The grant portal — the online system through which applicants submit and manage their applications — is often the first and most frequent touchpoint between a funder and the community organisations they support. A well-designed portal makes the application process accessible, reduces administrative burden, and signals respect for applicants. A poorly designed one filters out the organisations most in need of funding, discourages good applications, and creates adversarial relationships before the grant relationship has even begun.
Many funders think about grant systems primarily from their own perspective — how will this system help us manage applications and make decisions? This is understandable but incomplete. The organisations using your portal as applicants experience it completely differently from the funder staff using the backend.
When applicants encounter:
- An inaccessible portal that requires browser-specific technology or disallows mobile access
- Application forms that don't save progress and can be lost with a browser crash
- Questions that don't apply to their type of organisation
- Character limits so tight that nuanced answers are impossible
- Mandatory fields for information they don't have
- No ability to check on the status of submitted applications
...the result is that smaller, less resourced organisations — which are often the most innovative and community-connected — simply don't apply, or submit poor applications. The funder receives a biased sample of applications weighted toward organisations with dedicated grants staff and experience navigating bureaucratic systems.
Save progress automatically. An application that can be lost due to a session timeout or browser crash is actively hostile to applicants. Any system worth using saves progress automatically and allows applicants to return to a partially completed application across multiple sessions.
Allow collaboration. In most organisations, grant applications are a team effort — one person writes the financial information, another writes the programme narrative, a trustee reviews the governance sections. Systems that allow multiple users to access and edit an application, with appropriate permissions, reflect reality.
Proportionate question sets. Smaller grants should have shorter applications. Conditional logic that hides irrelevant questions (e.g., don't ask about previous-year accounts if the organisation is less than one year old) reduces burden without reducing information quality.
Clear progress indicators. Applicants should always know how far they are through the application, what sections remain, and what happens after submission. Uncertainty about the process creates anxiety and discourages completion.
Save and return. Applications should be able to be saved at any point and returned to later. Not everyone can complete an application in a single sitting.
Clear error messages. When applicants make errors — missing required fields, exceeding character limits, uploading wrong file types — error messages should explain exactly what went wrong and how to fix it. Generic error messages ("please review your application") are useless.
Confirmation and next steps. After submission, applicants should receive immediate confirmation that their application was received, with a reference number. They should know what happens next and when they can expect to hear a decision.
Mobile accessibility. Many people access the internet primarily through mobile devices. An application system that only works on desktop excludes a significant portion of potential applicants.
Accessibility standards. Portals must meet accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1 AA minimum) so that people with disabilities can complete applications using assistive technologies.
Beyond portal mechanics, the design of the application form itself significantly affects applicant experience.
Plain language. Application questions written in bureaucratic language are harder to answer and produce worse information. "Describe how your organisation will achieve its intended social outcomes within the grant period" asks the same thing as "tell us what will change for your community as a result of this grant" but the second version is easier to answer and produces more useful responses.
Purpose-linked questions. Every question on an application form should exist because the answer will inform a specific aspect of the assessment decision. Questions that are asked out of habit, or because they're on a standard template, but whose answers are never used, add burden without adding value.
Open-ended vs. structured questions. Structured questions (with fixed answer options) are easier to process but constrain what applicants can tell you. Open-ended questions allow richer information but require more effort to assess consistently. The right balance depends on the grant size and the nature of the decision being made.
Realistic character limits. Character limits should be set based on how much information is actually needed to answer the question, not arbitrary round numbers. A 200-character limit for "what is the primary problem your programme addresses?" is not enough; 500 characters for an organisation description is more than enough.
Application previews. Allowing applicants to preview the complete application form before starting — so they know what information they'll need to gather — significantly improves application quality and completion rates.
The best funder-applicant relationships start before the application form is opened.
Guidelines and FAQs. Clear, plain-language documentation about what the grant funds, who is eligible, how decisions are made, and what the timeline is. Updated regularly. Accessible on the funder's website, not just behind a login.
Information sessions. Webinars or in-person sessions that explain the grant programme and allow potential applicants to ask questions. Particularly valuable for new grant rounds or significant programme changes.
Pre-application conversations. Many funders encourage a brief conversation before organisations invest time in a full application. This helps applicants understand whether their project fits the criteria and what the funder is looking for — and helps funders understand the landscape of interest before the formal round opens.
Application support. Some funders provide support for applicants from communities with less experience navigating grant applications — including workshop support, template assistance, or connection to capacity-building organisations.
Acknowledgement of receipt. Immediate, automatic confirmation that the application was received.
Eligibility check notification. If you conduct an eligibility check before full assessment, notify applicants promptly if their application doesn't meet eligibility criteria — don't leave them waiting through a full assessment process for a decision that could have been made at week one.
Assessment timeline communication. Let applicants know when to expect a decision. Acknowledge delays. Uncertainty is more stressful than delay.
Outcome notification. Notify all applicants — successful and unsuccessful — at the same time. Successful applicants finding out through grapevine before unsuccessful applicants are formally notified is poor practice.
Decline feedback. Providing substantive feedback to unsuccessful applicants is one of the most valued things a funder can do. Even brief, specific feedback ("your application scored well on community need but below the funding threshold on organisational capacity") is more useful than "we received many high-quality applications."
For successful applicants, the portal becomes the interface for the ongoing grant relationship:
Grant agreement access. Applicants should be able to access their grant agreement online, not just through email attachments that can be lost.
Progress reporting submissions. Online reporting forms that are pre-populated with grant information and that can be saved and completed incrementally.
Payment status tracking. Grantees should be able to see the status of grant payments — whether a payment has been processed, when it's expected.
Document upload and management. Easy mechanisms for submitting required documents — financial accounts, reports, evidence of activity.
Communication history. A record of all communication between the grantee and the funder, accessible through the portal.
Renewal applications. For grantees applying for renewal, the ability to pre-populate the new application from the previous application and grant record significantly reduces the burden.
Tahua's grantee portal is designed from the applicant's perspective — with automatic saving, collaborative access, proportionate question sets, and the communication infrastructure that professional funder-grantee relationships require.