The Ultimate Guide to Grants Management Software

Grant management is a hot mess if you’re using a mixed bag of unintegrated tools, like spreadsheets, emails, siloed databases, and paper-based systems. These time-consuming manual processes make errors and oversights more likely. They also discourage the repeat participation of volunteer reviewers.

Boards and donors usually don’t realize how long it takes for you to pull and organize the data needed for reports. A mishmash of systems makes transparency difficult, which increases the complexity of compliance and audits. Expanding your grants program is unrealistic without a more efficient system.

💻What Is Grants Management Software?

Associations and foundations use grants management software to centralize and manage the entire grant lifecycle, from promoting grant opportunities, to organizing and reviewing applications, and awarding and tracking funds.

Grants management software facilitates a more strategic approach to grants management. Replace inefficient processes with best practices, automated workflows, and more control and visibility over the grant lifecycle. Even if you award only a handful of grants now, grants management software helps you establish a streamlined, transparent system that grows with your funding and program volume.

🔎What to look for in grants management software

Put these key functions of grants management software on your checklist. These features automate and eliminate many administrative tasks so your team can shift focus to more worthwhile work.

• Customizable online application forms. Building application forms for grant applicants is a cinch. In the grantee portal, applicants securely submit, without errors, all the information required to apply for a grant along with supporting documentation.
• Application tracking. With data and documents consolidated in one place, your team can conveniently check the status of applications throughout the grant lifecycle.
• Reviewer portal. Reviewers log in and review, score, and comment on their assigned applications—all in one place. Set up single or multiple rounds of reviews and customize review criteria for each program.
• Email communication. Right from the platform, send individual or group emails and schedule automated emails for applicants and reviewers about deadlines, status updates, reviewing assignments, and reporting requirements.
• Funds management. Take care of approvals, notifications, fund disbursements, and reports.
• Advanced analytics and reporting. Pull data and reports that show the transparency and impact of your grants program to your organization’s executives, board members, donors, and other stakeholders.

💥The impact of grants management software

Polished visuals with little effort. Create custom-branded portals for applicants and reviewers that match the branding of your organization’s website. No technical chops are required to use a no-code drag-and-drop form builder, like OpenWater’s. Forms use conditional logic so applicants can proceed smoothly through the fields.

Time savings with everything in one place, finally. Application, review, communication, and fund disbursement processes and documents all reside on one platform. Consolidating and automating tasks saves time for everyone involved.

Single source of truth. No matter how many applications you receive, data and document overwhelm is never an issue. Grants management software is your single source of truth. Data is not stored on someone’s cloud or drive. Instead, data is accessible to anyone with permission who needs it. At a glance, see all open grant opportunities or the status of a specific submission, and track outreach, follow-ups, and disbursements.

User-friendly application and review portals. Busy grant applicants can save their work and return to the form later, upload documents, and reference grant guidelines and FAQ.

An intuitive, streamlined review process encourages volunteers to sign up for reviewing again—a boon during this time of dwindling interest in volunteering. Give busy volunteers “an efficient and easy tool that lets them decide on grant awards without having to reach out to staff for additional support.” That’s what the American-Scandinavian Foundation did when they chose OpenWater grants management software. It made their reviewers’ assignments “much much easier.”

With fewer questions coming in from applicants and reviewers, staff can shift their focus from technical support to more strategic work like outreach to prospective applicants or relationship-building with prospective donors and sponsors.

Improved communication and collaboration. Organizations use grants management software to automatically:

• Share instructions and deadlines with applicants and reviewers
• Follow up on incomplete applications
• Notify reviewers about their assignments
• Send awards notifications to applicants
• Schedule emails to grant recipients when reports are due

Enhanced analytics and reporting. Because grants management software integrates with association management systems, customer relationship management systems, and accounting systems, all grant-related data is at your fingertips. Track outreach, follow-ups, and disbursements from one screen.

A centralized platform brings transparency to the grant-making process, helps build trust with funders, and facilitates audit preparation. Pull data for board, donor, and stakeholder reports that demonstrate progress toward goals and measure the impact of contributions.

Scalability. Grants management software allows you to grow your program with ease—and without adding additional staff. Multi-purpose software, like OpenWater, also helps you manage awards programs, scholarships, conference session proposals, and abstract submissions

✅Next steps in choosing grants management software

Gather your project team. To gain buy-in and ease your workload, meet with everyone on staff who’s involved in the grants-making process, including accounting, IT, marketing, and other departments. Discuss the challenges of your current processes and the benefits that new software will deliver.

Make a business case. Get budget approval for new software by highlighting the risks and challenges inherent in your current “system.” Contrast those negatives with the improvements and opportunities made possible by grants management software.

Select the best software. First, assess your organization’s needs, including integration requirements. After research and discussions with your professional network, send your request for proposal (RFP) to three companies. Develop a standard set of follow-up questions and a script for product demos. Talk to each company’s current clients about support, implementation, and the product itself.

Prepare for implementation. Before selecting a partner, learn how they handle implementation, licensing, training, data migration, and ongoing support, along with any associated costs.

When researching grants management software, look for platforms that colleagues can use to manage session proposals, abstracts, and awards programs. Many organizations also rely on OpenWater to help them manage mentoring programs, volunteer applications, and leadership development programs—anything that requires an application or judging process.

🌊Get a feel for how OpenWater can help you manage your grants program by signing up for a personalized demonstration with one of our platform experts. 🌊

Debbie Willis

Debbie Willis is the VP of Global Marketing at ASI, with over 20 years marketing experience in the association and non-profit 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 non-profit 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, American Society of Association Executives and dabbles in photography.

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