The United States has the world's largest philanthropic sector — with over 100,000 private foundations, thousands of community foundations, and hundreds of billions in annual grants. The grants management software market reflects this scale, with a wide range of platforms serving different funder types, sizes, and accountability contexts.
The US market includes three broad tiers:
Enterprise and large-foundation platforms. Built for major foundations with large teams, complex workflows, and significant technology budgets. Includes Fluxx, Salesforce Grants Management, and others. These platforms are highly configurable but expensive to implement and maintain.
Mid-market purpose-built platforms. Designed specifically for grantmakers, balancing comprehensive features with manageable implementation. Includes Submittable, Foundant GLM, Giveffect, and others. Better suited to foundations with moderate complexity and moderate budgets.
Small and entry-level solutions. Accessible platforms for smaller foundations, community organisations, and new grant programmes. Includes SurveyMonkey Apply (formerly FluidReview), Airtable-based solutions, and others.
Fluxx. Enterprise grants management platform with a large US foundation customer base. Highly configurable with a module-based architecture. Best suited to large foundations with dedicated system administration resources.
Salesforce Grants Management. Built on the Salesforce CRM platform, extending NPSP (Nonprofit Success Pack) with grants-specific functionality. Strong for organisations already using Salesforce for CRM, but complex and expensive to implement standalone.
Submittable. Popular mid-market platform with a strong applicant portal, form builder, and review workflow. Widely used across the US nonprofit sector; some funders find the assessment workflow less flexible than purpose-built grants tools.
Foundant Grant Lifecycle Manager (GLM). Purpose-built grants management platform popular with US community foundations and mid-sized private foundations. Good balance of features and usability.
Blackbaud Grantmaking. Part of the Blackbaud product suite, popular with organisations already using Blackbaud for fundraising and financial management. Integration with Blackbaud's other products is a key advantage.
Cybergrants / Bonterra. Now part of the Bonterra platform, serving corporate grantmakers and employee giving programmes.
IRS Form 990-PF. Private foundations must file Form 990-PF — an annual public information return that includes detailed information about grants made. Grants management systems that can generate 990-PF-compliant grant data exports reduce manual compilation work at filing time.
Payout requirements. US private foundations are required to distribute at least 5% of the average fair market value of their investment assets annually to qualified charitable organisations (or for approved charitable purposes). Tracking distributed amounts against the 5% minimum is a core compliance function.
Qualifying distributions. Not all grants count equally toward the 5% distribution requirement. Grants to private foundations, foreign organisations, or certain other recipients may not qualify as distributions or may require specific documentation. Grants management systems should support tracking of qualifying distribution status.
Expenditure responsibility. When a US private foundation grants to certain types of organisations (private operating foundations, foreign organisations, certain US organisations), it must exercise "expenditure responsibility" — maintaining records of how grants are used and filing reports with the IRS. This creates additional accountability requirements for international and inter-foundation grants.
Form 1099 for non-charitable recipients. Grants to individuals or to non-charitable entities may require IRS Form 1099 reporting. Grants management systems should capture the information needed for 1099 compliance.
990-PF data export. Can the system produce grant data in the format needed for 990-PF preparation, or at least export to a format that integrates with Form 990-PF preparation software?
Qualifying distribution tracking. Can the system track which grants qualify as distributions for the 5% payout calculation?
Expenditure responsibility tools. For foundations making grants requiring expenditure responsibility, does the system support the required documentation and monitoring?
US DGR equivalents. The US equivalent of DGR status is 501(c)(3) public charity status. Can the system integrate with or verify IRS determination letter status for applicant organisations?
State-level reporting. Some US states have additional charitable registration and reporting requirements for foundations. Does the system support state-level grant reporting?
Tahua primarily serves the New Zealand and Australian grants management market. US funders with trans-Pacific grantmaking — funding NZ or Australian organisations alongside US grantees — can use Tahua for their ANZ programmes with Australasian compliance features, while using US-native platforms for domestic programmes.