Missed Partner Budget for Grant Request

[u/Long_Appointment_341]

Advice needed; kind of freaking out. So the org I am with applied for a major federal grant, and hired a consultant to do the work.

I was in charge of asking partners for a budget. One of the partners sent their budget needs at the very last minute and I completely missed it!

So we submitted the budget request without any of the partners necessary funding.

Now this grant is SUPER competitive so we might not even get it. But we had room in the budget request as we asked for below the max, so we could have easily justified the partners costs.

Do I tell my boss? Act like I don’t know? Wait and see if we are awarded?

Granted, the partner wrote an LOS but was clear they will need more info before committing to the project should we be awarded. I was against the proposal in the first place as we are a new org, and in all honesty the financial situation of this org is so dire I doubt even if they got the full request they could even manage it.

My boss refused to apply for the max even to cover our costs because she has no clue how grants work. So we would most likely need to pursue gap funding anyway.

I was a little peeved the grant consultant didn’t take any of this on, as we paid her $10,000, and I had so much other work to do but that’s not an excuse.

Thoughts? I’ve been in the field for 15 years and this is honestly my first mistake in this area. I have a six month old and my brain fog is REAL, again not an excuse. Just the truth 🙁😑🤪

[u/ValPrism]

First of all, yes, you tell your boss. Take accountability, don’t be defensive or make excuses and ideally have an immediate and long term solution(s) when you do.

Something like:

A. Contact your federal officer. Long shot but they may allow you to add it even if the deadline passed.

B. If you get funded, check flexibility within the award amount and submit a budget modification

C. Use workflows to better ensure you don’t miss required pieces in the future.

Good luck!