The Wacky World of Grants Management
These days, I'm thinking a lot about software to manage grant making processes. We’re working on a large project – including a survey, many interviews, and vendor research – to create a “consumer’s guide” to grants management software and an overview of gaps and issues in the market.
(By the way, do you work for an organization that MAKES grants? Please take our survey, to help in the research: http://www.performanceleaders.com/?grantsmgt)
One of the initial stages for us is to try to get a sense of what’s out there. There’s far more research to come, but here’s my initial impressions of what grant management software is out there. This software is designed to help foundations manage and review incoming grant applications, track reporting requirements and outgoing payments for grantees, and create the many communications and reports needed throughout the process.
MicroEdge GIFTS is the 800 lb gorilla in the space, with a huge majority of the market share among large foundations. There's several levels, but all are powerful, expensive and complex installed packages, designed for organizations that have dedicated grants management staff that do much of the data entry and reporting from the system.
There are several web-based tools, also geared towards the large foundation space. Cybergrants, Easygrants, and FoundationSource are all in this space, but these tools put together have only a small fraction of GIFTS’ market share.
It’s not as clear what’s available for smaller foundations. Bromelkamp offers several levels of their Pearl products, geared to suit a gamut of small to large foundations. These products are installed applications. PhilanTrack offers a small foundation solution, though they are very new, and it’s unclear how many foundations, if any, are using it. Community TechKnowledge (CTK) also offers a package in this realm, which has some uptake among United Ways.
Some of the packages cater to particular audiences. For instance, JK Group works with corporate grant makers (Cybergrants is mostly focused on this space as well).
Community foundations have a large set of additional needs, which means that most need specialized grants management software. In addition to paying out grants, community foundations need to fundraise themselves. Often, money raised is devoted to restricted funds, which makes for very complicated tracking and accounting requirements to manage both money in and money out of dozens or even hundreds of funds. There’s a set of packages geared towards these needs: MicroEdge makes FIMS (formerly NPOSolutions) and Foundation Power; Bromelkamp makes Community Pearl. I believe that FusionLab's GrantedGE is also geared towards community foundations.
There’s a few people beginning to use Salesforce in the grants management space. It’s an interesting fit – Salesforce is a fairly powerful hosted tool geared towards companies who manage sales to other companies. It’s quite configurable, however, and has gotten a substantial amount of traction in the nonprofit world (thanks in no small part to the fact that Salesforce donates up to 10 licenses for free to nonprofits). As grants management is, at least superficially, about managing data and workflow around organizations, just as corporate sales are, my initial instinct is that it might work very well. Foundations would need to customize it, but this would be offset by the lack of license fees.
There’s a lot of additional packages, but I don’t have a good sense yet as to how they fit into the space. For instance, there’s ChesterCAP, Foundant Technologies, PowerOFFICE, Bamboo Solutions, FreeBalance, and Grantium (formerly Infoterra)
This long list is particularly puzzling as a number of those we’ve interviewed have told us there are very few packages available – that MicroEdge (with GIFTS and FIMS) has nearly a monopoly hold on the market. Are many of these packages used by very few foundations (and if so, how are they still in business)? Or are there perhaps different silos of the foundation world that don’t have much software cross-pollination, and we’ve been talking to people within a single silo? There’s a lot more research yet to be done!
Do you have thoughts or insight into the world of grants management software? I’d love to hear from you, either in the comments here or at laura@idealware.org
(By the way, do you work for an organization that MAKES grants? Please take our survey, to help in the research: http://www.performanceleaders.com/?grantsmgt)
One of the initial stages for us is to try to get a sense of what’s out there. There’s far more research to come, but here’s my initial impressions of what grant management software is out there. This software is designed to help foundations manage and review incoming grant applications, track reporting requirements and outgoing payments for grantees, and create the many communications and reports needed throughout the process.
MicroEdge GIFTS is the 800 lb gorilla in the space, with a huge majority of the market share among large foundations. There's several levels, but all are powerful, expensive and complex installed packages, designed for organizations that have dedicated grants management staff that do much of the data entry and reporting from the system.
There are several web-based tools, also geared towards the large foundation space. Cybergrants, Easygrants, and FoundationSource are all in this space, but these tools put together have only a small fraction of GIFTS’ market share.
It’s not as clear what’s available for smaller foundations. Bromelkamp offers several levels of their Pearl products, geared to suit a gamut of small to large foundations. These products are installed applications. PhilanTrack offers a small foundation solution, though they are very new, and it’s unclear how many foundations, if any, are using it. Community TechKnowledge (CTK) also offers a package in this realm, which has some uptake among United Ways.
Some of the packages cater to particular audiences. For instance, JK Group works with corporate grant makers (Cybergrants is mostly focused on this space as well).
Community foundations have a large set of additional needs, which means that most need specialized grants management software. In addition to paying out grants, community foundations need to fundraise themselves. Often, money raised is devoted to restricted funds, which makes for very complicated tracking and accounting requirements to manage both money in and money out of dozens or even hundreds of funds. There’s a set of packages geared towards these needs: MicroEdge makes FIMS (formerly NPOSolutions) and Foundation Power; Bromelkamp makes Community Pearl. I believe that FusionLab's GrantedGE is also geared towards community foundations.
There’s a few people beginning to use Salesforce in the grants management space. It’s an interesting fit – Salesforce is a fairly powerful hosted tool geared towards companies who manage sales to other companies. It’s quite configurable, however, and has gotten a substantial amount of traction in the nonprofit world (thanks in no small part to the fact that Salesforce donates up to 10 licenses for free to nonprofits). As grants management is, at least superficially, about managing data and workflow around organizations, just as corporate sales are, my initial instinct is that it might work very well. Foundations would need to customize it, but this would be offset by the lack of license fees.
There’s a lot of additional packages, but I don’t have a good sense yet as to how they fit into the space. For instance, there’s ChesterCAP, Foundant Technologies, PowerOFFICE, Bamboo Solutions, FreeBalance, and Grantium (formerly Infoterra)
This long list is particularly puzzling as a number of those we’ve interviewed have told us there are very few packages available – that MicroEdge (with GIFTS and FIMS) has nearly a monopoly hold on the market. Are many of these packages used by very few foundations (and if so, how are they still in business)? Or are there perhaps different silos of the foundation world that don’t have much software cross-pollination, and we’ve been talking to people within a single silo? There’s a lot more research yet to be done!
Do you have thoughts or insight into the world of grants management software? I’d love to hear from you, either in the comments here or at laura@idealware.org
Subscribe through Feedburner
6 Comments:
Hi laura, Interesting blog! The grants management software world certainly is changing. This, in actuality, is a great thing for foundations as they can find solutions that suit their specific needs.
In answer to your comment regarding Grantium and where it fits into the overall space; Grantium is a software company that is focused on developing Enterprise Grants Management (EGM) software for the web-based delivery of single and complex grants and funding initiatives. Grantium solutions are normally selected by large corporate foundations and not for profit agencies, as well as federal and state departments.
Grantium solutions are excellent for foundations and granting agencies that are looking to optimize efficiency and accountability in their programs. They are highly configurable and deployable and have been developed to streamline the grants management process from end-to-end accurately advertising, publishing, managing, tracking and reporting on public funds.
Let me know if you have any other questions, I’d be happy to answer them. Zoe Hawa, Grantium Inc.
Laura, Thanks for your research on this. Cayuse is a software company that lives upstream in the grants lifecycle. Cayuse424 is used by public and private research institutions to create and submit grant proposals to Grants.gov. It is not an end-to-end solution, but the proposal data is exported to other downstream reporting and tracking systems. It is an applicant solution, rather than a foundation solution.
I wasn't sure if this part of the puzzle fit into your research, but I wanted to send you basic info. Please feel free to contact me if I can answer any questions. Thanks!
Grants management is as much a nonprofit grantee interest as it is for grant makers. I would love to see more information on grant management software solutions more focused on grant recipients. Currently our grant management functions and information is fragmented throughout the organization and having a software solution to at least bring the information together would be a huge step in the right direction.
Thanks and keep up the good work!
-Brett
Brett,
I agree completely that grants management is as much a grantee interest as it is a funder interest. In addition to having fragmented information across the organization, a lot of nonprofits also face the challenge of having to meet different funder requirements in different formats for each grant or proposal. To put some numbers to the scope of the problem, the Center for Effective Philanthropy published a report that concluded that, on average, 13% of every foundation grant dollar is spent on grants administration. Sector-wide, that's $5 billion per year spent on grants administration. While some grants administration expenses are clearly necessary, reducing the time and resources spent on grants administration facilitates dedicating more resources to the programs and services the grants are meant to fund.
PhilanTech created the PhilanTrack online grants management system in part to address exactly this issue. PhilanTrack meets the grants management needs of foundations, and also addresses nonprofits' grants management needs, thereby streamlining the process and enabling more grant funds to be spent on the programs and services they are intended to support. PhilanTrack is loosely modeled on the common application in the university setting, but takes into account that agreement between foundations on what questions to ask and how to ask them is hard to come by. PhilanTrack enables each foundation to ask the questions it wants to ask of its grantees and prospective grantees, while enabling grantees to easily reuse common information without having to retype information, regardless of the number of proposals, grants, and progress reports the nonprofit is managing.
We'll be happy to talk with – and work with – any foundations, associations, and nonprofits interested in streamlining the grants management process for both foundations and nonprofits to help focus as many resources as possible on mission-related activities.
Dahna Goldstein
Founder, PhilanTech
Bromelkamp Company certainly appreciates your grants management solution showcase. As you may know, we've been providing solutions to Grantmakers for over 30 years.
I'd like to mention that we also offer many companion pieces to enhance your Pearl experience; including eGrant.net, our online grant and scholarship application. All of our software can be customized to your needs. Contact bennett@bromelkamp.com for more information.
Thanks again.
Hi Laura,
I just wanted to let you know about our
AIMS Grant Management Software .
It's a browser based solution and has proven very popular with Government Agencies & Councils responsible for Grant Reviewing & Administration.
For more information check the website www.totalaims.com
Post a Comment
<< Home