10 Essential Grant Management Software Features (and Insider Tips to Use Them)

It’s 4:47 PM on a Friday, and you just realized one of your grant reviewers hasn’t even started their assignment—and today’s the deadline. As you search your emails to see if they said anything earlier, a depressing realization settles in: this program is taking way too much of your time. You’re losing countless hours tracking applications across multiple spreadsheets and managing reviewers through endless email chains.

A fragmented approach and disconnected systems make your work feel overwhelming, but there’s an easier way. With modern grant management software, everything you need to run your program is organized on one platform. We’re going to help you get a jump-start on efficiency with insider tips for leveraging the key features of your grant management software.

Insider Tips for Using Key Grant Management Software Features

Managing a grant program is probably not your full-time job, but one of your many responsibilities. How about some tips for making it go as smoothly as possible? We asked experienced grant managers how they take full advantage of grant management software.

Grant website builder

Create a website that impresses applicants and enhances your program’s credibility—with no coding skills required. Quickly launch your site without the help of the IT team or external web developers.

Pro tips:

• Match your grant website branding—including the header, footer, and fonts—to your association website’s visual design so applicants know they’re in the right place.
• Boost credibility by showcasing past grant recipients on a gallery page along with a description of the impact made by the grant.

Grant application form creation with a drag-and-drop builder

No design skills are required when using a drag-and-drop builder to create forms that collect everything reviewers need. Accept attached files of any size—not always possible with emailed submissions. With conditional logic, your forms show or hide questions based on the applicant’s response.

Pro tips:

• Use conditional logic to ask different questions depending on the grant category selected by the applicant.
• Require applicants to follow a specific naming format for attached files.
• Add “save and return” options after each major section so applicants don’t feel rushed to complete everything in one session.

Multi-round grant reviews

Grant reviews often happen in multiple stages (rounds), with customized criteria for each round. Automatically advance qualified applications to the next round.

Pro tips:

• Maintain program integrity by including a conflict-of-interest screening question at the top of review forms. When a reviewer selects “yes,” the application is automatically removed from their queue and assigned to another reviewer.
• Use simple yes/no scoring in early rounds to quickly eliminate non-qualifying applications before subjective scoring begins.

Progress overview and real-time tracking

Grant program managers rely on dashboards for essential information and oversight. Instantly answer committee questions about applications, reviewer progress, and program status without consulting multiple folders and systems.

Pro tips:

• Set up automated weekly progress reports that are sent to your boss and other people who want updates.
• Use tracking to identify slow reviewers so you can reassign their workload before their procrastination causes a bottleneck.

Grant reporting and analytics

Generate reports in minutes. Export data in whatever format your team, co-workers, and other stakeholders prefer. Readily accessible data helps you spot potential hiccups, highlight successful milestones, and identify trends for improvement.

Pro tips:

• From day one, build year-over-year comparison reports. Even if you only have one year of data, you’ll appreciate having a framework ready to go for stakeholder reports.
• Eliminate manual data entry by creating automated post-award impact surveys that feed back into your reporting system.

Fund tracking

Eliminate the disconnect between program management and financial oversight by monitoring the distribution of funds in the same system where the grant application started.

Pro tips:

• Instead of disbursing funds immediately, set up milestone-based fund release workflows. Release money in stages as grantees meet specific goals.
• Tie fund tracking to these progress reports to create a single source of truth for financial and program accountability.

Email wizard

Keep all grant-related communication on one platform—and out of your overstuffed email inbox. Set up automated communication sequences for applicants and reviewers about deadlines, status updates, reviewing assignments, and reporting requirements.

Pro tips:

• Before launch, map every communication touchpoint from the opening of the submission period to the final report deadline.
• Create copy for each message and let automation handle the delivery.
• Create email response templates for frequently asked questions. Use variable fields to personalize your replies.

Integrations and flowing grant data

Eliminate manual data entry and errors by integrating your grant management platform with your association management system (AMS), customer relationship management (CRM) system, accounting system, GuideStar, and other software.

Pro tips:

• Don’t make members create another username and password. Enable single sign-on by integrating your grant management software with your AMS.
• Connect with your accounting system for fund disbursement. To prevent the finance team from slowing things down, have the grant management software push approved disbursement information to finance rather than finance controlling the grant workflow.
• Integrate with GuideStar to automatically populate organizational data into grant applications.

Mobile accessibility for grant reviewers

With a mobile-friendly platform, volunteer reviewers can access their assignments whenever they have time—during commutes or breaks.

Pro tips:

• Evaluate review forms for mobile optimization.
• Remind reviewers they can use their phones for initial screening and do a deeper evaluation later from their laptops.

Unified platform for all grant-related tasks

The most important feature of all? You can handle all grant management tasks—whether completed by applicants, reviewers, chairs, or administrators—in one centralized solution.

Pro tips:

• Consolidate all grant-related communication within the platform so you have a complete audit trail.
• Use your platform to standardize processes for all grant programs. If flexibility is needed for specific programs, use conditional workflows.

Beyond grants: other uses for your platform

Bonus tip: If you have a multi-purpose platform like OpenWater, encourage co-workers to use it to manage other programs: session proposals, awards programs, abstracts, mentoring programs, volunteer applications, and leadership development programs—anything that requires an application or judging process.

A grant management platform like OpenWater helps you instantly report on impact, run complex workflows, and provide a better experience to both applicants and reviewers.

OpenWater scales with your ambitions. Start with one program, prove the value, and build from there. Get a feel for how OpenWater can help you take your grants program to the next level by signing up for a personalized demonstration with one of our platform experts.

Debbie Willis

Debbie Willis is the VP of Global Marketing at Advanced Solutions International (ASI), the parent company of iMIS, TopClass, OpenWater, and Clowder. She has more than 20 years of marketing experience in the association and nonprofit technology space. Passionate about all things MarTech, Debbie has led countless website, SEO, content, email, paid ad, and social media marketing strategies and campaigns. Debbie loves creating meaningful content to engage and empower association and nonprofit audiences.

Debbie received a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing Information Systems from James Madison University and a Masters of Business Administration in Marketing from The George Washington University. Debbie is a member of Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority and the American Society of Association Executives, and dabbles in photography. She also volunteers on the Marketing Committee for the Association Women Technology Champions.

What’s Next for OpenWater: A First Look at the Future

How to Take Full Advantage of Your Abstract Management Software