Foundation Directory Online vs. GrantWatch: In-Depth Analysis & Review

When it comes to supercharging your grants program, a solid grant discovery platform is a must.

Below, we compare Foundation Directory Online and GrantWatch, two nonprofit tools serving grants professionals. 

We will evaluate them on:

• How well they help you identify RFPs and funders 
• Their tracking and grant management features 
• Whether they facilitate effective collaboration with your team 
• Price
• Real user reviews 
• And how they stack up against top alternatives

By the end, you’ll be able to decide which is the best value grant discovery platform for your organization. 

Let’s dive in! 

Does FDO Help You Find New RFPs and Funders?

Foundation Directory Online offers a huge database of foundation profiles that users can search through. 

Below is a screenshot of a foundation profile provided by FDO for the well-known Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Foundation Directory Online provides profiles for thousands of funders in their searchable database 

The amount of foundation profiles you get access to with FDO is dependent on your subscription level: 

• FDO’s Essential subscription level provides a database of only 150,000 funder profiles.
• FDO Professional allows users to search FDO’s entire database of nearly 300,000 funders and also offers deeper insights about each funder.

Each of these funder profiles includes general information pulled from the funders’ 990 reports, such as their past grant sizes and past grantee locations. 

FDO is known for their foundation database. However, finding active grants with FDO is a bit more challenging. 

FDO lists some open RFPs, but unlike some other grants databases, you have to search for them manually. You can use basic filters, but that still results in needing to sift through hundreds of opportunities before finding a handful of appropriate RFPs.

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Foundation Directory Online lists some RFPs, though they are limited. 

Bottom line: FDO is great for finding basic information about potential funders, but there are significant drawbacks to its ability to locate open RFPs.

Does GrantWatch Help You Find New RFPs and Funders

GrantWatch’s searchable database of active RFPs. 

GrantWatch is almost the opposite of FDO: their focus is on active RFPs but they don’t provide any foundation profiles. 

GrantWatch’s database includes more than 28,000 grant opportunities, awards, and archived grants that you can search through. You can search their database by:

• Category 
• State 
• Type of funding source 
• Keyword

That said, GrantWatch doesn’t provide foundation profiles. That means you and your team will need to spend time researching a funder’s interests, average grant amount, contacts, and other needed data points to decide if an opportunity is worth pursuing.

Are FDO’s Tracking and Grant Management Tools Worth It?

Foundation Directory’s My FDO dashboard. 

FDO offers limited grant management and tracking features. 

Recently, FDO rolled out My FDO Dashboard, which allows you to track submitted grants, including the amount requested and amount received, if any. Funder prospects can also be tracked and downloaded into a CSV.

However, FDO lacks robust grant management features such as:

• Automatic deadline reminders
• External linking for document storage
• Spend down tracking 
• Integrations with other tools (e.g. Salesforce) 

Are GrantWatch’s Tracking and Grant Management Tools Worth It?

GrantWatch’s only grant management tool is their grants calendar. 

The only grant management feature GrantWatch offers is a grant calendar, but it is not well publicized. What we could see was helpful, but not a fully optimized tool for robust grant management.

Like FDO, GrantWatch lacks features to allow you to easily manage your entire grants pipeline from start to finish.

FDO’s Collaboration and Reporting Features Reviewed

One of the biggest drawbacks to FDO is that it doesn’t offer multi-user capabilities. 

While My FDO Dashboard allows users to assign tasks to other teammates, to access the dashboard, each user must have an individual license. Collaboration between teammates is extremely limited because of this. 

However, the Dashboard does allow users to pull reports into a PDF that you can share with your organization’s team and stakeholders. 

GrantWatch’s Collaboration and Reporting Features Reviewed

Unfortunately, GrantWatch doesn’t offer any collaborative tools. This makes managing your team more difficult and time-consuming. 

As far as pulling reports, you’ll have to either use a different platform or a spreadsheet.

• Foundation Directory Online Overall Thoughts: Overall, FDO is a solid tool for uncovering foundation profiles. Its strengths are its sizable database, as well as its long-standing popularity. However, finding active RFPs with FDO is a challenge and its lack of collaborative tools is a major drawback. FDO also emphasizes the pre-award stage of the grant lifecycle and doesn’t offer many tools for managing grants throughout the entire pipeline. 

• GrantWatch Overall Thoughts: If you’re looking primarily for open RFPs, GrantWatch is a great grant discovery tool. However, its lack of funder profiles, grant management features, and any collaboration abilities means that you are very limited with what you can accomplish within the platform. You would need to invest in other tools to manage the rest of the grant lifecycle. 

Foundation Directory Online is more expensive than GrantWatch. But it’s important to see what you’re getting with each subscription. Let’s take a look.

Foundation Directory Online Pricing

FDO offers three tiers of subscription pricing. The least expensive is FDO Essential.

For a single user, the price for FDO Essential is $449 annually ($37.42/month). For a more flexible plan that allows you to cancel any time, the price is $54.99/ month.

Be aware: FDO Essential only allows subscribers to search a limited list of funders.

FDO Professional is more expensive, but also brings with it a larger database with deeper funder insights.

For a single user, the price for FDO Professional is $1,599 annually ($133.35/month). For a more flexible plan that allows you to cancel any time, the price is $219.99/month.

Finally, FDO offers an Enterprise plan for large nonprofits such as universities and hospital systems. The price is negotiable by the number of licenses purchased.

GrantWatch Pricing

GrantWatch's pricing is one of the less expensive grant discovery platforms. 

• Weekly subscription: Just $18 per week—but add that up, and over the course of a month, you’ll be forking out $72.
• Monthly access: $45 or $540 over the course of a year. 
• Quarterly access: $90 per quarter or $360 per year
• Annual access: the one-time annual fee of $199 is the best deal.

But remember: With no foundation profiles, limited grant tracking, and no grant management options, GrantWatch is really just a portal to find RFPs. It doesn’t provide any of the functionality of FDO or other grant discovery platforms.

Don’t just take our word for it—let’s look at some reviews from real life FDO and GrantWatch users.

Foundation Directory Online Reviews

Most FDO users give it high marks, and much of this is due to loyalty built up over the years. (Remember, FDO used to be a publication only accessible in libraries, so it’s been around since before the internet was available.) For that reason, many take their track record as proof that an FDO subscription is worth it.

However, many fundraisers aren’t aware of FDO alternatives and competitors.

But, not all FDO users share such a rosy outlook. Comments about pricing, lack of intuitive features, and the time-consuming nature of finding funding opportunities and vetting them are out there.

GrantWatch Reviews

Like any online platform, there are always fans and critics, and GrantWatch is not immune. A recent review, posted on Reddit’s r/EntrepreneurRideAlong seems fairly unbiased.

There aren’t too many independent reviews online of GrantWatch, so we visited its Facebook page. Of course, the reviews are positive, such as these.

GrantWatch’s quick and responsive customer service is highly regarded by most reviewers.

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Both FDO and GrantWatch have their strengths—as well as their drawbacks. Let’s compare them to Instrumentl, and see what you think.

Instrumentl is a platform that combines grant prospecting, tracking, and management into one streamlined and easy-to-use tool. 

Unlike its competitors, Instrumentl was designed to cover the entire grant lifecycle from start to finish. With Instrumentl, you can find relevant grants, secure more funding, effortlessly manage awards, and scale your team’s impact all in one place. 

Let’s take a look at how:

Instrumentl Finding New RFPs & Funders Features:

Instrumentl’s searchable database is incredibly comprehensive and extensive. It includes: 

• 400,000+ funders 
• 15,000+ live RFPs (active grants) 
• 150+ new opportunities added weekly

What really sets Instrumentl apart is its Smart Matching system. Rather than having to search its database manually, Instrumentl allows users to set up “Projects” where they input their funding needs, area of focus, location, and more—and then Instrumentl will deliver a list of curated matches based on these specific criteria. 

Smart Matching is a fast and easy way to find the best possible funding opportunities. 

When you click on an opportunity from your matches, you get access to the funder’s 990 report. 990s are notoriously hard to read and glean helpful insights from, which is why Instrumentl does the heavy lifting for you.

For each foundation in its database, Instrumentl has developed 990 Snapshots that break down valuable insights you would need to evaluate whether a funder is a good fit. 

These insights include: 

• Openness to new grantees
• Total giving 
• Trends in giving average and median amounts 
• Past grantees 
• Giving by NTEE code 

Instrumentl’s 990 snapshots make it easy to assess funder-fit. 

These insights are available with the simple click of a button, and they allow grantseekers to identify and prioritize funding opportunities with which they have the best alignment. 

Instrumentl Tracking and Grant Management Tools:

Instrumentl’s dedicated tracking and management features make it easy to stay organized and on top of all your grant-related tasks. 

Once you save a grant opportunity in Instrumentl, it will automatically be added to your Grants Tracker. Your Grants Tracker organizes all of your saved opportunities and lets you quickly see each grant’s: 

• Deadline (with automatic deadline reminders) 
• Status (e.g. “Researching” vs. “Application Submitted”) 
• Award amount 
• Next task 
• Notes 

With Instrumentl’s Grant Tracker, all of your funding opportunities are organized in one clear dashboard. 

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Because everything is organized and easily accessible in one dashboard, you don’t have to worry about keeping track of things with manual spreadsheets or disconnected systems. 

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You can even store all of your necessary documents within each saved opportunity for your whole team to access. 

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Store all of your grant-related documents in Instrumentl for easy access. 

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Managing your grants pipeline has never been easier! 

Instrumentl Collaboration and Reporting Features:

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Grants aren’t won in a silo, which is why Instrumentl was designed with collaboration as a top priority. 

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As a cloud-based platform, your grants team can access and collaborate within the Instrumentl platform at once. 

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You can even assign tasks to specific members of your team so that everyone knows what they are responsible for and by when. 

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Assign tasks to your team in Instrumentl to keep everyone accountable and everything transparent. 

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You can also easily export reports from Instrumentl to keep your nonprofit’s leadership in the loop. With the click of a button you can pull reports for:

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• Opportunities 
• Awards 
• Tasks
• Contacts 
• Funders

Instrumentl’s automatic reporting feature. 

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Ultimately, Instrumentl makes it easy to boost your team’s accountability and transparency through collaborative tools and solutions. 

Instrumentl’s Pricing Plans:

Instrumentl offers three different pricing tiers for nonprofits and consultants. Each plan comes with more features and users. 

• Basic Plan: $179/month 
• Standard Plan: $299/month
• Pro Plan: $499/month 

You can also sign up for a 14-day free trial (no credit card required!) to try it out yourself. 

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There is also a university plan for large institutions—you can reach out to the Instrumentl team for more details. 

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It’s true—Instrumentl is not the cheapest grant discovery and management platform on the market. However, because it covers the entire grant lifecycle, there’s no need to invest in other tools. Its robust features and streamlined processes also help save you time (and money), leading to more grants success and a higher ROI. 

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Take for example Jan Spackman, Director of Grants at Sleep in Heavenly Peace: 

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“We've been using Instrumentl for just over a year. We brought in about $2 million last year, which was up a million over the year before.”

Or Daniel Jenkins, President of Lutheran Braille Workers: 

“We were maybe [submitting] three to six [grant applications] per year. Now, we're doing two per month…just by having Instrumentl as opposed to spreadsheets.”

Instrumentl is an investment that will help you nonprofit secure more funding and scale its impact. 

Instrumentl: What Customers Are Saying

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Instrumentl’s users simply love the streamlined and intuitive interface and all its time-saving features, including its team coordination capabilities. 

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Users also like that projects can be set up and then populated with a myriad of good fit funding opportunities. 

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Also, users agree that Instrumentl goes above and beyond in customer support. Nearly all analyzed reviews noted that Instrumentl’s team is committed to their mission and to creating a positive outcome for each of their users. 

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Here’s a quick overview of our customer support features:

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• A 30-minute onboarding call for all 14-day free trial users to discuss their grants strategy, their objectives, and to make certain that their experience with Instrumentl positions them to connect with the best possible grant opportunities aligning with their needs
• Weekly 1-hour small group live trainings with Instrumentl’s customer success team for subscribers.
• Chat support for subscribers in addition to email support 
• A comprehensive Help Center to answer frequently asked questions and support users as they learn to use the tool efficiently and effectively

When it comes to the number of features offered, Instrumentl outshines its competitors. Check out a list of 8 unique things you can get with an Instrumentl subscription that you can’t get anywhere else.

So, which is the best value grants discovery platform?

Instrumentl is. It has all of the foundation resources—and more—that FDO has, as well as time-saving grant management and collaboration features that will help you and your team become more productive in no time.

Time-efficient, intuitive, and user-friendly, Instrumentl really is the best value foundation discovery platform available. Instrumentl will take you and your team to the next level in your grant-seeking (and winning!) abilities.

Turbocharge your entire grants lifecycle with Instrumentl. Sign up for your free 14-day trial today and experience the difference yourself.