Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review If you work in a Development/Fundraising Department and have EVER been asked what your donor retention rate is - this is for you.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review It makes preparing fundraising reports super easy. I used to spend 6-8 hours preparing a board report and now it takes me 30 minutes... PLUS I can pull up the reports in real time during board meetings to allow board members to see the data presented in different ways or to answer questions on-the-spot. It has metrics that I've never even thought to prepare - including some that always felt too complicated to prepare. Lifetime Donor Value, Donor Retention Rates, Lapsed Donors, Acquired Donors, Reactivated Donors - all broken down by giving segments. I can customize Giving Segments. I work at a small non-profit - a major gift for us is different than a major gift for a larger organization. I can break up my data in the segments that make sense for my organization [and select colors that match our branding... you've never seen a happier Marketing Chair on your Board of Directors than when you give them a report that is properly branded for the organization. It's a small thing, but it doesn't take any extra work on my part.] Read full review Cons 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. Read full review The only difficulty I have with Fundraising Report Card is that the integration with our CRM [Kindful] doesn't keep track of the unique ID that is exported to Fundraising Report Card [to maintain confidentiality]. So it takes a bit more work to identify which donor[s] fall into a category. For example, Fundraising Report Card will tell me that 3 major donors lapsed in the previous quarter - and I can export the Donor ID's from Fundraising Report Card, but those ID's don't mean anything in my CRM, so I can't directly see who those donors are to follow up. This is an issue with the integration specifically with Kindful. Read full review Alternatives Considered 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
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review While I don't think I can entirely quantify the ROI for Fundraising Report Card, it made it possible for us to make better decisions and set better goals. Before we had this tool, we either spent way to much time analyzing data in spreadsheets [trying desperately not to make mistakes] OR more often, made strategic decisions without the facts to back us up. Our fundraising efforts are much smarter than before, and we KNOW where are areas of concern lie. We don't have to guess whether or not our strategies are working. We know. Read full review ScreenShots