FoundationSearch vs. GrantStation: In-Depth Analysis & Review

With so many options on the market, it can be challenging to know which grant discovery platform is best for your organization. Each offers unique features to help secure funding for your nonprofit organization so you can get back to doing what you do best: making a difference.

Let’s compare two of the most popular options on the market today: FoundationSearch vs. GrantStation. We will compare their features, pricing, reviews, and more to help you pick the best value grant discovery platform.

Let’s get started.

Before choosing the best value grant discovery platform, you first need to understand your goals and what features can help you achieve them. If you’re unsure where to start, never fear!

We’ll compare features that you should look for in a top grant discovery platform, including how easy it is to find RFPs, track, collaborate, and more. By the end, you’ll understand just how FoundationSearch vs. GrantStation stack up against each other.

Finding New RFPs and Funders

When you’re looking at the best grant discovery websites, you want to be able to locate funding opportunities and foundation profiles with ease. That includes finding new requests for proposals (RFPs) and funders, even when you’re not actively searching.

FoundationSearch Finding New RFPs and Funders Features:

FoundationSearch offers a robust database (BIG Online) with more than 110,000 funding sources available across the private, corporate, and government sectors throughout North America, including the United States and Canada.

You can filter results by type, value, year, recipient, and donor, as well as view historical giving trends and more. Additionally, FoundationSearch’s database is fully searchable by keyword and field to help you narrow down your results. You can save favorite searches to run or modify at any time; however, at this time, you cannot autorun searches.

Unfortunately, FoundationSearch does not currently offer a database for active RFPs or grant opportunities, which is why many people question whether FoundationSearch is worth it. That means you may find yourself doing much more work to discover active funding opportunities or investing in another platform to do it for you.

GrantStation Finding New RFPs and Funders Features:

GrantStation is the opposite of FoundationSearch in that instead of focusing primarily on foundations, GrantStation focuses on active funding opportunities. They have been connecting members with funding for more than 20 years with their fully searchable database.

GrantStation features a database of active RFPs from all sectors, including private, public, community, religious, corporate, and more. You can narrow your criteria and search by keyword to help further refine your results. Once you find the right match, you can save it and create projects.

GrantStation serves clients based in the United States and Canada, as well as select international charitable organizations, so the scope is a little broader than FoundationSearch.

Still, GrantStation only focuses on active RFPs. They don’t have detailed funder profiles or many prospecting tools, which means that users may need to seek out other platforms or do the work themselves to find out this information.

Tracking Prospect Research and Submissions

Grant management and tracking tools should be at the top of your list when considering different grant discovery platforms. The right grant management features can help keep you organized so you never miss an opportunity or deadline.

FoundationSearch Tracking Prospect Research and Submissions Features:

FoundationSearch offers several tools to help you track prospect research and submissions as part of My Prospect Manager.

When it comes to tracking, My Prospect Manager allows you to create projects and track your prospects, total funding needed, and final deadline. Within the project, you can link to prospects.

Unfortunately, FoundationSearch doesn’t update in real time, so some of the information may be out of date. You’ll need to do some manual research to make sure the information you’re tracking is accurate.

GrantStation Tracking Prospect Research and Submissions Features:

GrantStation is limited when it comes to tracking your prospect research and submissions. They recently launched a feature called My Plan, which allows you to save grantmakers and prioritize requests.

However, there are no submission trackers, grant calendars, or automatic deadline reminders, so many users have to use another platform or track manually to keep their prospect research organized.

Collaboration and Reporting

Once you’ve identified your prospects, you will want to collaborate with your team to develop your proposal and create reports so that you can streamline the application process.

FoundationSearch Collaboration and Reporting Features:

FoundationSearch offers limited functionality when it comes to collaboration and reporting. While multiple users can access Foundation Search, you can only have one person within the platform at a time.

However, you can leave notes and create projects as part of the My Prospect Manager tool which can help foster collaboration. You can also create CSV and PDF reports.

GrantStation Collaboration and Reporting Features:

GrantStation prioritizes searchability over anything else, so there are limited collaboration and reporting tools available. You cannot collaborate with multiple users, which is a huge drawback.

Additionally, there are no document libraries, tasking, or saved application responses. While you can pull reports, they can only be CSVs.

Overall

When you’re looking at FoundationSearch vs. GrantStation features, there are pros and cons to each platform. GrantStation focuses more on finding active funding opportunities while FoundationSearch focuses on locating foundation profiles.

How do FoundationSearch and GrantStation compare on cost? Let’s take a look.

FoundationSearch Pricing

FoundationSearch does not publish their pricing publicly. Instead, they require organizations to contact them for more information. Their team of consultants will work with you to evaluate your organization’s needs and see if their services would be a good match for you.

While their overall pricing is not currently public, some organizations have shared what they pay. You can expect pricing to start at $333/month (annual plan), though these numbers may vary based on your nonprofits needs, current rates, and more.

When you call or email them, they will provide a no-obligation assessment, so there’s no risk to contact them for more details.

GrantStation Pricing

GrantStation is more transparent in their pricing. Here’s a breakdown of their different pricing options:

• One year: $699
• Two Years: $1,258 (10 percent savings)
• Three years: $1,782 (15 percent savings)
• One quarter: $219

From time to time, GrantStation does offer promotions to help smaller organizations afford their services. Additionally, GrantStation offers partner programs to help organizations get bulk memberships at a discounted rate.

And if you subscribe to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, you’re in luck! You have full access to GrantStation’s database when you connect your accounts. This is a subscriber only benefit for this publication, and subscriptions start as low as $109.95 for the year, so if you’re on a tight budget, this may be the best option in the short term.

Customer testimonials are a great way to see what real customers think of different grant discovery platforms. Keep in mind that testimonials listed on the platform’s website typically only highlight happy customers, so you may want to do some digging to see if there are additional perspectives to keep in mind.

FoundationSearch Reviews

The only FoundationSearch reviews we could find came from their own website, with many clients happy about the easy-to-use interface and sorting capabilities. Users share that it saves them time and resources, helping provide all information in one intuitive platform.

GrantStation Reviews

Like FoundationSearch, the only reviews we could find on GrantStation came from their own website. Their success stories highlight the breadth of funding opportunities, ease of use, strong search capabilities, and more. They also share how helpful the educational resources are, especially when facing economic downturns and budget cuts.

When you’re considering FoundationSearch vs. GrantStation, you may be wondering if there is a better alternative out there.

Well you’re in luck! Instrumentl is a convenient, robust grant discovery, tracking, and management platform that fills the gap between GrantStation and FoundationSearch to serve as a one-stop shop for all your fundraising needs.

Finding New RFPs and Funders

Instrumentl shines when it comes to finding new RFPs and funders. We provide a comprehensive database of active RFPs and RFP profiles, foundation profiles, and recipient profiles.

We also offer smart matching to RFPs and foundations profiles, helping connect you with opportunities you may not have known were available. You can also reverse search opportunities so you know more about how similar organizations are getting funding.

Instrumentl does all the hard work for you, helping you find funding opportunities across all sectors even when you’re not on the platform. You’ll get weekly emails of new opportunities to help keep you in the know. This will save a lot of time and resources, helping you focus your efforts in securing the grant rather than just locating new opportunities.

Tracking Prospect Research and Submissions

Instrumentl has robust tools to help with all your grant management needs. You can save prospects and notes, track your submissions in a handy calendar, and manage your grant pipeline across all stages of the process in Instrumentl.

One of the best features is that Instrumentl provides automatic deadline reminders to help keep you on track, as well as updates when funders change their priorities or deadlines.

Instrumentl’s focus on the entire grant lifecycle sets us apart because everything you need is in one convenient location. You no longer have to worry about managing multiple manual processes.

Collaboration and Reporting

Instrumentl fosters collaboration within the platform through its multi-user features. You can assign tasks to your team, pull reports, and leave notes as you work through the grant lifecycle. Additionally, you can create a document library to help increase organization.

Best of all, you can create reports and easily export them via CSV or PDF for ease of use. You will save tons of time when you’re preparing reports for your board thanks to these features.

Overall

At the end of the day, Instrumentl helps you stay organized so you can focus your efforts elsewhere.

Instrumentl is truly a one-stop shop for all your fundraising needs, which is why we think we’re the best of the best—and you don’t just have to take our word for it!

We have hundreds of happy customers ready to shout our praises!

Plus, with our 14-day free trial, you can test it out yourself.

So, is FoundationSearch worth it? Is GrantStation worth it? That’s up to you to decide. Each offers industry-standard features, and they have robust databases that allow you to browse, search, and save potential grants and grantmakers. However, if you’re looking for more robust features or data analytics, you may find them lacking.

Instrumentl offers all of the features that FoundationSearch and GrantStation do plus more. Sign up for a 14-day free trial to see just how easy finding and securing funding is on Instrumentl.