The OpenWater Blog

What Does a Cloud-Based Grant Management System Do?

What you need to know about a Cloud-based Grant Management System

You hear it all the time – “time to switch to a Cloud-Based Grant Management System” – but what does it really mean to take your Grant Program digitally?

1. On-Premises vs. Cloud-Based Management

Before Cloud-based Management became a viable option, most grants were administered using on-premises applications that applicants completed on-site or mailed into a point-person within the organization – which often led to a lot of missing applications that never made it onto the reviewers’ pile. Cloud-based grant management seeks to prevent inefficiencies that result from this kind of manual processing. Data loss ends up becoming a massive headache for many grant-giving organizations at the end of the year when they renew their compliance, and leaves many grant administrators thinking – there’s got to be a better way than this.

2. Why Everyone is Switching to a Cloud-Based Grant Management Tool

In an annual industry forecast paper published on the state of philanthropy and social economy for the year 2017, the governing body emphasizes how much the infrastructure of grant-giving is going digital. While issues like data privacy become a point of contention in a world like ours, the advantage grant-givers gain in terms of centralization, outreach, and costs saved, far outweigh the costs.

3. What Administrators new to Cloud-Based Grant Management should know

In the process of transitioning to an online Grant Management Tool, keeping the interface simple and easy to follow is going to be important. For applicants who may still be used to the old way of applying to grants, minimizing the shock involved in this transition is going to be crucial in ensuring your success. However, the software should still be robust enough to support mobile features, a customizable landing page, an admin portal that allows for strong analytics – these are all things to keep in mind when choosing a new Cloud-based Grant Management Partner.

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