be read stays on the list with its link so you can check it yourself. From the **Grantor Directory**, **Watch this funder's grant page** fills in the address and name for you.
Why does a grant say Check the page?
Two readings of the program page disagreed, for example **Check the page: read Open on 6 Oct and Closed on 5 Oct**. Open the program page and confirm before you apply. A page Muin could not read shows **Unknown: we could not read this page**, never Closed.
Why is a foundation I know about not in the results?
A few common reasons: - Some foundations fund only organizations they choose, or give through donor-advised funds. **About this funder** shows **Invitation only** when the return says so. - IRS records of grants paid lag one to two years behind, so a new funder may not appear yet. - The grant scored below the **Minimum score** in the Grant Finder settings. To include a foundation, add its grant page under **Pages you watch**. It is read on every scan.
What does To be confirmed do in the proposal interview?
Tick **To be confirmed** on a number you do not have yet. The draft writes **[To provide]** in that spot instead of guessing, and **Gap Collector** adds a task for the person who has the figure.
Why does my draft say [To verify]?
Every figure in a draft must match a cited source. A figure with no public source or interview answer behind it is marked **[To verify: ...]**, so nothing unchecked reaches a funder. Replace it or confirm it before you submit. Figures that do have a source carry a chip naming the dataset, year and place; click it to see the evidence.
Who gets the tasks for facts the draft still needs?
The grant's named contact. With no named contact the tasks go to the owner, and the **What we still need** panel on the proposal says "No one is assigned to this grant. Assign someone". Each task lands in that person's **Inbox**. After they answer, Muin offers to put the answer in the draft and redraft that section; when the fact is in the draft, the task closes. Running **Gap Collector** again never files a second task for the same fact.
How do I check an applicant before we fund it?
Go to **Grantmaking > Disbursements** and open the application. The **Applicant check** card shows the applicant's public record: - **IRS standing**: whether it is a tax-exempt organization in good standing. - **Revenue trend**: revenue and expenses by tax year from its public 990 filings, each naming its filing. - **Peer benchmark**: how it compares with similar organizations, as the 25th percentile, median and 75th percentile of each figure. - **Prior federal awards** from USAspending.gov. With no EIN on the applicant's record, the card says so and offers to ask the applicant for it. Turn on the **Grantmaker Applicant Due Diligence** workflow in **Workflows > Catalog** to have the **Grant Recommender** agent run this check when an application arrives.
How do I find foundations that fund organizations like ours?
Go to **Grant Seeking > Grantor Directory** and click **Find prospects**. It lists foundations that paid organizations like yours (your state, revenue size and field, where your field is the NTEE code in the IRS Business Master File; when too few organizations in your field have filings, it matches on state and size and says so), from their public tax filings, with how much each gave to organizations like yours and a link to the filing. Click **Save as prospect** to add a foundation to your Grantor Directory at the Prospect stage, or **About this funder** to research it first. Invitation-only foundations and donor-advised fund sponsors are left out and counted. **No prospects found yet** means your EIN is missing from Company Profile, or no foundation paid an organization like yours yet; widen your service area or add programs. The **Foundation Prospecting** workflow runs this search each month and never saves the same foundation twice.
How do I see what a funder has given and whether it accepts applications?
Open **About this funder** from a match in **Find grants**, from the funder card on a tracked grant in **Received Grants**, or with **Research** in **Grant Seeking > Grantor Directory**. The **Funder Research** agent reads the funder's IRS grant records. It shows giving by year, the **Typical cash grant** and **Largest cash grant**, donated goods, past grantees like you, and **Applications**: **Accepts applications**, **Invitation only**, or **The return does not say**. Each line names its filing and year. A government program has no IRS grant records and says so.
How do I know we are ready to apply for a grant?
Every proposal opens with the **Before you apply** card. It checks what a funder will check: IRS exempt status, annual filings, SAM.gov registration, and state charity registration where the state publishes it. Each check reads **Passed**, **Needs attention** (with **Fix this**), **Could not check today** (with **Try again**), or **Not required**, with its source and the date it was read. The card reads **Ready to apply** only when every counted check passed. It never blocks the interview.
Where do the Company Profile suggestions come from?
**Suggest from website and filings** on the Company Profile reads your website and your public tax filings, then drafts your mission, programs, service area, sub-industry and annual budget. Each suggestion lists its sources and has a **Use** button. Nothing is saved until you choose **Save Changes**. If your website blocks automated reads or no website is on file, the card says so and drafts from web search results about your organization instead. A complete profile gives better grant matches.
How do I set up Grant Management?
Open **Products > Grant Management** and click **Run setup**. Muin asks three questions: what your organization does, which state you work in, and your yearly budget. Click **Save and run setup**. Setup turns on the **Grant Finder** agent, fills empty profile details from your website and public tax filings, and starts your first scan. Matches show on **Grant Seeking > Find grants** when it finishes, usually within a few minutes. The checklist shows what is left: **Grant Finder is turned on**, **Your profile has what grant matching needs** and **Your first grant scan finished**. Each open item links to the screen that finishes it.
What does Grant Management cost?
- **Free**: 5 tracked grants. - **$39 a month**: unlimited tracked grants. - **$390 a year**: unlimited tracked grants. A tracked grant is one you **Track**. At the free limit, **Track** shows an upgrade card instead of tracking another grant. Your matches stay visible. If your organization is on a Muin plan, your plan's limits apply instead. Each scan uses AI credits. Opening your saved results on **Find grants** or the Product Home uses none. Drafting is included in Grant Management (paid) and the Grant Compliance Solution, and in every Plan.
Where does Muin's funder data come from?
From the IRS 990 and 990-PF returns that foundations file. **Data as of** beside funder results shows the date of the newest return loaded and how many funders it covers. IRS returns lag one to two years behind, so a new funder may not appear yet. Add its grant page under **Pages you watch** and Muin reads it on every scan.
How do I download a grant proposal as Word or PDF?
Open the proposal. Once any section has text, it shows **Download Word** and **Download PDF**. The file has each drafted section under its heading. Use Word when you need to format it for the funder's own form.
Where do I keep the files that go with a grant application?
In the **Attachments** panel on the proposal: the budget, letters of support, your IRS letter and anything else the funder asks for. Drop files on the panel, or click it to choose files. Click a file to download it. **Delete file** asks first.
Who gets reminded before a grant deadline?
The person assigned to the grant. With no one assigned, the organization's owners and admins. - **Application due**: 7 days, 3 days and 1 day before the application deadline, while the grant is at **Identified** or **LOI Submitted**. - **Time to renew**: 60 days and 30 days before a won award's period ends, while it has no renewal. Reminders arrive by email, push notification and in Muin, once per reminder per person. To change who gets them, set **Assigned To** on the grant.
How do I renew a grant we won?
Open the grant in **Grant Seeking > Received Grants** and click **Renew**. Optionally set the **Renewal application deadline (optional)**, then click **Start renewal**. Muin starts a new application at **Identified** with the same funder, fund, owner and terms, and the awarded amount as the amount to request. It copies the proposal text so you can update it. The award you won is not changed. **Renew** shows on grants at **Awarded**, **Agreement Signed**, **Funds Received**, **Active**, **Reporting** or **Completed**. Each award can be renewed once; clicking **Renew** again opens the existing renewal.
I write grants for several organizations. Do I need a login for each?
No. Each organization invites you as a member of its workspace, and you use one login. After you sign in, Muin asks you to **Select a workspace**. To change later, click the workspace name at the top of the page and pick another one. Each workspace keeps its own grants, profile and settings.
What data does Grant Finder use to match grants?
Grant matching reads your Company Profile and your programs. It also reads your Muin records, such as people served, volunteer hours, grants you received and figures from uploaded 990s. There are 12 sources. Each one shows only when your organization uses that Muin feature. Proposal drafting reads the same records. On a match, open **Why this match**. Facts from your records are listed under **Your Muin records**.
Can I stop Grant Finder from reading some of my records?
Yes. Open **Find grants > What Muin reads**. Each source has its own switch, and all are on to start. Switch a source off and scans and proposal drafts leave it out. Each source shows a preview of the facts the next scan will read, up to 5 lines.
Does Grant Finder read personal information about the people we serve?
No. Grant Finder reads totals, counts and names of things such as programs, events, campaigns and forms. - It never reads a person's name. - It never reads what a message says. - It never reads a case record or a health record. - A count under 5 shows as "fewer than 5". - Only public events are read by title.
Does Muin answer the funder's own questions?
Yes. Muin reads the grant's application page, up to 3 guidance PDFs it links to, or instructions you upload or paste. A proposal started after that has one section per funder question, in the funder's order and wording, written to each question's limit. Every item Muin takes from the instructions keeps a quote from the funder's text. An item whose quote cannot be found in the source is dropped. When nothing could be read, the proposal uses the standard sections and says so.
How do I give Muin the funder's RFP or NOFO?
Open the proposal and click **Upload funder instructions** on **The funder's application** card. Choose a PDF, Word or text file up to 10 MB, or paste the text, then click **Read instructions**. Reading takes a few minutes. The checklist then lists every question, attachment and certification with its status. If the file cannot be read, the read shows as failed with the reason; upload a different file or paste the text. Click **Read again** to read the grant's application page again.
What happens when a proposal answer is over the funder's word limit?
The section shows its length against the limit, for example **312 of 300 words, over by 12**, and the checklist row reads **Over limit by 12 words**. Muin never cuts the text. You decide what to shorten. A page limit is counted as an approximate number of words.
How do I see the ledger lines behind a grant finding?
1. Open **Agents** and find the grant finding under **Findings by site, grant and severity**, or open the Grant Compliance Monitor's run. 2. Press **Show your work** on the finding. 3. Under **Sources**, each ledger line shows what it was, its amount, its date and its budget category. A line with its own page in Muin, such as an expense, opens it. A category overspend cites the lines in the over-budget categories, and a barred-cost finding cites the barred costs. Other findings cite every line charged to the grant, up to the 50 largest, and say how many there were.
How do I import our grant ledger?
Import your grants first, then the ledger. Both are under **Settings → Data Import**. 1. Choose **Grant Spending (ledger by grant)**. 2. Upload a ledger export from your books, one row per expense line, with its date, amount and the grant number it is charged to. A budget category, account, description, vendor and transaction id are optional. 3. Check the mapping and the preview, then import. Each line lands as an approved expense charged to that grant and is checked against the grant's allowability rules. A barred cost still lands, with the decision recorded, so the grant agent can raise it. A row is refused, with its reason, when its date or amount cannot be read, the grant number is not one of yours, or the grant was never awarded. Importing the same file again adds nothing new. The lines then show on the award's **Financial** tab.
Who gets the questions and reminders about an award?
The person named on the award's **Grant contact** card gets its readiness questions, spend-plan questions and report reminders. 1. Open the grant under **Grants Received**. 2. On the **Grant contact** card, press **Choose a contact** (or **Change**). 3. Pick a person and press **Save contact**. Only active members of your workspace can be chosen. With no one named, the card says **No one is named. Questions go to the workspace owner.** If the named person later stops being an active member, new tasks go to the owner role and each task says why.
What happens when we save a sixth grant on the free plan?
The free plan keeps 5 saved grants. A saved grant is one you **Track** on **Find grants**, or one you add yourself with **Add grant** on **Received Grants**. - At the sixth, **Track** and **Add grant** show an upgrade card instead of saving it. The card says **You've used your 5 free** saved grants and lists the prices. - $39 a month or $390 a year gives unlimited saved grants and AI proposal drafting, including letters of inquiry. - Nothing you saved is removed, and your matches stay visible. - Saving a grant you already track never counts twice. The Product Home shows where you stand: the **Saved grants** number reads, for example, **4 of 5**, and **Usage** counts the same grants as **Tracked grants**. If your organization is on a Muin plan, your plan's limits apply instead.
What do the grant numbers on the Grant Management Product Home mean?
Owners and admins see your grant numbers on the Product Home. Each number opens the grants behind it. - **Saved grants**: the grants you track. On the free plan it reads, for example, **3 of 5**. Opens **Received Grants**. - **In your pipeline**: grants you have not heard back on yet, with the total amount requested. Opens **Received Grants** filtered to those grants. - **Due in the next 30 days**: applications still to send, at **Identified** or **LOI Submitted**, with a deadline in the next 30 days. Opens the **Grant Calendar**. - **Submitted**: grants at **LOI Submitted**, **Application Submitted** or **Under Review**, waiting on the funder's decision. - **Won**: grants at **Awarded** or later, with the total awarded. - **Matches in your last scan**: how many grants your last scan found and how many are strong fits. Opens **Find grants**. An amount shows **Amount not stated** when none of those grants has one. Below the numbers, a line says what Grant Management has done so far: matches found, grants tracked from your scans and proposal drafts written. On the free plan, a card shows what the paid plan adds and its price. Before your first scan the panel shows three steps instead: run your first scan, track the grants that fit, and your pipeline shows here.
What happens to our saved grants if we cancel Grant Management?
Nothing is deleted. To cancel, open **Products > Grant Management** and click **Stop renewing**. Owners and admins can do this. - Grant Management comes off your next bill. You keep the paid plan until the end of the period you paid for. - Then you go back to the free plan. Every saved grant stays, with its deadlines, proposals and notes. - On the free plan, **Track** and **Add grant** save a new grant only while you have fewer than 5. To ask for a refund, contact Muin support. A refund ends the paid plan right away and you go back to the free plan.
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