No single database is one-size-fits-all. We’ve taken the time to test out several grant databases to give you a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of each one so you don’t have to.

You can cruise to the bottom of this article for the database we recommend. Otherwise, clicking on each database title will take you directly to their site for more information. Enjoy reading about the ten databases we researched for you!

• Foundation Directory Online
• The Catholic Funding Guide
• GrantScape
• GrantStation
• Grant Forward
• Grant Select
• Grant Watch
• NAVSO
• Pivot
• Instrumentl

GrantScape

www.thegrantscape.com/

GrantScape offers federal, state, local, and foundation grant sources. There are over 180,000 grantors and approximately 8,795 available grants housed within the database.

They also offer a 48-hour trial to see if GrantScape is the right fit for you and/or your organization. Pricing is set up as follows: Individual (GrantScape): $29/month; Team (Thompson Grants 360): $179/month; Consultant (GrantScape Pro): $99/month; Enterprise (Data Licensing): contact for pricing.

We took a few screenshots to give you a look at what the database visually looks like.

This is the initial screen to begin filtering your grant search.

This image shows further filtering options to narrow your search including geography, category, etc.

This is what the search results look like. There are also more filtering options available on the left hand side of the screen.

Example of a funder profile with contact details and further information about the grantor.

This is a capture of the user’s dashboard—a home base of sorts for your grant search. Users are able to save grants and also have the option to set up deadline reminders.

Overall, we found GrantScape to be a reasonably affordable option and we like the resources available within the dashboard function. If you’d like more information, here’s a 30-minute demo of the database.

GrantStation

grantstation.com

GrantStation is a little bit different as the grant database is only one of the services provided by the organization. GrantStation offers nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, and government agencies the opportunity to identify potential funding sources for their programs or projects as well as resources to mentor these organizations through the grant-seeking process. They educate through their blog, newsletter, webinars, conferences, and a development tool to help grant professionals create a development plan for their career.

Full membership access allows members the opportunity to utilize all the online grant-seeking tools they offer, including the GrantStation grant database. The full membership is a bit pricey and is broken down as follows: one year: $699, two years: $1,258 (save 10%), three years: $1,782 (save 15%—the best deal), and one quarter: $219.

Funding agency profiles are available with detailed primary contact information, current funding priorities, geographic scope, grant guidelines, application deadlines, and notes that provide “insider” information on selected funders.

GrantStation features grants from private, corporate, and community foundations, corporate contribution programs, and a number of faith-based funders, association grant programs, and other grant programs. Federal grants are pulled from grants.gov and for those in Canada, GrantStation provides a page for each province listing the agencies with grant programs.

We appreciate that this database considers Canadians as we know that many of our students are from Canada or work with Canadian organizations. However, the database was still a bit clunky to use and didn’t have a great tracking system for saving grants or the option to set task/deadline reminders.

Pro tip: a 1-year subscription ($110) to The Chronicle of Philanthropy will give you access to GrantStation’s grant database.

Grant Forward

www.grantforward.com

190,000+ grants exist within the Grant Forward database. This database covers the whole ecosystem of funding including grants, sponsors, pre-solicitations, and the funded awards. Subscribers can also receive an early heads-up when opportunities are being prepared, and are informed of what projects, topics, and organizations get funded.

Additional features of Grant Forward include the option to exclude grants (to exclude a grant from your search), view history (to mark grants that you have viewed), filter include/exclude enhancement (to set include/exclude of filters easily), editing publications in profiles (to add/delete/edit publications to tailor your researcher profiles), and keyword search for profiles (to search researcher profiles by any keywords).

The subscription cost per year ranges from $1,100-4,400 and is determined both by funding size and the population of your organization (students and employees).

Request a free trial here. You have one month or longer to determine if Grant Forward is a good match for you/your organization.

We liked the extra features of Grant Forward and the simplistic, easy to use layout, although we still felt it was a bit pricey for what subscribers receive.

Grant Select

www.grantselect.com

Grant Select offers three different subscription options depending on how long you wish to subscribe and whether it’s an individual or institutional subscription. Individual subscriptions have two options including Standard at $150 per month, or Professional at $495 annually. If you’re interested in an Institution subscription, contact them for quote.

Detailed grant records include contact information, sponsor name and address, subject terms for related searches, and type of sponsor (Federal agency, foundation, research institute, etc.). When available, the records also include deadline date(s), restrictions on who may apply, lists of previous awards, amount(s) of grant or award, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) number, populations encouraged to apply (e.g., women, minorities, disabled), RFA and PA numbers for NIH grants, and program numbers for NSF grants.

Of note is that the free trial subscriptions are open only to faculty, staff and administrators at academic institutions or libraries. To request a trial, contact the sales staff, who will discuss terms, provide a quote, and send you access information.

We also took a few screenshots to give you an insider look into the database:

Quick search view where you begin your grant search.

Advanced search includes filters for geographic location, program type, sponsor type, deadline, etc.

A detailed grant record to provide your further information on the funding agency.

As a whole, GrantSelect is a fairly robust grant database. We appreciate when the company is able to include all of the extra bits of information to compose a complete grant record—it’s just such good information to know.

Grant Watch

www.grantwatch.com

Grant Watch is one of the more affordable databases we reviewed. Prices are $18/week, $45/month, $90/quarter, or $199/annual.

Within the database, grants available include foundation, corporate, state, city, and federal funding sources. Over 23,000 grants are available in Grant Watch for nonprofits, small businesses, and individuals.

Detailed grant information is provided and includes eligibility and geographic focus, pre-application and workshop information, description of the grant program, funding amounts and number of awards, funding source, contact details, and links to grant applications.

While the information subscribers have access to within each grant record is extremely helpful, the trickiest part for us was finding relevant grants. The screenshot below highlights the limited filters available in the search function.

All in all, Grant Watch might be more affordable, but subscribers are missing out on quality features and helpful functionality in finding applicable grants.

NAVSO

www.navso.org

The National Association of Veteran-Serving Organizations (NAVSO) is a nonprofit organization exclusively focused on transforming the veteran services marketplace to improve the lives of veterans and military families.

The greatest advantage to NAVSO is the Foundation Map created by Candid which features a map view, chart view, list view, and constellation view. Charts show funding trends and allow for comparisons of funding by subject areas over time. Constellations visualize funding relationships. The blue bubbles represent foundations and the red bubbles represent grant recipients. The map view displays blue bubbles of foundations and red bubbles of recipients with aggregate data. List view lets you see and sort foundations, recipients, and grants in a table. See screenshots below for visuals.

The Advanced Search function allows subscribers to type in a particular location or subject area to find foundations or recipients in that region and/or which work on specific issues. Additional filters allow users to sort by organization name, grant amount, grant years, population group, type of support, and keyword.

NAVSO membership is $42/month billed annually (a 15% discount), or $49 for a monthly subscription.

Overall, NAVSO isn’t super intuitive and is a bit confusing to navigate. Furthermore, its data-set is limited in focus towards services and funding for active military/veterans and their families.

Map view

List view

Constellation view

Pivot

pivot.proquest.com

Pivot is a grant database designed for a researcher. Anyone from corporate to academia (faculty, staff researchers, and graduate students) can benefit from using it. However, you must be affiliated with an institution that subscribes to Pivot in order to create an account.

Subscribers can search for a funding opportunity and instantly view matching faculty from inside or outside their institution. Conversely, a search for a scholar will link to matching funding opportunities

Pivot also enables you to add internal deadlines for critical funding opportunities and sends weekly updates on saved searches. Additionally, subscribers can receive alerts whenever new matching opportunities are posted that match their saved searches and create groups for sharing funding opportunities on an ongoing basis.

Pivot is only available to professionals whose affiliated institution subscribes to the database which is fairly limiting. To help with learning the system, their YouTube channel is packed with useful tutorials.

Instrumentl

www.instrumentl.com

At LearnGrantWriting, we love Instrumentl!

Moreover, we’ve coordinated with the team behind Instrumentl and can assure you that they have your best interest in mind. Beyond that, the design is clear, the process is extremely user-friendly, and we personally love the deadline reminders (please tell us we’re not the only ones who need a kick in the pants every once in a while!).

Specific features of Instrumentl include:

• Intelligent matching (tailored matches of foundations and grant opportunities)
• New Match Alerts (new matching opportunities delivered to your inbox weekly)
• 990’s & Foundation profiles (in depth foundation profiles and 990 data at your fingertips—Instrumentl actually reads and pulls the most relevant information from the 990 to easily display helpful data)
• Deadline tracking (automatic upcoming deadline reminders)
• Reports to share your progress with board members or staff
• Tasks (create and manage all your grant-related tasks in one place)
• Document library (all your grant documents stored, organized, and easily accessible)
• Ability to easily organize multiple prospect lists with option to include notes on each prospect
• Grants sourced from corporate funders, federal governments, state governments, private foundations, community foundations, and clubs and societies
• Cost-wise, the Standard plan allows for 5 users and starts at $150/month. Instrumentl also offers a Custom plan that allows for 10+ users and the price is determined upon the customization.

We know that $150/month is a fair amount of cash, but for the superb tracking system and all the other relevant tools, Instrumentl is the best database we’ve found for its value. It’s well-designed and easy to use.

? After your free trial, if you end up liking the tools much as we do, tell them you are a student of LEARNGRANTWRITING, or use this link, and you will receive $50 off your first month.