5 Best Grant Forward Alternatives & Competitors in 2024

If you have ever searched for and managed grants, you know how crucial it is to find the right grant tool that is user-friendly, comprehensive, and cost-effective. If you have used GrantForward and feel it doesn’t meet these criteria, you may wonder if there is a better option out there.

In this article, we will explore five GrantForward alternatives:

• Instrumentl
• National Institutes of Health
• Foundation Directory Online
• GrantWatch
• GrantStation

To help you make the most informed decision, we will evaluate each tool based on their top features, types of funders listed, user friendliness, popularity, and pricing.

Let’s get started!

GrantForward is a searchable grants database that provides information about funding opportunities. However, we have found there are several common criticisms and limitations users have faced that might prompt them to look for a GrantForward alternative.

Limited Customization Options

GrantForward has a specialized focus on academic grant seeking, making it somewhat limited.

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GrantForward is built specifically for researchers, meaning that the grants in their database are primarily research-focused. So, if your organization doesn’t have an academic or research-based focus, you probably won’t find grants on this platform that are relevant to your organization’s mission.

High Cost for Small Nonprofits

GrantForward offers a free month of services for new customers. After that, GrantForward provides three subscription packages that are determined by institution size and annual research volume. GrantForward doesn’t specify the actual prices of these packages, but a common complaint has been that the cost is challenging for smaller organizations.

Because of this, GrantForward is mostly used by larger academic institutions that purchase a membership for their staff or students.

Complex User Interface

Compared to competitors, GrantForward’s interface is quite awkward and clunky, with more than ten search options that are fill-in boxes.

Finding good-fit funding isn’t as intuitive on GrantForward as it is on other platforms, making it less suitable for novice grant seekers.

GrantForward isn’t the only tool that can help you find and manage funding—here are five of its top competitors:

1. Instrumentl

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Since it was founded in 2014, Instrumentl has provided one of the most powerful platforms for streamlining and managing the entire grant process from start to finish.

Features

Instrumentl stands out as one of the premier GrantForward alternatives due to its suite of advanced and comprehensive features, including:

• An extensive and searchable database of active grant opportunities
• Smart Matching technology that helps you narrow your focus to only the best-fit grants
• Advanced Funder Insights (including openness to new grantees, average grant size, funding preferences, and more) to help you determine if a funder is a good fit

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• Tracking capabilities of current grants so you can organize prospective opportunities, share calendar deadlines, and integrate current spreadsheets, helping you manage multiple grant projects seamlessly and in one place
• A Grants Calendar to keep you—and your team—organized and on track

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• Task assignment to your team so that everyone is on the same page
• Weekly emailed updates on upcoming deadlines or alerting you to changes in funder interests or deadlines
• Document and notes storage for yourself and your team to enable seamless collaboration

Types of Funders Listed

A major difference between Instrumentl and GrantForward is the diversity and comprehensiveness of funders listed on the site. Instrumentl provides in-depth insights on more than 400,000 funders and 15,000 live RFPs. This includes opportunities from:

• Corporations
• Private, family, and community foundations
• Associations and societies
• Government funding opportunities at the state, local, and federal levels.

With more than 150 active funding opportunities added each week, Instrumentl’s grant database is unmatched by other GrantForward competitors.

User Friendliness

Instrumentl is extremely user-friendly and only takes a few minutes to master. Its features are designed to specifically save you time and streamline your grant seeking, management, and reporting functions.

Instrumentl also offers seamless integration with Virtuous CRM, Salesforce, Raiser's Edge NXT, and calendars to keep grant info in sync.

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Instrumentl’s customer support team is committed to high-quality assistance and offers weekly live trainings, free grant writing courses and workshops, and a Help Center where users can access FAQs and helpful guides to help learn Instrumentl’s features and processes.

Popularity

On popular grant management software review websites, Instrumentl users have touted its intuitiveness, user friendliness, and management capabilities. Nonprofits of all sizes praise Instrumentl, as do grant writing consultants juggling multiple nonprofit clients.

Here’s what Lovel VanArsdale, Grant Administrator at Tucker’s House, had to say about Instrumentl:
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“I brag about Instrumentl all the time. Before, I was searching in the dark—and we've had a couple of other databases that we had joined, and got memberships for, but they're so random and very limited. With Instrumentl, I’ve never missed a single deadline.”

Maureen McGuire, Grants Manager at Habitat for Humanity DuPage Chicago South Suburbs, also shared her experiences with Instrumentl:
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“With Instrumentl, there isn’t any wasted time. They identify the funder, link you to their website, show projected deadlines, provide information about communities where they work—before, we could have wasted time on a potential funder without that information.”

You can check out more Instrumentl success stories on our website.

Pricing

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Instrumentl offers multiple different pricing tiers:

• Basic: $195/month
• Standard: $299/month
• Professional: $499/month

There are also customized plans available for large nonprofits, such as hospitals and universities.

While the pricing for Instrumentl is higher than some other grant databases, this is because we offer a comprehensive tool that supports the entire grant lifecycle—from prospect research all the way to post-award management. This means you only invest in one tool (not multiple) to handle the entire grant process.

Instrumentl also offers a 14-day free trial so you can experience its benefits and features risk-free.

2. National Institutes of Health

If you are interested in federal grants offered by United States government agencies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is one of the best databases for these federal grant opportunities. This site is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is the nation’s medical research agency.

Features

The NIH offers an extensive and specialized platform for finding and securing federal grants, especially if you are looking for grants related to medical research.

Features include:

• Detailed guidance for grant professionals on how to find funding
• Policy and compliance requirements
• A grants blog

This site also has a helpful how to apply page that gives guidance on writing and tailoring your application for federal grants.

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Not only that, but the NIH also has a “Find Grant Funding” page where you can narrow your search by organization or activity code.

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Although the NIH offers an extensive database of federal grants and numerous key search options, it does not support post-award grant management or tracking.

Types of Funders Listed

The NIH only focuses on federal funders and has a strong tie to health and biomedical research, making it a much more limited database than other alternatives.

User Friendliness

NIH's grant management system is easy to use and has comprehensive guides, tutorials, and an intuitive user interface. The structured layout and search functionality allow you to narrow your search using a variety of easy-to-use options:

• Federal organizations
• Activity Code
• Types of research - clinical or not clinical trials
• Types of funding opportunities
• Date range

That being said, these search filters are limited to some highly-technical options that may take some effort to review.

Popularity

The NIH is a well-established and respected platform within the research community and is widely used by universities, research institutions, and healthcare organizations.

If your organization doesn’t fall within this research space, you will probably need to use another GrantForward alternative that has a wider range of funding options.

Pricing

Here’s a major benefit of the NIH—it is free!

3. Foundation Directory Online

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Foundation Directory Online is one of the oldest GrantForward alternatives, going back to a print resource in 1956. It offers an extensive collection of tools to help organizations connect with potential funders.

Features

Foundation Directory Online offers an impressive funder database that includes:

• A search bar that has advanced search capabilities and filters.
• Funding alerts that allow you to be updated immediately of new funding opportunities.
• Historical data on previously awarded grants and funding trends.

However, it’s important to note that FDO is primarily a funder database, and access to active RFPs on their site can be limited. You also have to search manually for active grants, making it a more time-intensive and cumbersome process.

And because FDO doesn’t offer very robust post-award grant management features, you may need to invest in other platforms to manage your awarded grants.

Types of Funders Listed

Foundation Directory Online offers information on the following funders:

• Private, family, and independent foundations
• International foundations
• Corporate foundations
• U.S. Federal funding entities
• Public charities

There is also a limited list of open RFPs available, but it can be time-consuming to sort through the results.

User Friendliness

In our research, we found that some users have complained that funder profiles have not been updated and that the search options are awkward to use. In addition, reviews have noted that it is a significantly less flexible tool because they changed their interface:

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Popularity

A major selling point of Foundation Directory Online is its extensive database and comprehensive funder profiles, making it popular among both first time grant writers and seasoned professionals.

Pricing

There are two main pricing options: FDO Professional and Essential:

• FDO Professional: $133.25/month‍
• FDO Essential: $37.42/month

4. GrantWatch

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GrantWatch is one of the more popular GrantForward alternatives, offering some basic search features and resources that could be useful to first-time grant seekers.

Features

GrantWatch’s main feature is its extensive database, which boasts active grants from a variety of different funding sources. Advanced search filters allow you to tailor your search based on location, grant category, and funding type, while the site also offers easy-to-read grant reports that include the following:

• Grant eligibility information
• Geographic focus
• Pre-application and workshop information
• Description of grant program
• Funding amounts and number of awards
• Funding source contact details
• Links to grant applications and documents

While GrantWatch offers a grants calendar to both free and paid members, it doesn’t provide robust grant management tools, such as a document library, tasks, or spend down tracking.

Types of Funders Listed

More than half of the grants listed on GrantWatch—70%—are from private and public foundations, corporations, and charities. The other 30% come from local, state, and federal government opportunities.

User Friendliness

GrantWatch’s easy-to-use search option and intuitive navigation allow users to browse listings seamlessly.

However, GrantWatch doesn’t include foundation or funder profiles, so you will need to do your own research to determine whether a funder is a good fit for your nonprofit organization.

Popularity

GrantWatch has earned a solid reputation in the grant-seeking community, with users expressing their satisfaction with how easy it is to find grants with this platform.

Pricing

GrantWatch offers two accounts—the free version (Member) and the paid version (MemberPlus+). You can choose between four options for MemberPlus+:

• $18 per week
• $45 per month
• $90 per quarter
• $199 per year

You’ll need the paid version for complete access to all of GrantWatch’s grant opportunities.

5. GrantStation

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GrantStation provides nonprofits, educational institutions, and government agencies with potential grant funding sources from all over the world.

Features

GrantStation offers a comprehensive database with a wide range of grant opportunities that allows you to search for funders based on geographic region.

While their “My Plan” tool allows users to create projects and track basic actions within the system, there are no task management, calendar, or reporting capabilities. The lack of management features means users will need to invest in separate tools to organize their applications and awards if they decide to move forward with a grant opportunity.

Types of Funders Listed

GrantStation lists the following types of funders:

• Private foundations
• Community foundations
• Corporations
• Federal and state governments
• International opportunities

User Friendliness

GrantStation’s search engine is straightforward and does have advanced search filters, but it only allows users to download data as a CSV and doesn’t offer multi-user collaboration.

Popularity

Most users of GrantStation have positive reviews of the software. On their Featured Customers page, they have an overall rating of 4.8/5 stars.

This trend continues on other review pages, including G2:

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Pricing

Currently, GrantStation offers the following pricing plans:

• One year: $699
• Two years: $1,258
• Three years: $1,782
• One quarter: $219

Partner programs are also offered that allow organizations to purchase memberships at a volume discount.

Instrumentl is your one-stop-shop for all of your grant prospecting and management needs. Here are a few things that set us apart:

Automagical Deadline Reminders

Instrumentl sends you “automagical” deadline reminders right into your email inbox so that you never miss important deadlines on grants you have saved.

You’ll also get email updates if a deadline has changed or if a funder has changed their interests or priorities.

Integrated Information From IRS 990 Forms

Instrumentl integrates information from the IRS 990 forms so you can review the details and quickly identify best-match funders for your organization.

These snapshots will help you make informed decisions about which opportunities you should pursue based on the funder’s giving history.

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Jennifer Gonzales-Granzin, Independent Grant and Organizational Development Consultant at JG Consulting, explains how helpful the 990 reports are through Instrumentl:
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“I love the 990 breakdown. The ability to see the percentage of grants given to new grantees and the median amount awarded is invaluable information.”

Intelligent Matching to RFPs and Funders

Instrumentl uses a matching algorithm to automatically match your nonprofit with the best-fit grant opportunities. You just supply some basic information about your organization—geographic location, an overview of your fields of work, and the type of funding you’re interested in pursuing—and Instrumentl does the rest. New matches are sent to your inbox every week!

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Easy Collaboration and Task Management

Instrumentl’s collaborative tools allow your entire team to work together on proposals, manage current tasks, and keep up with important deadlines. With Instrumentl, you can share notes and reminders of upcoming milestones and “to-do’s” to help you and your team stay on track.

Instrumentl also allows you to create comprehensive reports that can be exported into PDF and CSV that the entire team can access.

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Find Foundations Open to New Grantees

Instrumentl shows you how much a funder gave to new grantees versus repeat grantees year over year. This important feature will help save you from applying to funders who are not open to working with new organizations.

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Grant Forward does provide valuable search tools for academic institutions, but its benefits end there.

Alternatively, Instrumentl stands out by offering nonprofit organizations powerful, unique features that help streamline the entire grant lifecycle from start to finish—regardless of your fundraising needs. Sign up for a 14-day free trial to see all that Instrumentl has to offer today.