Select a Grant Management System for the Nonprofit Space

Maintaining consistency and stability in funding to ensure programs and services aren’t hamstrung.
Addressing growing overhead needs for reporting on the progress and success of initiatives you implement as a grantee or are funding as a grantor.
Facilitating collaboration across departments to ensure proper alignment and evaluation of grant opportunities.
Scaling to accommodate greater volume of work in applications received per grant opportunity and applications submitted per grant-seeking organization.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

The right grant management system (GMS) is one that’s fit for purpose. It decreases workload and increases value delivered without adding unnecessary complexity to smaller grant management teams or processes.
Evaluating where your processes can be improved to supplement the new technology benefits will create even greater benefits to the maturity of your grant management capabilities.
Bigger and more feature-rich systems will cost more and present a steeper learning curve for your staff. Don’t spend on functionality that isn't readily adoptable by your team.
After you’ve evaluated individual vendors and their features, be sure to validate (using demo time and independent testimonials) that the system operates as expected holistically. You should be able to see your team’s workflow in the system, not an example team’s workflow.

Impact and Result

Identify priorities and goals by assessing the pain points and opportunities in your current grant management processes.
Survey the landscape and build the case by aligning system features with impact and constructing a business rationale.
Score, validate, and commit to a solution using structured tools to shortlist vendors and confirm fit with your workflows.

Select a Grant Management System for the Nonprofit Space Research & Tools

1. Select a Grant Management System for the Nonprofit Space Deck – Understand your organization's needs within the grant management lifecycle and evaluate grant management solutions to find your ideal features and fit.

The grant management lifecycle is only getting more difficult to navigate as the volume of work steadily increases and capacity becomes constrained. Technology solutions can create great efficiency gains, but only if you find the correct fit for your workflows and needs. This research will help you understand your needs, the features you can target, and the benefits you can expect from a GMS solution and assist with creating a shortlist of the available options.

2. Grant Management System Evaluation and Scoring Tool – Identify the critical features for grant management in your organization and directly compare vendor solutions to create a shortlist.

This tool provides examples of the core features of grant management solutions for both grant-making and grant-seeking organizations. It allows you to define and prioritize the feature sets required to support your grant management lifecycle needs. Populate it with solution information to enable the direct comparison of vendor fit against your needs and competing solutions.

3. Grant Management System Right-Sized Business Case Template – Prioritize the true requirements of your GMS solution by analyzing the business benefits.

Use this streamlined template, populated with example data for GMS selection, to help build a business case for your GMS system and its features. Identify the benefits that will be realized, and use them to target your search.

4. Grant Management Lifecycle Capability Map Template – Map and evaluate your organizational capabilities across the grant management lifecycle.

This template deck provides a structure for your organizational capabilities across the grant management lifecycle. It guides you in evaluating your information and process/technology support and establishing targets for improvement.

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We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst

Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 6 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Guided Implementation 1: Identify Priorities and Goals

Call 1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.
Call 2: Evaluate existing grant management capabilities.
Call 3: Identify People, Process, and Technology (PPT).

Guided Implementation 2: Understand the Solution Landscape

Call 1: Review and select common features and perform benefit rationalization.

Guided Implementation 3: Evaluate Software Options

Call 1: Populate the GMS Evaluation and Scoring Tool.
Call 2: Review top options to determine next steps.

Author

Evan Garland

Contributors

Anonymous Contributor, AVP, Grants, Nonprofit Organization
Anonymous Contributor, Principal Marketing Manager, Enterprise GMS Solution Provider

Search Code: 108634
Last Revised: October 15, 2025

TAGS:

Nonprofit grant software, Nonprofit workflow tools, grant process automation, grant lifecycle, grant making activities, grant seeking activities, grant Technology Strategy, nonprofit technology strategy, nonprofit grant vendors, grant management solutions, grant management features, grant process maturity