The following reviews look more closely at each of the systems that met our eligibility criteria for inclusion in this guide. For each we used a simple rating (Basic, Standard, Advanced) to compare the strengths and weakness against requirements criteria in 12 key areas:

• Grant, Contact & Organization Records
• Grant Applications
• Application Review
• Communications
• Payments & Budgeting
• Grant Requirements & Outcomes Evaluation
• System Querying & Reporting
• Security, Permissions, & Data Access
• User Experience
• Support & Training
• Stability in the Market
• Customer Experience Survey

Your foundation should decide which criteria is important for its own needs, and thus may rate criteria differently than we did, but this rating system can be a starting point for comparison. You can find the scores for each system in the Comparison Chart; or, select multiple systems to compare them against one another.

For each system review, we’ve also provided results from our customer experience survey, including how many people reported using the system, in the survey; scores in a range from -2 to 2 based on those users’ reported experiences with the training, support, and implementation offered by the systems’ vendors; and what a weighted percentage of those respondents would recommend the system to others. We’ve reprinted the content of the survey in Appendix C.