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 great for grant management, grantmaking, and scholarship awards. It's a very useful tool also when there are multiple reviewers and committees involved in the assessment of the application. The table feature is helpful, but to download the information in a usable report is a pain. Overall a very useful tool for funding.
Form-logic: Allows application forms to adjust based on answers to crucial questions (if-then-else) so that all applications don't have to see extended questions that may not apply to them or their situation.
Messaging Platform: This platform allows interactions with applicants or internal review teams to be associated with the specific submission, allowing for an easier, complete view of an application being considered and as an audit trail.
Good Voting/Polling Management: It makes it easier to record the latest vote/feedback from assigned team members and allows customization of the vote/feedback review as a form. It also summarizes the votes for easy review in a submissions dashboard view.
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
We are some of the earliest users of employee volunteerism, so there have been some things to work out. However, because of that, we've gotten a lot of one-on-one support to help make minor tweaks to the system in a way that works for us.
We use this software annually to help with our grant processes. Without it, I'd be so lost! Our team relies on the data from our past years to sift applications and we try to prioritize those who have applied and been a finalist but perhaps didn't win in years prior
A submittable requires a great deal of thought to set up. It would be best if you really did an outline and flowcharting. Once you have a detailed plan and set up the system, you have to think of the process that you would manually do step-by-step to deal with the what-ifs; it’s beautiful. The ability to Clone events is invaluable. The onboarding can be complex, but the ease of use afterward is worth it.
We have thankfully never experienced an outage nor been affected by a technology issue on Submittable's side that has delayed our grant process. We have instead been able to distribute over $6M in donated dollars to AAPI small business owners because Submittable is trustworthy and available
We've had a quick and efficient submittable experience that has always been easy to use. When we need a report it downloads within seconds, even the larger reports are 30 seconds or less to download. Pages are quick to load and reports complete in a more than reasonable time frame
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.
We have been using this for many years but my memory is that we had a human walk us through how to use basic features. We also used the resource library to learn about specific topics or issues as they came up.
10/10 because we were able to meet virtually and still get all of our questions answered! Online was effective too because we could easily record the sessions and review them later. Since we had to onboard our reviewers virtually, it was actually convenient that this was the same method we learned how to use the entire program virtually too.
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.
Submittable isn't in the same league as these other platforms. It's trying to get there but it's been a rocky road. Neither customer support nor the account people we've dealt with at Submittable seem particularly knowledgeable about how the product actually works for foundations and can't provide detailed recommendations for how to use the product more effectively. The decision to use Submittable was made before I came on board. We are moving to another platform next year, probably SmartSimple.
I wish we could choose our own number of applications we want for the year and have the price be changed because we are in-between buyable numbers and always have to add more applications at the end of the year
We have been easily able to grow. Not only are we able to process different applications, but Submittable makes it easy to add applications onto our plan. Additionally, their eligibility form before the application does a good job of screening applicants so we do not pay for extra applications.