The Best Grant Management Software
Get the best grant management software for your business. Compare product reviews, pricing below. Read our buyer's guide for more help.
Securing grant-based funding is an exhausting and complex problem for businesses and nonprofits. You have to sort through thousands of grant opportunities to find ones relevant to you - and when you do find a relevant opportunity, you still have to go through the application process as well as maintain the grantor's requirements post-award.
Your organization needs robust grant management software to aid in grant discovery, application, acquisition, compliance, reporting, and budgeting. Here are our top picks for various types of grant management solutions below:
Best Overall:
AmpliFund
AmpliFund is a donor management system made to help maximize your organization's grant dollars. AmpliFund gives you everything you need to streamline and manage the complete grant lifecycle, configured to your exact needs.
With AmpliFund, you can both amplify your financial impact and achieve your overall mission. This software is designed for grantmakers to ensure the funds you distribute are drawn down properly and grant seekers to maximize your grant dollars while increasing collaboration.
- Find More Fundraising Software Products
Best For Accounting:
Abila MIP
Abila MIP Fund Accounting gives nonprofit organizations the ability to perform grant management, fund accounting, budgeting, human resources management, reporting, and more. With this system, government and NGO agencies alike can make informed decisions, keep organized, and be prepared for audits. MIP is also designed to scale with your organization, so you get continued functionality as your organization grows.
This solution keeps track of all important grant information and documentation, monitors the organization's budget position and forecasts expenditures, and collects budgeting performance data to measure program effectiveness.
Abila MIP can be purchased upfront or leased on a SaaS model, giving you the option for a locally installed or web-based solution based on your organization's needs.
- Find More Nonprofit Accounting Software Products.
Best For Customizing:
Zengine
Zengine by WizeHive streamlines grant management processes through the entire lifecycle of application-based programs for charitable foundations, nonprofits, corporations, educational institutions, and more. Collect and manage funds from grant, scholarship, internship/fellowship, award, and accreditation applications all on one easy-to-use cloud-based platform.
Zengine includes a built-in customer relationship management (CRM) system to track applicants, reviewers, grantees, volunteers, or donors. And the customizable dashboard can be changed to fit your needs.
Best ERP:
Serenic Navigator for NPO
Serenic Navigator for NPO is a comprehensive cloud ERP solution designed for handling the finance of non-profit organizations. A Gold Microsoft Alliance partner for Enterprise Resource Planning, Serenic Software can help you effectively manage the financial affairs of your organization through best practices for these NPO sectors.
Serenic Navigator offers maximum features and functionality, designed to enhance your NPOs complex and unique workflow processes. Serenic is committed to helping customers focus maximum resources on accomplishing the mission.
Best Fund Accounting:
Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT
Financial Edge NXT by Blackbaud is a highly popular nonprofit accounting software option. This solution features grant management tools to reduce the amount of administrative work for your organization. Some of the functionalities include storing and organizing important grant information, and getting notified about upcoming deadlines, reporting, and automating reimbursement billing.
Intuitive, reliable, and secure, Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT can help streamline financial processes at your organization, so you can spend more time and resources to drive your mission forward. And it comes on a fast, secure cloud platform.
What Does Grant Management Software Do?
Grant management software helps automate and manage nearly all administrative processes related to grant funding, from grant discovery to status tracking to post-award reporting. Grant management systems can be used by either grantseekers or grantmakers to streamline the entire funding process with access to databases, grant application templates, document management, and automated deadline notifications.
Grant management software is most often used by:
- Nonprofit organizations
- Government agencies
- Research centers
- Universities and other educational institutions
Yet grant funding isn't as easy as receiving or sending a check. Both grantseekers and funders have to carefully manage the process to ensure compliance with the grantmaking process.
What is the Grant Management Process?
There are three main stages of the grant lifecycle: pre-award, award, and post-award. The majority of work during the grantmaking process depends on whether you are a grantseeker or grantor.
- Pre-award: An individual, organization, or company sets aside funds for competitive/merit, formula, continuation, or pass-through funding based on pre-award research efforts. On the side of grantseekers, pre-awards begin when a financial need of the organization is identified. They begin searching for applications for available grants which meet this need specifically or grantmakers who are open to various ideas.
- Awards: Seekers fill out applications and additional information to the grantmakers for consideration. Submission management allows funders to organize incoming applications. A review process ensures the grantseeker(s) meet all eligibility requirements. Awards are then determined and grantseekers are paid the predetermined funds.
- Post-award: Grants administration can range from generic follow-up reports to thorough audits to ensure stakeholders that the funding was used appropriately. Recipients may need to compile a project management report detailing how they used the funds.
Without software, there are a lot of ways this process can go wrong. These points were reported as the most frustrating parts of the grant management process among public sector and nonprofit organizations:
Fortunately, user-friendly grant management software can help your organization avoid these frustrations with these popular features:
Popular Features of Grant Management Systems
- Grant Database
- Grant Application Templates
- Document Management
- Deadline Notifications
- Post-Award Reporting
- Grantor Compliance Management
Best Grant Management Software Benefits
- Find more applicable grants faster. With a database full of thousands of small to large, federal and non-federal grants programs, a proper grant management system can narrow down the search based on your needs and funding criteria.
- Improve document management and organization. Grant management systems make it easier to upload and store important documentation such as application templates, financial statements, reporting data, and contact information for current, past, and potential grantors.
- Streamline communication and information sharing between departments and individuals. Users can check for grants across departments to ensure the organization has not submitted duplicate applications and can avoid accepting duplicate awards. No more sharing spreadsheets!
- Track application statuses. Easily see the status of every grant application submitted.
- Save time on grant writing and the submission of application forms. Create, modify, and store templates for grant applications to save time on writing future applications.
- Get notified of important deadlines. Grant management software can send alerts about important upcoming deadlines, so your staff won't miss an important meeting or forget to submit an application by its due date.
Grant Management Pricing Details
How much grantseekers and funders should spend on grant management software depends on the size of the organization, as well as what functionality is expected out of the system. As your organization grows, you'll want a grant management system to scale with your operations. A grant management system can help increase the number of grants without adding too much more administrative work. If you need more complex systems in place, you will have to pay more. Grant management software pricing can range from below $3,000 to over $200,000 per year.
More Nonprofit Systems to Consider
Nonprofits, universities, and other institutions utilizing grant management systems may benefit from these additional software solutions:
- Nonprofit Accounting Software
- Fundraising Software
- Donor Management Software
- Fund Accounting Software
- Church Accounting Software
