Nonprofit contract management carries everything an ordinary small business has plus two things that make the record matter more. Grants and funding agreements come with conditions and reporting obligations attached, and a board or a funder can ask what was agreed and when. That combination means the same repository does more work here: it is not only where the agreement lives, it is where the answer to a funder's question comes from. This page covers what to record, what auditors and funders tend to ask for, and where general software falls short.
The three kinds of agreement a nonprofit is holding at once
Ordinary supplier agreements, the same as any organisation. Grant and funding agreements, which bring conditions, reporting dates and restrictions on how money is used. And service or partnership agreements with other organisations, often with obligations flowing both ways. The second kind is the one general contract software handles least well, because its obligations are dated deliverables rather than payment terms, and they arrive on a schedule somebody has to hit.
What to record on a grant or funding agreement
Everything you would record on any contract, plus the reporting dates, what each report has to contain, any restriction on the use of funds, and the person here responsible for each. Those are obligations in the ordinary sense and belong on the record as dated items with owners. A funding agreement whose reporting schedule lives only in the original PDF will be met late at least once.
What a funder or an auditor tends to ask for
A copy of the executed agreement, evidence that the reporting obligations were met on time, and confirmation of what the agreement permitted. All three are answerable in minutes from a record and painfully from a drive. This is the practical reason a nonprofit benefits from putting agreements on a record earlier than a comparable business would.
What to require of software, and what to refuse
Require the same four things as any small organisation: dates as fields, filing by counterparty, obligations with owners, and export in one action. Refuse per-seat pricing, because in a nonprofit the finance lead, the programme manager and often a trustee all need to see an agreement, and paying per head for that is exactly backwards. TermsBird Pro is $12.41 a month for the whole organisation.
Questions people ask about contract management software for nonprofits
What does nonprofit contract management need that a business does not?
Grant and funding agreements with dated reporting obligations and restrictions on use of funds, and the likelihood that a funder or auditor will ask you to evidence both.
Do nonprofits need specialised contract software?
Usually not. What matters is that obligations can be recorded as dated items with owners, which general repositories do. Grant management systems are a different product aimed at the programme side.
How should grant reporting dates be tracked?
As obligations on the funding agreement's record, each with a person and a due date, not as a separate calendar that drifts from the agreement it came from.
What should nonprofit contract software cost?
Flat rather than per person, because several roles need access. Anything priced per seat gets expensive precisely where a nonprofit needs openness.