Blackbaud Grantmaking vs. Foundant Grant Lifecycle Manager vs. Spark by Benevity

As I mentioned, cost is prohibitive for us. Because it is highly customizable, it is very powerful, but if you are looking for an intuitive, easy to use solution right "out of the box" solution because you have few staff and no IT dept. this may not be the best fit (unless they develop some lower cost / less customizable options?). That being said, we have managed to implement successfully with no IT. I completed the implementation, code the application and online reporting forms (using HTML) and use Blueprint to customize what we need, but it has been a big learning curve and an investment of time to manage the back end of the program. I will say that training new general users is pretty straight forward so their ability to search for information they need and quickly is greatly enhanced. The automatic customized reports and reminders are pretty great, and the overall integrity of our processes and data are greatly improved. Sometimes we wonder if it is overly complex and if there is a way e could "hide" more of the aspects that are not relevant to us, or that we are not using, so we can have a cleaner interface.

Incentivized

From where I stand, GLM is well-suited for use by small-staffed charitable foundations who make more than thirty (30) grants a year and distribute more than $500,000 in funds to non-profits. The software is able to handle every step in the grant-making process from receipt of a request, to the evaluation and decision regarding the grant, to tracking the pay-out, and to closing the grant when the work or the year is completed.

Incentivized

Benevity Spark delivers particularly well for companies with a modern volunteer rewards plus donation matching program. The platform is designed to maximize employee-directed rewards and matching for community impact. Companies without volunteer rewards or donation matching may find limited employee engagement benefits from the Spark experience.

Incentivized

• We like to create our own numbering system and Blackbaud Grantmaking allows us that flexibility. When we were having issues with items being in numerical order the tech support was amazing.
• Creating your own forms is very important for us. We have several different donors and we have a grant application form and a report form for each one. They are easy to create as well as update and access.
• Alternative ways to hunt for information. I can access a grant by the organization name, project name, grant number or even the name of the person who submitted the grant application. This is critical in a case where the program officer has a nickname for the grant (you can include that as well in the profile) and can't remember anything else.

Incentivized

• Foundant provides a streamlined grants management solution for reasonable cost.
• The company listens to its users, collecting ideas and making improvements. Updates to the software are rolled out several times a year. When something cannot be changed right away, the company gives context and forecasts when the change might be possible.
• While the software is easy to use, it also offers more advanced features (such as merge templates) that allow more customization for the advanced user.

Incentivized

• Benevity Spark offers a clean and intuitive user experience designed to promote employee engagement in the community. Employees experience a modern user interface and easy access to the programs and tools behind the application.
• Benevity Spark empowers program administrators with detailed customization options to fit every company program. From smart user entitlements/permissions to robust customizable management reports, Spark allows global program administrators to efficiently manage large programs.
• The Benevity Spark user interface uses responsive web design, rendering a beautiful user experience on mobile, tablet, or laptop screens. Benevity Spark allows for ample opportunity for alignment to company branding and visual elements.

Incentivized

• Application linking process is time consuming
• System enhancement ideas must be submitted to a community portal and other users must take the initiative to vote on their favorite ideas instead of vendor programmers collecting received ideas and doing the work themselves.
• Lack of conditional logic in online application
• Communication with other Blackbaud products notably Employee Volunteering and Engagement (fka AngelPoints)

Incentivized

• Need a smother process for third party responses. Currently individuals recommending more than one student for scholarships have many emails to deal with to find the correct link to upload the correct student's letter.
• Questions that would filter which applications the applicant would apply for.

• Benevity Spark is in the process of building a global network for nonprofit organization vetting. While that process has made significant progress, the global landscape made up of millions of nonprofit orgs across scores of countries remains a great challenge. The Benevity cause vetting and onboarding teams are making progress, but there is a lot of ground yet to cover.

Incentivized

As long as there is continued development in the product allowing us to create efficiencies, streamline operations, deliver on our reporting requirements and the usability for internal and external partners remains strong we would have no reason to look elsewhere from a systems perspective. If costs changed substantially we'd have to look at different options to meet our cost savings objectives.

Incentivized

There is room for improvement and the development of the software seem slow. As customers, we hear a lot about what's in development and promises of new features rolling out. However, it feels like those developments take a really long time to show up in they system for my day-to-day use.

Incentivized

When it was microwaves they were a lot more Hands-On assistance, but since merging they have better tracking of the issues.

Incentivized

Preparing and cleaning up your data prior to implementation, will make the process much smoother and easier. Garbage in, garbage out.

Incentivized

At the time that I used GrantedGE, the product was in the development stages and there were a lot of bugs and issues with functionality. The customer service didn't have the bandwidth to quickly respond to issues. BlackBaud's customer service and history in the field are advantages

Incentivized

I have not used other online grantmaking products or evaluated others. I used to use MicroEdge Gifts, but not the online application version. It was a stand alone management system. This is hands-down better, easier to use and a more complete system

• It has increased our return on reaching our business objectives.
• It has moved us (or started to move us) to a better place in reporting and transparency.
• It has helped us transition from an act of corporate giving to a goal of social change.

Incentivized

• Positive customer service--fairly easy to use for applicants.
• Positive--easy to run reports you have already set up, so [it] saves time.
• Negative--limited question types makes it harder to gather the data we want to track.
• Negative--our budget is more complex than can be tracked in Foundant, so we have to use a separate program.
• Negative--we have to track potential grantee conversations in a separate program.
• Negative--getting data ready to display in a dashboard takes a lot of time to manipulate in Excel.

Incentivized

• Benevity Spark helped complete the employee-community engagement experience at the company. Together with careful program design, internal marketing, and a robust employee training program; Benevity Spark helps to drive employee engagement in the community.

Incentivized