If your organization receives funding from various sources—federal, state, local governments, or private foundations—keeping up with different procurement requirements can feel overwhelming. However, it doesn’t have to be if you have the right strategy for developing your policies.

Many funders share similar core principles for procurement, such as ensuring fair competition, requiring competitive bidding, and avoiding conflicts of interest. The key to streamlined compliance is to establish these common principles first, creating a solid framework that applies to every procurement. Once this foundation is in place, you can layer on funder-specific guidance to address the nuances of each funding source without complicating your core processes.

Below is a simple three-step process to help you build a compliant and adaptable procurement system that works across the board.

 1. Start with the Uniform Guidance Standards as Your Baseline

The UG procurement standards cover essential policy principles such as standardized methods of procurement, fair competition, transparency, and conflict of interest. These core principles form the backbone of your policies and ensure you’re adhering to best practices for fair and open procurement.

Start by ensuring that your procurement policies fully align with the Uniform Guidance. This means reviewing your current policies to confirm incorporate all of the appropriate standards. Using a policy gap analysis tool like the one included in our Procurement Toolkit ensures this process is both thorough and efficient.

Once your policies are compliant with these federal standards, you’ll have a solid foundation of core principles that can be applied to all procurements—whether funded by federal, state, local, or private sources.

2. Use Supplements for Funder-Specific Requirements

Once your core policies are in place, the next step is to identify funder-specific requirements. Many state, local, and private funders have unique requirements. But instead trying to solve for every scenario in your core policies, it’s more efficient to create appendices or supplements that outline these differences. This approach keeps your core policies intact and consistent while still allowing flexibility to meet unique funder needs.

For example, a state funder might require a preference for local vendors, or a private foundation might impose limits on indirect costs. By including these additional requirements in supplements, your staff can easily reference the relevant funder-specific policies without disrupting your standard procurement process. This not only simplifies compliance but also makes it easier for employees to stay consistent in how they apply the core policies.

When done correctly, this structure ensures that the fundamentals of procurement remain the same across the board, creating more consistency for your team while allowing them to adapt quickly to specific funder rules when necessary.

 3. Train Your Team on Core Policies

After establishing your baseline policies and creating funder-specific supplements, the final key to success is ensuring your team is fully trained. Your staff needs to understand and apply the core procurement policies consistently, regardless of funding source. By emphasizing the Uniform Guidance as the baseline in your training, you’ll help your team internalize the core principles of procurement compliance.

Once your team is familiar with these baseline policies, they can then refer to the appendices or supplements to handle any unique requirements from state or private funders. This approach minimizes confusion, reduces errors, and ensures smoother compliance across all funding streams.

Regular training sessions are crucial to reinforce both the core policies and how to reference and apply the funder-specific supplements. This not only keeps everyone on the same page but also helps your team navigate procurement processes more efficiently and confidently, reducing the risk of non-compliance.

Shave off Weeks to Get Your Policies Compliant

Our recently launched UG Procurement Compliance Toolkit makes it easy to build core policies that align with the 2024 Uniform Guidance procurement standards. With ready-to-use tools, step-by-step guidance, and a best practice playbook, you'll have everything you need to create solid, compliant policies with ease.