Foundant vs Submittable: Mergers and Myths

As many know by now, Foundant and SmartSimple have merged. While this is exciting news for our teams, we want to ensure everyone who interacts with our companies has a clear picture of why this is great news not only for us, but for our clients and communities. 

However, the most important shared philosophy is our commitment to prioritizing our clients and our teams. We are people helping people. 

As these groups of passionate humans come together under this shared commitment, we possess a combined 40 years of experience serving diverse organizations. This merger expands our abilities to serve you, regardless of your organization’s size or the complexity of your funding processes.  

We are now more than 300 team members strong, serving over 3,600 large and small research, corporate, government, faith-based, community, and family/private foundation granting organizations around the world. 

Foundant and SmartSimple continue to invest in team members, technology, and innovative practices to support the growing needs of all our clients. As part of our merger, we are looking to grow our combined teams to further enable service to our clients and their end-users. 

Recent articles from Submittable: setting the record straight. 

As in any industry, we have competitors. And, like any good competitor should, they seek to prove they are the best. We all do. But sometimes we get word – through clients, partners, or team members – that some misinformation has been published. Let’s take a closer look at a few misconceptions. 

MYTH: Foundant clients will be transitioned to SmartSimple software.

FACT: Foundant will continue to offer and support our full line of solutions. Clients will not be transitioned to SmartSimple solutions unless they choose to do so. Part of the reason we merged with SmartSimple is our products are complementary and expand options for clients of both organizations.

FACT: Submittable, after acquiring WizeHive, has noted on their own blog that it is their intention to have all clients on one platform.

MYTH: Foundant customer service will change with the merger.

FACT: Foundant clients will continue to receive the high level of support they have come to expect and Foundant will continue to invest in the team to ensure clients receive the support they expect and deserve.

FACT: WizeHive and Submittable have eliminated over 40 positions after Submittable acquired WizeHive.

MYTH: Changes require involving Technical Support 

FACT: All day-to-day administrative functions in Grant Lifecycle Manager (GLM) are in your hands: build questions, forms, templates, and reports; send communications, review an award status, or process grants. Implementing day-to-day updates and changes and managing or building your own programs has always been core to GLM.  

Sometimes, our team needs to enable a new feature in the software's back end, or a client needs field codes synced for reporting. Our team can do these quickly and won’t hold up your processes. 

The best part is that when you need us, we’re there. Our support team consistently ranks as top-tier with clients. Whether you need help following through after a long hiatus between grants or you need to add some extra capacity to the team with an investment in Expert Assist hours, we are eager to help. 

MYTH: Takes months to launch programs 

FACT: We have enabled clients to launch programs in as little as two days, but the amount of time it takes rests on what is right for each client. Our Delivery Team evaluates each scenario to ensure they are providing best practice guidance and support at each step of the setup process, so the program is successful. We’ll never push you to launch before you are ready! 

MYTH: Requires IT support; not plug-and-play 

As with all technology solutions, there is never a one-size-fits-all, which means we must provide support that allows clients to run the programs they need in the way they need. 

Further, many GLM clients are relatively small and have no IT staff, yet that shouldn’t keep them from running the sophisticated programs they want and need. In those cases, our Success team supports their unique needs.  

Foundant also works with very large community foundations running highly intricate programs. These clients typically use CommunitySuite in conjunction with GLM and sometimes even more integrations. In those cases, yes, their IT team is often brought in because it is a whole-organization onboarding. 

Our clients sum up their experience perfectly 

With an average rating of 4.9 on Capterra Reviews, you can see for yourself how Foundant Grant Lifecycle Manager stacks up against the competition. 

Pros: I compared over 10 different sites and software programs before partnering with Foundant. By far, Foundant had what we needed. They have enough bells and whistles to do what we need, but not so many that I get overwhelmed or bogged down. Foundant has a great training program that enabled me to build the site and maintain it - which says a lot since I am not a computer wizard. I have updated our application and processes annually and was able to very easily add a process for our COVID work. The best thing about Foundant is their people. Whether I call, chat or email the response is always quick and efficient. In addition to using the site to do grant management work, we have also extended it to receive PRI applications. I love that the system is adaptable. 

Cons: Nothing. If hard pressed, I would say it took more than a minute to figure out how to do reports. But once I understood the building blocks, I was able to create reports for different audiences. 

(Sourced from Capterra Reviews August 29, 2024) 

Overall: Top notch! I really enjoy the interface and customer support has always been excellent. 

Pros: It gives us the ability to provide multiple opportunities to our community and keeps us organized. 

Cons: GLM is very robust. As a smaller organization I know we don't engage with a lot of what the site has to offer. Mostly because of need (or lack of need in this case). 

(Sourced from Capterra Reviews August 29, 2024) 

Overall: We are a very small foundation, all of us multi-task, and Grant Lifecycle Manager helps us maximize our time communicating and tracking grantees and processes. 

Pros: Wonderful tech support. If there is anything I have forgotten or need help on, a chat with tech support almost always solves it. I never have to wait very long for someone to chat with me and walk me through a solution. 

Cons: None that I can think of. Since we use certain features only once a year, it is easy to forget certain features. But that is an easy fix: I just chat with tech support or look up the help articles and I'm okay. 

(Sourced from Capterra Reviews August 29, 2024) 

At the end of the day, only you can decide which solution fits your needs, budget, and preferences. You will naturally prioritize aspects that will help ease the grants management process for your whole team, and we want to ensure you have all the information you need to do just that. 

Learn more about what it’s like to be a Foundant client from the folks who are already part of our community. 

“Foundant’s heart for the philanthropic sector enables us to do our work so much better. It energizes us more - the energy that you bring. The opportunities for connection with other Foundant users in the sector nationwide really help us network and build our efficiencies by learning from each other. The content that Foundant offers as well to help us continue our learning - not only with the software, but with trends in the philanthropic sector. That holistic that you guys bring and the menu of services that you offer really helps take our work to the next level." 

~ Hancock County Community Foundation 

Check out all our client stories 

We would love to connect! If you’re ready to chat with someone at Foundant to learn more about Grant Lifecycle Manager or just want to learn more about the Foundant Team, reach out!