3BL Media's content distribution platforms and Brand Studio promote the environmental, social, governance (ESG) initiatives of companies, nonprofits and NGOs.
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Submittable
Score 8.9 out of 10
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Submittable offers tools to launch, measure, and grow social impact programs, locally and globally. From grants and scholarships to awards and CSR programs, Submittable partners with users to make a difference. The vendor states Submittable has supported over 95,000 social impact programs, receiving nearly 20 million applications, and that teams save an average of 12 hours per week and launch in an average of 14 days.
I would (and do) recommend 3BL Professional to any company/org trying to expand the reach of it's CR programs. Often communications is how we justify the budget for our program work (communications help us increase brand reputation, reach potential employees, reach investors and ESG analysts). The 3BL platform is an incredible way to get your impacts and initiatives out to the world so that people know about the incredible programs you're running. Would recommend for any CR/ESG/Sustainability team.
Submittable is really great for the core service of what it is designed for: providing a platform for applications to be reviewed across time and distance. The fees are competitive when compared with some services. At the same time, for those organizations that only receive a few applications, or which are looking to save money, there are other methods of accomplishing the same goal. My recommendation to any group would turn on their specific needs and resources
Could use detailed description of difference between page views and impressions and how these are differently experienced by people who could see the content on various channels
It would help to know a ballpark figure of impressions served up by Reuters, AP and other services that pickup 3BL content
It would help if quarterly reporting could track with our fiscal year quarters instead of calendar year quarters
Advanced reporting is far from advanced. There are SO many limitations and the need to manually do so many things in order to get the report structure you want, and it is not intuitive. The reporting is by far the most frustrating thing about Submittable and actually adds on staff time instead of cutting it down.
PDFs of submissions should include all supplemental files uploaded in the submission. You should not have to do massive exports with zip files and then merge everything manually to get one PDF of submitted content for simplified records or sharing.
We should be able to see the account emails and names of individuals who have started a draft submission. In our former system (GIFTS online via Blackbaud), we could see that information and could reach out personally to applicants to ensure they didn't miss deadlines and could remove emails from our reminder communications from those we knew already submitted and simply opened up an accidental additional draft. When we send reminders in Submittable to draft submissions, without fail, we get 5-10 people who reach out and are upset because they already submitted but think this means they didn't, regardless of how we word the email and tell them they may have an extra draft if they think they already submitted.
You should be able to simply build one report in whatever format you need and be able to switch between different projects that use the same exact form fields. My team has the same exact form used for nine different grant programs because they are the same programs, just for different local communities, but we have to build out the same report manually each cycle for each community.
I don't see how we could continue to operate our program without Submittable. It is also the industry standard - our submitters are used to and familiar with the platform. We put a lot of work into transitioning from a mail-in submission model to a Submittable-supported one and it just wouldn't make sense to "go back."
Again, Submittable is familiar to me and to many within the industry - how to use it both as an applicant and as a developer. We tested the application with users on mobile phones, pads, and desktops, and it works on all platforms reasonably well. For those who are new to the process and online applications, the platform is intimidating and does discourage participation from certain generations, those who have not had formal education with computers, and non-native English speakers. In terms of review, the review process is quite functional, with multi-layered reviews, rubrics, and weighted scales. The reporting is more complex, as there is tension between what is easy for the applicant and what is typical for data collection.
I think that they are good at answering our questions and solving our problems. We occasionally get reports from applicants about problems the Submittable team has not solved, but I do not know what the applicant has done to get the problem solved.
I would say, provide Submittable as much detailed information on your planned use of the platform and your desires with the platform as possible, and the implementation will be tailored to accommodate your organization with minimal lag time and issues/problems.
For the price, Submittable offered the features we need in terms of accepting multiple file types, large files, unlimited submissions and participants, and user-friendly design. Other products may limit files, file types, file sizes, or other components that would not work for our uses.
Submittable allowed us to run a $2m nationwide grant project with only two team members. We wouldn't have been able to successfully run the grant application without Submittable building an infrastructure for success.
We were able to respond to every applicant's question within 24 hours because of Submittable's easy-to-use email templates.
Our applicants could immediately see if their application had been submitted or not without us having to use any employee time to send manual updates.
