The Software Your Foundation Is Missing

Foundations are designed to flow funds into a particular space with intent, but the process related to operational grant giving is rather complicated. The more the wealth, the more applications that will follow, the reporting that is involved, and the need to demonstrate a measurable impact. When your foundation is still using spreadsheets, shared hard drives, and email chains, you are wasting time and incurring risk.

Foundation software is what makes grant making a process. It allows teams to handle giving from start to finish, align programs to funds, improve compliance, and relationships with grantees. Listed below is a guideline to what constitutes foundation software, where it is needed, and where grant management systems like Fluxx integrate into a contemporary foundation tech stack.

What Constitutes Foundation Software?

This is foundation software. Foundation software is the collection of “digital tools that enable the day-to-day activity of the foundation itself.” It is not the software itself in each foundation or non-profit; the aim is the same in each instance: “to enable the work to be done in a systematic way that is auditable and scalable.”

The common foundation software categories are:

• Grant management systems, for managing intake, review, award, payment, reporting, and outcome.
• CRM or Relationship Management, to manage the history of grants given to grantees.
• Accounting or Fund Accounting, for dealing with disbursements, reconciliations, and financial reporting.
• Document management for the safe storage of agreements, due diligence documentation, as well as reporting.
• Reporting and analytics to serve reporting to boards, management, and other stakeholders.
• collaboration and workflow tools, for managing internal reviews, approvals, and communications.

The right blend is up to your grantmaking model, but the foundation requires a stack that is integrated and functional, not a quilt of applications that do not communicate with one another.

At What Point A Foundation Needs It

Almost all foundations perceive a need for specialized software at a point when the appearance of complexity becomes sooner compared to the staff’s ability. This happens earlier than most teams anticipate, especially when reporting demands escalate.

Signals that indicate it is time to invest are:

• You are conducting several cycles of grant submissions every year with varying needs.
• Approvals and reviews may involve various stakeholders or external reviewers.
• Reporting is becoming more common, more organized, or more outcome-focused.
• The finance and program teams are manually reconciling data or have differing opinions on "source of truth."
• Knowledge exists in people’s inboxes, on their desktops, or in patchy spreadsheets.
• You're entering new areas of programming, regions, or types of grants that require consistency.

In this scenario, software products are less about being convenient and more about control, continuity, and accountability. Software products start

The Dangers of Spreadsheets

Everyone knows how to use a spreadsheet, but spreadsheets aren’t designed for end-to-end grant making. They don’t fail catastrophically. They fail quietly. They fail in small ways. A lot.

Some common risks associated with spreadsheets include

• Version control issues related to teams working on updating different files.
• manual er-rors such as broken formulas, incorrectly filled-in fields, or grant status inconsistencies.
• Unclear accountability, where it is difficult to see who changed what and when.
• Lack of strong audit trails to trace compliance or the trail of decisions.
• Where there may be operational bottlenecks because of where data is scattered.
• Limited visibility, where the leadership lacks visibility into the pipeline status in real time.

In the case of foundations, such challenges are more than just operational issues. These pose significant challenges to the experience of the grantee, the readiness of the regulatory structure, the confidence of the board, as well as the

Why Integrations Are Necessary

A foundation usually has more than one system. The efficiency lies in how all of your tools are integrated so there’s a smooth flow of information among finance, programs, management, and outside constituents.

Integrations help eliminate redundancy, streamline reporting cycles, and keep data in sync. Take, for instance, when payments reflected in your accounting system are automatically in sync with award data and requirements in your grant system, it helps eliminate the frustration of reimbursements and the possibility of inconsistent reporting. If, for example, there’s a connection between your CRM or contact system and records of your grants, it helps facilitate communication for your organization’s staff with your grantees based on actual histories and realities.

In short, it’s through integrations that a collection of tools becomes an OS for the foundation.

The Use Case For Grant Management Software

Grant management software is available for work which is distinct to grant-making, this being the grant management lifecycle, which deals with both compliance and outcomes. It is the system which keeps a grant portfolio organized, checks grant decisions, and ensures reporting is replicable rather than being invented each time.

A grant management system can aid in foundation activities by providing support for the following activities:

• Application submissions and eligibility determination
• Structured review, Scoring, and Approvals
• Award letters, terms, and documentation tracking
• Payment scheduling and disbursement coordination.
• Reporting requirements, deliverables, and outcomes metrics
• Audit-ready records of decisions, changes, and communications

This is where foundations transition from running their funds reactively to managing their funds proactively.

How Fluxx Helps Manage Grants

It’s intended to accommodate the needs of contemporary grant-making, in which foundations require flexibility but can’t relinquish structure. Fluxx creates a common ground where grant applications, reviews, awards, payments, reporting, and outcomes can be handled, with permissions and audit trails remaining well-organized.

With Fluxx, foundations can minimize manual handoffs from program teams and finance teams, streamline processes across different grants in a standardized way, and remotely monitor the status of their grant portfolios in real-time. Teams can monitor their obligations and deadlines accurately, store important documents in the same context, and provide financial and program performance information in their reports. Since Fluxx seamlessly connects with the foundation’s current technology stack, the solution helps build an interconnected stack in which the foundation’s data is in sync; key answers are delivered faster too.

Creating a Smarter Foundation Operations Model

The software that your foundation is missing, rather than simply being another tool to add to your tool belt, is infrastructure that protects time, minimizes risk, and maximizes impact. When you move from spreadsheets to grantmaking software, you are able to offer a better experience to your employees as well as to the grant recipients. A foundation ready to upgrade grant management may find that it’s time to explore the power of Fluxx in your setting. 

Sign up for a demo to learn more of what Fluxx has to offer in terms of full lifecycle grant management.