Grant management software: Buyer’s guide & top-rated options

Any organization that has applied for and received funding from a foundation or government office can tell you that even the most straightforward grants are logistically complicated. 

The grant writing process alone requires many steps and dedicated tools, but that’s only half the battle. For applicants, you must also effectively manage your grants to continue receiving funding, maintain compliance, strengthen relationships with funders, and build a track record of success. On the other side of the award process, grantmakers must manage application processes, conduct rigorous due diligence, distribute funds to selected organizations, and monitor the impact of their investments.

To accomplish this (and minimize headaches), you'll need the right tools for the job. Nonprofits and grantmakers alike typically use grant management software to organize and streamline the entire grant lifecycle.

If you want to invest in grant management software, you likely have a few questions. Follow along to learn all the essentials you’ll need to make informed decisions for your organization’s grant management efforts.

Why nonprofits use grant management software

First, the basics: Why do nonprofits use grant management software?

Grant management can be complex and involve high stakes. Funders require grant recipients to follow specific rules to ensure funds are being used as intended. 

Grant management software is designed to organize and streamline the data tracking, budgeting, and reporting tasks of grant management. It can greatly simplify the entire process and reduce the chances of harmful errors.

Failing to effectively or properly manage grant funds can result in awarded grants being withdrawn (or required to be repaid), financial and legal issues, reputational damage with funders, donors, partners, and more. But by carefully managing grants with the right approach and tools, nonprofits adhere to their requirements and create positive track records with funders—laying the groundwork for more successful partnerships down the line.

Common challenges of grant management for nonprofits

How exactly does the right software help streamline and simplify the grant management process? The biggest logistical challenges of grant management include:

• Keeping adequate records and documentation related to funded projects and their expenses
• Sticking to proposed and agreed-upon timelines for starting and completing funded projects
• Adhering to deadlines for financial and progress reports and including all required information
• Managing multiple grants and their varied reporting requirements at the same time
• Tracking outcomes and impact of funded projects

Grant management tools can help address all of these challenges by serving as an organized central location for storing information and keeping track of deadlines. From here, the software should allow you to generate reports, create budgets, and perform other essential tasks, all in line with your funder’s specific requirements.

The quality of your grant management toolkit can also play a pivotal role in your ultimate success. Grant managers in a 2024 study noted that inefficient software systems and staffing limitations are major hindrances to effective grant management. Clunky, outdated, or otherwise difficult-to-use software can significantly hold back your ability to maximize the financial, impact, and relationship benefits of winning grants.

Why grantmakers use grant management software

While nonprofits use grant management software to track their awarded funds, grantmakers (such as foundations and government agencies) use these tools to manage the entire lifecycle of their giving programs. A funder’s aim is to move capital efficiently while ensuring that every dollar aligns with their mission and compliance standards.

Common challenges of grant management for grantmakers

Grantmakers typically lean on specialized grant management software to solve the following administrative challenges:

• Centralizing and organizing all applicant documentation and review notes in one secure, searchable location
• Managing review timelines and approval workflows across internal staff, executives, and external boards
• Automating due diligence checks to ensure all candidates meet relevant legal requirements and have an active 501(c)(3) status
• Tracking budget allocations and payouts to schedule and monitor disbursements across different organizations
• Standardizing and aggregating impact data from dozens or hundreds of grantees to measure the overall success of funding programs

By using a dedicated platform, grantmakers can streamline activities like manual data entry and email follow-ups, allowing them to focus on building relationships and maximizing the impact of their giving.

Key features and functions of grant management software

All grant management software that you consider for your nonprofit should cover these three foundational functions:

1. Financial management and budgeting. Keep track of awarded funding and your project’s personnel and non-personnel expenses, indirect costs, and/or matching funds in a single place, customized to your grant’s specific payout timeline and required formats, details, and other requirements.
2. Generating funder-compliant reports. It’s not enough to generate reports on finances and progress—your grant management software should also allow you to customize and configure your reporting workflows and documents to comply with funder requirements.
3. Performance monitoring and impact analysis. Go beyond finances and completion rates to show funders the projected and real impacts of your funded projects in your community. Many grant management tools include impact measurement features, although there are also separate platforms designed specifically to help nonprofits and grantmakers with impact measurement.

Modern grant management software is also likely to include a range of other features like workflow automation, scheduling tools, collaboration and communication tools, and other logistical options. Some platforms also come within wider suites of software and might include grant discovery, research, and writing tools to support the first half of the grant seeking process.

Leading grant management software for nonprofits and grantmakers to consider

Let’s take a look at the leading grant management platforms available today. 

We’ve rounded up some of the most popular and top-rated grant management platforms for nonprofits and grantmakers, based on review aggregator websites G2 and Capterra. This is not an exhaustive list—there are tons of helpful tools out there, but these top picks provide easy options to begin your search. Pay attention to the intended users for each platform (grantmakers vs. grantseekers) since each type is equipped with specialized features.

Top grant software includes:

• Temelio. Designed specifically for grantmakers to manage the entire funding lifecycle, Temelio stands out for its intuitive design, customizability, and easy setup. Streamline your team’s workflow, store comprehensive records with the built-in CRM, strengthen the application experience with messaging tools, automate due diligence with the Candid integration, and monitor impact with powerful reporting dashboards. Think of it as your one-stop shop for managing all your grantmaking activities.
• Bloomerang. This comprehensive database solution includes highly-rated grant management tools. It stands out for its exceptional ease of use, accessible price point, and customer support. However, it isn’t specifically designed for grant management, and users have noted a lack of highly customizable grant management options.
• MemberClicks. This CRM and suite of management tools is designed primarily for associations and membership organizations. Its grant management tools can work well for any organization, but it’s also not built solely for this purpose.
• Instrumentl. This platform offers an “end-to-end grant tracker” with automated workflows and intuitive reporting tools, but its core features are for grant identification and research. Although its website is light on details specific to grant management, Instrumentl is a modern, well-known, and relatively comprehensive platform that can help you cover your bases for effective grant management.
• AmpliFund. Designed to support the complete lifecycles of complex grants, AmpliFund provides heavy-duty grant management features. Some users report that it’s more difficult to use than other solutions, but it’s worth considering, especially for organizations that need to manage major multi-year grants or federal grants.
• Grantseeker. This newer platform offers a full set of basic grant management features at a smaller scale and very affordable price point. It could be an ideal choice for smaller grant programs to handle all the essentials and upgrade with additional features down the road.

Important note: When researching grant management software, it’s important to understand the distinction between platforms designed for grant seekers (various types of nonprofits) and for grantmakers (foundations, government agencies, corporate departments, etc.). Although the features of these tools will overlap to an extent, they’re built to support different needs.

Key consideration: What’s the ROI of grant management software?

You’re researching grant management software and find a few options that look like the right fit for your nonprofit. Great! You’ll weigh many factors before choosing any new tool (we’ll review essential questions to ask about potential tools below). 

However, we recommend considering one critical factor first: the return on investment you can expect from using the new software.

Grant management software is a not-insignificant expense for many organizations. After all, nonprofits invest in their grant seeking and management abilities in order to build capacity and fuel growth. Grant programs usually start with tight budgets and limited resources.

Successful grant programs hinge on organization and sustainability

When seeking and managing grants, organizations must strike the right balance between time and resources invested and funding (or capacity or other intangible benefits) generated—in other words, ROI.

When considering the ROI of grant writing, this is why AI grant writing tools have taken off in popularity in recent years. They help you reduce input (time) while boosting output (completed proposals and won grants). 

The same principle should apply to grant management. 

Think of it this way: Grant management software is an investment that brings both long-term benefits and short-term costs and challenges. It can save you time, reduce costly errors, and help you build stronger relationships to secure more funding in the future, but it costs time and money to acquire and learn to use. You’ll need to understand these upfront costs beforehand so that you can truly make the most of your new software and realize its longer-term ROI.

And improving your grant capabilities is generally a worthwhile investment. For example, a study of a 15-year grant program found that a well-managed financial and development strategy led to improved overall financial growth for the organization. Makes sense—an organized, targeted approach will almost always yield better results over the long run than piecing together priorities as needed.

However, get the balance between grantseeking investment and results wrong, and you’ll create risk for your nonprofit. You might apply for too many grant opportunities without a focused strategy, resulting in time wasted on rejected proposals. If you win many grants but don’t have the capacity to properly manage them, you’ll run into logistical difficulties and potentially harm your organization’s reputation.

Software can help safeguard you from these risks on both the grant writing and grant management sides. However, investing in the wrong tools will inadvertently create new hurdles to maximizing your grant ROI. Software might be misaligned with your needs, too big, too simple, or too complicated to use effectively. 

And while you should certainly consider future growth when choosing new software (that is, tools that are advanced or big for you now but that you realistically plan to grow into), you should also avoid unnecessarily overcomplicating your grant processes. Building overly complex management and compliance workflows can reduce the overall effectiveness of your grant efforts, a common challenge for organizations that rely heavily on federal grants. 

The takeaway: Tools should help you seek and manage grants sustainably, not just add new layers of complexity to your process.

Example cost-benefit analysis for grant management software

You understand the importance of balancing ROI when investing in your grant capabilities. Now, you might ask, “So what? How do I actually use this information to inform my search for grant management tools?” We recommend conducting a quick cost-benefit analysis exercise.

In this exercise, you’ll compare the anticipated cost of the grant management software you’re considering to its expected benefits (in terms of revenue and non-tangible improvements to your work). 

Example scenario: A nonprofit manages multiple grants annually and uses manual processes to track their progress and create reports for funders.

The challenges: The nonprofit’s current approach brings a few key challenges that limit the overall effectiveness of their grant efforts:

• Time. Staff spend roughly 20 hours a week on various grant management tasks.
• Errors. Manual data entry and report generation lead to occasional compliance issues, fees, and delayed reporting to funders.
• Opportunity cost. The team spends so much time managing current grants that they very rarely have the capacity to find and apply for new grants.

Cost analysis: The nonprofit does some research, finds its top choice for new grant management software, and takes a close look at the platform’s pricing and fee structure:

• Initial investment. $5,000 for purchasing the software
• Annual subscription. $2,000/year for ongoing service and maintenance
• Training. $1,000 for one-time staff training sessions
• Total first-year costs. $8,000

Benefit analysis: Next, the nonprofit considers the benefits the new software would provide and attempts to assign them monetary values:

• Time savings. Automation features could save staff an estimated 15 hours of work a week or 780 hours annually.
  
  • Labor cost savings. Assuming an average staff wage of $25/hour, the software’s time savings would free up roughly $19,500 in labor costs each year.
• Error reduction. Eliminating compliance errors would help the nonprofit avoid fines or lost funding, estimated at roughly $3,000 annually based on previous years.
• Increased capacity. With hours freed up, staff could pursue additional grants for the nonprofit’s programs. The nonprofit estimates it could secure an extra $10,000 in funding a year based on available opportunities and the size of its current grants.
• Total annual benefits: $32,500

Net benefit: Finally, the nonprofit compares the costs and benefits for the first year after purchasing and using the new grant management software:

• Total benefits. $32,500
• Total costs. $8,000
• Net benefit. $24,500

Based on this analysis, the nonprofit could see a significant net benefit—meaning the grant management software could be a smart investment that would lead to improved efficiency and increased capacity. 

Note: This is a simple example. You’ll likely want to consider more factors in your own cost-benefit analysis. For instance:

• Will you need to spend on additional services to implement the software or migrate data? 
• Are there other risks, like the software vendor experiencing a security lapse that creates downtime or relationship damage? 
• Or could you see other long-term benefits, like improved staff retention by making their work easier and more productive?

The thoroughness of your cost analysis for grant management software is up to you. We recommend giving it plenty of thought and gathering as much information as you can about potential tools beforehand to help inform your decision.

Essential questions to ask when choosing new grant software

You find one or two grant management platforms that seem like the right fit for your nonprofit. You want to consider their costs and benefits before making a decision—so what should you look for? 

Here is a list of the most important questions to ask when reviewing potential grant software, broken into two categories:

Questions to ask yourself:

• What are our organization’s grant management needs?
• What are our current grant management challenges?
• What are our immediate and long-term grant management goals?
• What’s our current capacity to manage grants without dedicated software?
• What will our grant management capacity look like if we invest in time-saving software?
• What are the most essential features we need?
• What are the nice-to-have but not essential features we want?
• Will we need extra training and support to begin using the software effectively?
• Do we need the software to integrate with other tools we use, like our CRM or accounting software?
• How complex will the implementation process be, and will it require additional technical services? 
• Do we need other tech upgrades or investments, like a CRM, and are there software options that can address both needs?

Questions to ask about potential software vendors:

• What features does the software include?
• What is the software’s cost and payment structure? Does it include recurring subscription fees?
• Does it offer paid upgrades to access particular features?
• Does the vendor offer upfront training resources and support, and are these included?
• Will the software scale with our grant program? That is, do its capabilities have any hard limits relating to the number of grant projects, users, etc.?
• Does the software include robust security and privacy features? Does the vendor have explicit security and privacy policies?
• Does the vendor have a meaningful number of positive reviews from customers?
• Does the software offer any pre-built or easy-to-configure integrations with tools we already use?

These questions should help cover your bases, but it’s never a bad idea to put extra thought into this process when weighing a potential investment. After all, you know your nonprofit's budget, capacity, and goals best!

Trends in grant management software to keep an eye on

Integrated artificial intelligence (AI) features, cutting-edge data analytics, and stellar user experience are all big topics for software built for organizations and companies these days. They often reinforce one another, with AI features enhancing analytics capabilities and the overall user experience. We’re seeing the same trends in grant writing software, too.

The most up-to-date features won’t be fully necessary for every nonprofit, but they can definitely make a difference in your software’s effectiveness and ease of use! Ask your potential vendors about them—you’ll learn more about how they work and whether the software vendor proactively improves its products.

How to strengthen your entire grant workflow

Grant management software can transform your nonprofit’s ability to sustainably secure, keep, and grow its funding over time, leading to stronger finances and more impact for constituents. As for grantmakers, specialized grant software helps streamline the entire grantmaking process and provide greater insight into impact—all while providing a positive experience for applicants.

All in all, grant management software is most effective when your core operations are already running smoothly, whether that means consistently winning grants as a seeker or effectively sourcing high-quality applicants as a funder.

In either case, a cost-benefit exercise could leave you unsure about investing in grant management tools for various reasons (cost, the scale of your needs, your experience level, etc.).

Nonprofits may find more value in first focusing on securing funding by writing stellar grant proposals, then building out their management toolkit. Think of it as starting from the bottom-up rather than top-down. Similarly, grantmakers should ensure their review and communication strategies are clear before layering on automation.

Even well-established grant programs can find ways to improve their grant writing efficiency, creating beneficial ripple effects across the entire process and boosting the value they generate from their grant management tools.

We’ve written extensively on grant writing tools, AI technology for grant writers, and related best practices. Grant Assistant by FreeWill is the leading option for comprehensive AI grant writing functionalities. It unlocks efficiency and impact for nonprofits—customers report that Grant Assistant has cut down their time spent researching and writing proposals to just a third of what they previously spent!

Learn more about Grant Assistant and contact our team with any questions. Or, to keep learning, check out these additional resources from the FreeWill team:

• Webinar: 5 steps to diversify your funding in uncertain times
• AI grant writing tools for nonprofits: The top 15 platforms
• Top 10+ grant writing software picks and supplemental tools
• Can you use AI for grant writing? What you need to know