In this article, we’ll cover how you can transform the end-to-end lifecycle of your grants by unpacking four case studies from nonprofits in four different industries — social services, research, faith-based, and health.
Let’s dive in!
What Is Grant Management Software?
Grant management software is an essential tool designed to maximize and streamline the entire grant lifecycle from start to finish.
Ultimately, anything to do with a grant during the pre-award, award, and post-award phases can and should be managed within grant management software.
Automating the tasks you do again and again, like saving a grant to a tracker with key deadlines.
Centralizing documents, deadlines, and communications in one platform.
Making it easy to work with your team, assigning tasks and leaving notes for one another within the same place.
Some grant management software only provides the tracking functionality. Instrumentl uniquely provides the grant database for prospecting AND the grant management tools so you can manage your entire grant lifecycle in a single tool. That’s why we believe we’re the best grant database on the market— we’re more than just a database.
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However, more grants means more deadlines, more reports, more compliance requirements, and more to keep track of—it can be a recipe for disaster if you’re not organized.
“The biggest mistake I've seen organizations make when managing several grants is letting important tasks fall through the cracks. This can easily happen when there is disorganization of information possibly due to overload or overwhelm. These important tasks could be deadlines, documents meant to upload, follow-ups required, or even late reports - all things that can cause the missed opportunity for grants. It's important to stay on top of all these things and in a well-organized manner”
This is where grant management software comes in. Its tools make it easy to stay on track, transforming your workflow to help you not only manage more grants, but win more funding.
Ultimately, grant management software is an investment in your nonprofit’s fundraising success.
4 Examples of Nonprofits Effectively Managing Grants Using Instrumentl
Admittedly, we’re biased, but we believe that Instrumentl is the most comprehensive grant management system—and our customers agreed.
Instrumentl streamlines the entire grant lifecycle from start to finish, combining grant prospecting, tracking, and management in one collaborative platform.
Here are four nonprofits who have scaled their revenue by managing grants more efficiently.
Sleep in Heavenly Peace Doubles Grant Revenue
The Challenge:
When Jan Spackman, Director of Grants, learned that some children in her local community didn’t even have beds to go home to, she knew she had to do something. Inspired by their mission, Jan started the seventh chapter of Sleep In Heavenly Peace (SHP) to help.
At first, SHP chapters put little stock in grants. They relied heavily on individual fundraising to fuel their operations, but Jan knew there was a better way. She quickly secured grants, helping to build more and more beds for local children. Inspired by her success, other chapters reached out to learn her secrets.
The Solution:
Jan’s first order of business was to take stock of the systems available. SHP had invested in different grant management tools, but they were disjoined and inefficient, leading to processes that were cumbersome.
This hindered productivity and growth, and Jan knew SHP needed a streamlined solution to manage their growing number of grant applications and track progress effectively. There had to be a better solution out there, and when Jan found Instrumentl, she was speechless.
Instrumentl's comprehensive grant prospecting and management platform provided exactly what Jan needed. By consolidating prospecting and management into one tool, SHP eliminated redundant work and improved efficiency.
"Instrumentl was built to solve our exact problem. The robustness of the database and the time savings associated with having everything in one place made it a 'no brainer."
The Impact:
Instrumentl helped SHP:
Double grant revenue, increasing from $1 million to $2 million in just one year.
Scale grant management to effectively manage more than 2,000 grants.
Steamline grant management processes to improve efficiency and eliminate manual work.
Their success demonstrates the transformative potential of effective grant management tools in driving nonprofit growth and impact. Together with SHP, Jan pledges to continue leveraging Instrumentl’s powerful features to keep making a difference and ensure no child sleeps on the floor.
Lutheran Braille Workers Scales Grant Submissions by 150%
The Challenge:
Lutheran Braille Workers is the world's largest manufacturer of braille and large-print Bible materials. For many years, Daniel Jenkins, President, was a one-man fundraising team. He did his best, but managing current donors was a full-time job, and it didn’t leave much time to find new grant opportunities.
Once he had help, Daniel started to see some of the things that were holding him back. In addition to a lack of time and resources, Lutheran Braille Workers struggled with inefficient grant management processes as a whole, relying on spreadsheets and various tools that didn’t sync with one another.
“Each year, we managed about 40 different [funders] with different requirements, deadlines, and policies in addition to dozens of other foundations we looked at. There was no way to keep up. Things were falling apart, and it was frustrating. It was frustrating for some of our funders, too, who wanted to give us money, but we weren't able to meet deadlines or didn’t include key documentation. It was very important that we had everything together in one place.”
The Solution:
And that’s where Instrumentl came in. Instrumentl's integrated grant research and grant tracking software provided Daniel and his team with a centralized solution. It streamlined their workflow and improved collaboration.
The Impact:
Instrumentl helped them:
Increase their grant submissions by 150% annually, scaling from 3-6 grant applications per year to two per month.
Improve efficiency, streamlining the grant management process to eliminate manual work thanks to the smart grant matching, automatic deadline reminders, and advanced funder insights.
Find new funding sources, discovering and securing grants from a wider range of funders to further their mission of providing scriptures to visually impaired individuals globally.
Instrumentl completely changed Lutheran Braille Workers’ approach to effective grant management, and Daniel wonders how they accomplished anything before they started using it!
"Having everything in one place [on Instrumentl] allowed my grant researcher and I to communicate clearly and work together in a meaningful way."
Looking ahead, Lutheran Braille Workers is confident in their ability to secure more funding using Instrumentl, allowing them to expand their outreach and impact to reach more visually impaired individuals with their valuable resources.
Eversight Increases Grant Success Rate
The Challenge:
When Becky Harris, Philanthropy Director for Foundations and Corporations at Eversight, first joined the organization, she thought more was always better when it came to funding. She was pursuing more and more grants, throwing everything she could out there in the hopes of securing funding.
“Our strategy before was definitely born out of the pandemic. I think a lot of [nonprofits] felt like, ‘Okay, we just need money now because our operations have been shut down for a few months, and things are crazy. So, let's just put out as many applications as possible to whoever may fund us, and hopefully, they'll respond.”
The Solution:
After two years without great return, she knew she needed to do something different. Becky took a step back to look at her grant strategy, and she was underwhelmed at what she discovered. Sure, they provided a high volume of applications, but she had a low success rate. Additionally, they relied on scattered spreadsheets and manual processes, resulting in lots of wasted time and resources.
She needed something that would bring it all under one roof, and after some research and peer recommendations, Becky knew Instrumentl was the solution for Eversight.
Instrumentl's centralized platform streamlined grant management, providing features like spreadsheet uploaders, calendar views, status sorting, and email sharing that helped transform their ways of working.
The Impact:
As a result, Eversight:
Increased their grant success rate from 14% to 22%.
Reduced their number of applications, achieving the same level of funding with 73% fewer applications.
Improved efficiency, streamlining grant management processes and eliminating manual work.
Instrumentl’s smart grant matching, grant tracking software, project organization capabilities, and intuitive calendar view helped Becky and her team improve collaboration and efficiency. These features empowered her team to make data-driven decisions and prioritize high-potential grant opportunities.
"Instrumentl has increased my efficiency. It's no longer, 'Let's just fill out 10 grant applications and hope we get a response.' Now, I almost always get a response."
Today, Eversight continues to utilize Instrumentl's strategic approach to grant management, prioritizing quality over quantity to maximize its fundraising success. The best part, they’re getting the same return while expending fewer resources, which is the dream of every nonprofit.
NYU Langone Health Finds Funding Faster and Easier
The Challenge:
NYU Langone is one of the nation’s leading academic medical centers, and like many nonprofits, they understand that it takes a lot of money to make a difference.
This was compounded in a large institution, and no one felt that more than Charlisa Garg, Director of Foundation Relations. With so many different researchers doing their own thing and others wanting her to drop everything to chase their projects, it was difficult to stay organized and updated on funding opportunities that were best for the organization.
The Solution:
Charlisa stumbled across Instrumentl during a webinar and she was hooked. She signed up for a free trial and was blown away by what they could offer her. After creating projects for her different research streams, she quickly started getting automated matches via email, and Charlisa knew she found something special.
“Instrumentl has been a game-changer. It continuously feeds us relevant project alerts.”
Today, NYU Langone is more efficient because Instrumentl keeps them up to date on the latest funding opportunities so they don’t have to spend weeks searching.
Instead, our detailed funder profiles empower them to prioritize high-potential applications and secure funding faster. Instrumentl's data-driven insights also improved communication with researchers, leading to more focused efforts and better decision-making.
“A researcher might be really excited about a funder, but when we look at their profile [On Instrumentl] and see that they barely ever take new grantees— meaning all of their funding goes to previous grantees— it helps me manage their expectations. I can point researchers in a direction that’s a better use of their time.”
The Impact:
Instrumentl has been transformative for Charlisa and her team. It has helped them:
Save time, eliminating countless hours spent on manual grant searches.
Increase efficiency, focusing efforts on high-potential opportunities.
Improve decision making, utilizing data-driven insights for better grant selection.
Enhance communications, managing expectations with clear funding data that’s available within the platform.
Now, NYU Langone is confident about the future of grant management with Instrumentl as their core prospecting platform. It enables them to secure more funding faster and drive their research forward.
Streamline Grant Management and Meet Every Deadline
By now, you’ve heard firsthand from some of our customers about how Instrumentl has helped them streamline their processes and win more funding.
Some of our standout grant management features include:
Smart matching, connecting you to active grant opportunities based on your nonprofit’s funding needs and area of focus.
Robust funder insights, helping you identify quickly if an opportunity is a good fit and how to tailor your proposal.
Deadline reminders to help you keep track of what is coming down the pipeline. If there are changes, you’ll be automatically notified so you never miss an opportunity.
Grant tracking so you can organize your grants by status, next task, amount, and more.
Centralized notes and document libraries so everything is easily accessible.
Collaboration tools forassigning tasks to your team, identifying where you are in the grant process, and sharing opportunities with stakeholders—regardless of if they are on Instrumentl.
Instrumentl’s grant management software is transforming how nonprofits approach their grant workflows, making it easier to secure the funding they need to fulfill their missions.
Don't let inefficient processes hold you back—discover what Instrumentl can do for you today by signing up for our free, 14-day trial!
Once you use instrumentl, you’ll never be able to go back to your old ways of grant management!
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