One home for every grant, from application to final report.
A community development grantmaker in Baltimore was running a multimillion-dollar grants program across three disconnected systems. Here's how the whole lifecycle moved into Salesforce.
From three systems and a spreadsheet to one.
Before
- Applications came in through a separate grants portal.
- Payments and award history lived only in the accounting system.
- Staff built review spreadsheets by hand for every grant cycle.
- No one could see a grant's full story, from request to spend-down, in one place.
After
- Applicants apply and report through a portal connected directly to Salesforce.
- Awards, payments and remaining balances sit on each grant record.
- Review packets come straight from Salesforce, with no spreadsheet assembly.
- Grant agreements route automatically to the right signers for e-signature.
The project, step by step.
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Step 1 · Discover
Follow one grant
We traced a single grant through every system and hand-off, from application to final payment, to see where time and accuracy were lost.
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Step 2 · Scope
Design one data model
Applicants, grants, payments and reports were mapped onto Salesforce's grant management tools alongside the Nonprofit Success Pack.
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Step 3 · Build
Portal, migration, signatures
New application and reporting forms replaced the old portal. Years of applications, reports and payments were migrated and reconciled.
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Step 4 · Launch & support
Hand the keys to the team
Staff were trained on the new review and payment process, with a new in-house admin supported through the transition.
Lessons for any grantmaker.
Migrate the history, not just the open grants. Bringing in past payments meant staff could finally answer "how much have we given this organization?" in one click.
Let applicants do the data entry. When the portal writes straight to Salesforce, nobody re-keys an application again.
Automate the paperwork you dread. Routing agreements for signature removed a slow, error-prone step from every award.
Roger led this project as a senior Salesforce consultant at a national nonprofit consultancy before relaunching Alpenglow. Figures describe the project as delivered.
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