How to report on your grant

Progress reports help us to understand how projects are progressing, allow us to see trends that could affect our funding programmes and are part of our due diligence.

We always like to hear from you about how your project is progressing and to understand any challenges you’re facing.

Here we outline how to report on your grant from Wolfson and the information you need to include. This reporting process is for grants awarded through our direct capital funding programmes for places. If you receive funding through one of our partnership programmes, you will normally report in a different way.

When to submit your report

We ask for an update on your project by 30 April and 31 October every year until your grant has been fully claimed. If you have difficulty in submitting before the deadline, please get in touch with your Programme Manager or Programme Officer, or grants@wolfson.org.uk. 

We will email a reminder to the primary contact for the grant when it’s time to report.

You can submit your report via our online application system and the report form will be available in your account at the beginning of April and October.

We moved to a new online application system in May 2025, provided by Blackbaud. If you have a Blackbaud login already from your application to us or another funder, or another Blackbaud product, you can use that login to sign in to the link above. If not, you can create a new account by selecting ‘create account’ on the bottom right of the login screen. Please note that Blackbaud’s system is also referred to as ‘GrantsConnect’ and ‘Your Cause’.  

For more information on creating an account, see our guidance on using our online application system. 

We know things may change, so if your primary contact for the grant has changed since you last submitted a report – or submitted your application, if it is your first report – please get in touch with us to confirm that the account for our online application system is set up for the right person.

How to report

You can submit your report via our online application system.

You will receive an email reminder to report on your grant, so just click the link to log into our system. 

If you work with colleagues on reporting, you can invite colleagues to review and edit the form before you submit. Click on the ‘manage applicants’ link at the top right of the form and follow the instructions. Your colleague will receive an email from noreply@yourcause.com titled ‘Invitation to GrantsConnect’, and they will need to create an account to view or edit. You can also download a PDF of the form using the ‘download’ button. 

You can make as many edits to the form as you need before you submit it. 

We want our reporting process to be light touch and don’t want it to duplicate the work you do. If you would rather submit your progress report in your own format – for example a report that you have prepared for another funder – please email it to grants@wolfson.org.uk. Please check that your update includes all the information we ask for below.

What to include in a progress report

We see our grant making as a partnership, so we want you to feel that you can be honest with us about what is going well, and what might be more challenging.

We ask you to provide detail on the following:

• Project progress: give us a brief update on the current stage of the capital works and key developments over the past six months, including any significant changes to the project. This should be focussed on the works your Wolfson grant is supporting but you can include the context of the wider project.

• Timetable: provide details of the key stages of the project, including when each stage is due to start and end. You should also make sure you include the latest estimated project completion date and, if different, the date the facilities will be opened or start being used.

• Financial details: provide the current estimated project cost, current shortfall and fundraising plan, including any funding pledged and pending decisions. If there have been significant changes to the project cost, please provide a brief explanation and outline how any increase in the shortfall is being met.

• Claim date: tell us the month and year you expect to claim your grant. Unless we have agreed with you a different payment schedule, you should claim your grant as a single instalment. We understand that delivery timetables for capital projects can change. In most cases we are happy to agree changes to grant claim dates which fall within two years of the date of your Letter of Award. If you would like to request an extension, please briefly explain the change and provide a new proposed grant claim date for us to consider.

Not all fields in the form may be relevant. If this is the case, please enter n/a.

Photos

We are interested in photos that tell the story of your project, particularly where they show people interacting with each other or using the facilities or equipment. You can upload these with your progress report.

We may want to share photos from the projects we fund on our website or on social media. Please indicate if you give permission for us to do this, and remember to include any photo credits.

If you have any questions about what to include in your report, you can get in touch with us, either via your Programme Manager or Programme Officer or grants@wolfson.org.uk.

Keeping us up to date

Outside of our April and October reports, we appreciate that you might need to get in touch with us with an update on the project and we are always happy to hear from you.

If there are major milestones like breaking ground, reaching a fundraising target, opening a building or installing key equipment, or significant changes to the project that don’t fall within one of our reporting months, do get in touch.

Or, if there is a change in the primary contact for the grant, please do share the new contact details.

Final report

After your grant has been fully claimed, you don’t need to submit updates every six months but please do keep in touch to let us know about major milestones.

Once your project has been completed and your grant has been claimed, you should submit a final report within one year of the project’s completion.

You can download the final progress report form and email us a completed copy.

Or, if you would prefer to use your own format for a final report, please email us a copy. Again, we’d ask you to make sure that your report includes the information that we ask for in the template.

Find out more about reporting.

First photo by Unseen Studio on Unsplash.