Grant applications are an important touchpoint for nonprofits and grantmakers alike. Recently, Blackbaud has been taking a hard look at the modern grantee experience for those who use our portal for grant applications. We wanted to know if the grantee portal afforded our funder clients the flexibility to get the information they needed, while also respecting the time and resources of the nonprofits they serve.

As part of this reflection, we set out to understand what modern grantmakers and grantees need from a grant application. After talking with grant writers and those submitting grant applications, we came away with several ways to streamline the experience saving time for both grantees and funders.

Rethinking the Modern Grantee Experience

A number of conversations are happening in the field around the application experience. We used these important discussions to inform how we approached the grantee experience.

Catalytic Leadership in Philanthropy (CLIP) 

When funders shift to a catalytic mindset, they deemphasize paperwork and focus instead on developing relationships with grantees and members of the community. Streamlining the foundation’s processes and shifting due diligence from grantees to the funder can free up time for both funders and grantees. Reallocating this time to focus on relationships by scanning the landscape, engaging constituents in the grantmaking process, and convening and connecting with grantees is crucial to CLIP.

Trust-Based Philanthropy

The idea of a power imbalance in philanthropy has been bubbling up for years. In the past few, we’re starting to see guidelines, like the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project’s principles, for funders to refocus their funding from a place of trust instead of risk. From an application standpoint, this requires a focus on the relationship between the funder and grantee, and not requiring applicants to enter information the funder already knows or can easily find. The push for grantees knowing best how to use funds more effectively will drive the need for applications that focus on multiyear support.

Equity and Inclusion

After years of incorporating equity, diversity, and inclusion, grantmaking organizations are taking a closer look at the type of information they need—and what they don’t—to be more equitable in their grantmaking. Applications need to gather information about representation and program reach, without being too onerous on under-resourced nonprofits. At the same time, these nonprofits are often led by or work with underrepresented and marginalized groups.

Fix the Form

In 2020, a deep-dive into reviews on GrantAdvisor revealed that the application process for many funders was unnecessarily time-intensive and complicated. The organizers behind the #FixtheForm movement outlined many of the barriers that made applications so frustrating. They encouraged funders to remove technical hurdles that took unnecessary time, such as not being able to see the entire form or not being able to save their progress.

Generative AI

While the impacts of generative AI tools are evolving, there are opportunities when it comes to the application process, such as providing tools to make it easier to summarize programs. We continue to watch this tool to understand if and where it might make sense for nonprofits to use generative AI as part of the application process to support timesaving use cases.

Read the full article about grantee experience by Brenda Noiseux at Exponent Philanthropy.