GrantHub is a grant management platform that helps nonprofits better organize their work so they can stay on task and craft smarter long term strategies.
But is GrantHub the right choice for you?
In this article, we’ll explore different reasons as to why you might consider GrantHub alternatives and which grant discovery and management platforms could be a better fit for your nonprofit.
As part of Foundant Technologies, GrantHub’s main goal is to provide nonprofits and individuals with the tools they need to better manage their grants.
With 20GB Storage, 35 users permitted per account, and unlimited stellar customer support available to all users, it is easy to see why this platform is so highly regarded.
So why would you ever look for an alternative?
Below, you’ll see some factors to take into consideration before deciding whether GrantHub truly is the best grant finder and management website for you.
While GrantHub is incredibly well-regarded for its tracking features, the truth is that it is mainly a grant management platform and not a grant discovery one. It was built primarily to help you once you already know which grants you wish to apply for.
In other words, while GrantHub is a great place to track your progress, GrantHub will not be nearly as useful in finding new funding opportunities for your organization. Any search features that they have are provided by GrantStation.
For tips on how you can improve your grant research strategy, check out this post on our blog.
As mentioned above, GrantHub is primarily a grant tracking and management platform. For this reason, though it relies on GuideStar’s data, its funder profiles are limited in scope.
Accurate information is critical not just in helping you decide whether or not a funder is a right match for you, but in helping you observe patterns and trends that can inform your application so you have a better chance at succeeding.
When you are working hard on something, it is natural to lose track of time. Email reminders of important upcoming dates can help you better assess how much work you still need to get done so you can prioritize your tasks accordingly.
While this is a feature present in some of GrantHub’s alternatives, and while GrantHub itself will provide you with a calendar to plan your tasks, it will not send you reminders of upcoming deadlines for grants you have saved.
While never ideal, the truth is that sometimes funders will change their priorities. Said changes will affect not only whether you are still qualified for their grant, but your grant writing strategies. This is why it is important to be constantly double-checking that nothing has been altered so that you don’t waste your time working on something that is no longer relevant to your proposal.
While notifications about these changes would be a key solution to this problem, this is unfortunately not one of GrantHub’s features.
While GrantHub is definitely praised for its intuitive and easy-to-use design, when reading through reviews on Capterra, Software Advice, and G2, a pattern emerges of users having difficulty loading pages, downloading information, integrating it with other software, and a general feeling of the website being “clunky” at times.
GrantHub’s features are incredibly useful, but there are still bugs that need to be solved. This can be observed in reviews from 2017 to 2022.
Now that we’ve discussed why you might want to consider looking for GrantHub alternatives, it is time to closely examine three options that might be a better suit for you.
For each of these, we looked at their features, their pricing, and their user reviews so you can better compare their services and see if they are the best grant finder website for you.
We’ll start out our comparisons by looking at Instrumentl.
Founded in 2014, Instrumentl is a grant discovery and management platform that helps nonprofits optimize their grant proposal strategies so that they can not only secure more funds for their cause, but they can also spend their time focusing on the hard work required to change the world.
One of the ways in which Instrumentl stands out when compared to GrantHub is in its grant discovery features. Thanks to its extensive database and robust search tools, you can easily find new funding opportunities at a much faster pace than you would have been able to on your own.
Furthermore, Instrumentl’s funder profiles are incredibly detailed. Not only does it offer all the information available at GrantHub, it also includes:
One of Instrumentl’s top features is its smart matching tool that sends personalized funding recommendations based on your project and nonprofit. This means that even as you are working on something else, Instrumentl’s intelligent algorithm is scanning through its database, searching for new funding opportunities that you might not have been able to discover on your own.
But that is not to say that Instrumentl’s discovery features come at the cost of its tracking and management ones.
Just like GrantHub, Instrumentl’s intuitive workspace maximizes efficiency by keeping you organized. Its grant calendar lets you visualize your timeline so you can create smarter strategies. This also makes it easier to organize your tasks, especially if you are working on multiple projects simultaneously and each of them not only have different deadlines, but are at varying stages of development.
You can store notes for yourself and your team to help keep track of things, assign tasks to different users, and update project status as you progress through your grant journey.
Unlike GrantHub, Instrumentl will send you weekly emails with reminders for deadlines and upcoming tasks. If a funder makes a change to their priorities or their due dates, you’ll also receive a notification so you can focus on your work instead of constantly checking their profiles.
You can learn more about what makes Instrumentl unique by checking out this comprehensive comparison page.
When it comes to pricing, Instrumentl has four subscription plans available. This gives you the ability to pay only for the features you need, at a price you can afford, and in a timeframe that is most convenient to you.
The four basic plans offered by Instrumentl are:
The main difference between their offered features are as follows:
Instrumentl also offers a 14 day free trial for you to see whether or not their services are a right match for your organization.
Instrumentl averages an incredible 4.9/5 stars on its review page on G2.
This satisfaction is echoed by users who reviewed Instrumentl at Capterra.
Overall, users on both websites are satisfied with Instrumentl’s features. Its extensive database and search tools made finding new funding opportunities easier, and the management and tracking tools improved work efficiency.
Having all of these features in one platform is perhaps one of Instrumentl’s greatest strengths.
You can check out even more Instrumentl testimonials here.
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Explore More GrantsGrantWatch is a grant discovery database founded by Libby Hikind. Though not exclusive to nonprofits, over the years it has become a leading platform in its field, helping countless individuals, nonprofits, and businesses find the funding they need.
GrantWatch’s strength lies in its discovery tools. Thanks to its database, members with free and paid subscriptions can search for grants by recipient type, category of interest, location, funding source type, and even deadlines.
About 70% of grants listed on GrantWatch come from private and public foundations such as ones provided by corporations and charities. The remaining 30% come from local, state, and the federal government. Information on these grants are limited, but they do include access to RFP links.
While GrantWatch’s database and search tools are certainly admirable, its grant management services are limited to a “My Grants Calendar” tool. Unlike Instrumentl and GrantHub, GrantWatch does not provide its users with application trackers, deadline reminders, or the ability to save notes and prospects for later use.
In other words, if GrantHub is primarily a grant management tool, then GrantWatch is primarily a grant discovery one.
GrantWatch offers two types of subscriptions, one which is free and the other one which is paid.
Their free subscription, called Regular Membership, gives subscribers access to GranthWatch’s extensive database and search tools. That means that when you subscribe to the paid plan, called MemberPlus+, you are paying not for access to the database itself, but extra information not provided to regular members.
There are four different payment options available for the MemberPlus subscription. These are:
As you can see, the annual plan is clearly marked as having the best value. As GrantWatch functions primarily as a database, smaller nonprofits might opt to pay solely for the period of time in which they will be looking for new funding opportunities.
Most users seem happy with GrantWatch’s services, considering it a valuable resource.
For example, when answering a question regarding the legitimacy of GrantWatch on Quora, this commenter mentions how often they use GrantWatch’s service throughout the year, making the MemberPlus+ Annual subscription well worth its value.
However, some concerns were also brought up by a reviewer in the subreddit r/entrepreneur who complained that, when searching for new grants, most of the results were irrelevant to his specific circumstance.
GrantStation’s main mission is to help nonprofits help the world by providing them with the tools they need to find and manage new funding sources. They trace their origins to a 1996 database created specifically for Alaskan grantseekers, and have since expanded and rebranded into the platform they are today.
GrantStation’s database is incredibly vast, making it a great grant discovery platform. Though its funder profiles do not include detailed information on current open opportunities or direct links to RFPs, they do provide users with primary contact information, details on the funder’s priorities, geographic scope of the grant, guidelines for proposals, and deadlines.
GrantStation also marks their funder profiles with the date of when it was last updated to ensure that users know the accuracy of the provided information.
In terms of tracking and management, GrantStation also offers quite a few tools. For example, you can store notes on funders, save prospects, and update the status of your proposals. Like Instrumentl, GrantStation will also keep you updated on any changes in funder priority or deadlines so that you can focus on your application and not worry about being caught by surprise.
Unfortunately, unlike GrantHub and Instrumentl, GrantStation does not have any collaboration features. This means that you’ll have to pay for multiple accounts if you have multiple people working together on grant proposals.
GrantStation offers four different pricing plans for their membership. These are:
Their membership plan also gives access to webinars, though other forms of online educational resources have to be purchased separately.
When looking at GranStation’s page in Featured Customers, we can see that its over 700 reviews averaged to an impressive score of 4.8/5 stars.
For the most part, users seem happy with the platform’s user-friendliness and its combination of discovery and management features. Many credit these as the reason why they increased their grant awards—as they helped them not only find new opportunities, but also better manage their time and organize their workflow.
Now that we’ve looked at all of these different platforms in detail, it is time to discuss why Instrumentl is the best GrantHub alternative.
GrantHub is a helpful grant tracking and management platform and GrantWatch has a vast database that can help you find new funding sources. GrantStation combines the best of both worlds, but it does not offer any collaboration features.
Out of the options explored in this article, only Instrumentl will help you find new grants, track your progress, and let you work together with your team as you do it.
As mentioned already, Instrumentl’s funder profiles are incredibly detailed, and they include links to RFPs, giving patterns over multiple years, history of past grantees, average and median grant amounts, 990 snapshots, and other funder insights.
All of this valuable information is presented in an easy-to-read page, with graphs and charts, so you do not have to waste time sifting through different pages and combing through details to craft a winning proposal.
Out of all of the grant discovery platforms compared in this article, only Instrumentl offers an intelligent matching feature. When its robust database is combined with its sophisticated algorithm, Instrumentl ceases to be a passive tool and instead becomes an active partner in your fundraising strategy, pairing you with potential funders that you might never have discovered on your own.
In order to win more grants, you need the tools that will not only help you discover new opportunities, but that will help you manage your applications and organize your projects so you will never feel overwhelmed and fall behind.
While GrantHub certainly has a lot to offer, Instrumentl’s services are useful throughout the entire grant lifecycle. This makes it the better alternative.
To start looking for new opportunities and managing your current grants, sign up for a free 14 day trial today.
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Instrumentl team
Instrumentl is the all-in-one grant management tool for nonprofits and consultants who want to find and win more grants without the stress of juggling grant work through disparate tools and sticky notes.
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