GRANT LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT

How GrantCycle works

Grant lifecycle for foundations, accelerators, and grantmakers — LOI through application, reviewer scoring, committee decision, award letter, payment schedule, and grantee reporting in one operational workflow.

What it solves

Grantmakers run programs across LOIs, applications, reviewer scoring, committee decisions, payment schedules, and grantee reporting — scattered across spreadsheets, PDFs, shared drives, and one program officer's inbox.

GrantCycle moves grant programs from LOI through full application, rubric-based reviewer scoring, committee recommendation, award letter generation, scheduled payment milestones, and grantee report intake — all on one auditable surface.

Why this is hard: Reviewer scores have to roll up cleanly, committee decisions need a documented audit trail, payments depend on grantee report status, and applicants need a real portal — not an email back-and-forth.

Who uses it

Executive director

Reviews portfolio impact, awarded dollars, and program-level outcomes.

First action: Open portfolio dashboard

Program officer

Screens LOIs, manages applications, assigns reviewers, recommends awards.

First action: Open Applications → Queue

Reviewer

Scores assigned applications against the rubric. Independent expert; blinded to peers until committee.

First action: Open Applications → Assigned to me

Committee member

Reviews aggregated reviewer packets and recommends final award amounts within budget cap.

First action: Open Applications → Committee packet

Finance

Confirms awards, releases scheduled payment milestones, manages holds tied to report status.

First action: Open Payments queue

Grants admin

Configures programs, rubrics, reviewer pool; generates award and decline letters.

First action: Open Awards → Generate letter

Applicant / Grantee

Submits LOI and full application; files grantee reports for awarded grants.

First action: Open Applicant portal

Admin

Demo-override persona with full access for walkthroughs.

First action: Open marquee award packet

Workflow at a glance

happyHappy path

Applicant submits an LOI. Program officer screens it and invites a full application. Reviewers score against the rubric. Committee aggregates scores and recommends an amount. Finance confirms the award and the award letter generates. Payment milestones release on schedule; the grantee files periodic impact reports.

exceptionException path

Grantee report passes its due date; the system flags it overdue and places any upcoming payment milestone on hold. Program officer follows up; once the report is submitted and approved, finance can release the held milestone.

approvalApproval path

A committee member tries to recommend an amount that exceeds the program's remaining budget cap. The action is blocked with a reason code; the committee must either lower the amount or escalate to the executive director with a documented justification.

reportingReporting

Awarded dollars by program, applications by stage, reviewer score distribution, payments scheduled/held/released by milestone, grantee report compliance, and portfolio-level impact metrics roll up on the executive dashboard.

What it produces

Award letter PDF (branded)
Decline letter PDF
Reviewer scoring packet
Committee recommendation packet
Payment schedule export
Grantee report summary
Portfolio impact report
Audit-trail CSV export

Industry terms

LOI (letter of inquiry): Short pre-application from a prospective grantee describing the project and fit. Screened by program officers before full applications are invited.
Scoring rubric: Weighted multi-dimension scoring instrument (impact, feasibility, alignment, capacity, budget) that reviewers complete independently per application.
Committee decision: Aggregated reviewer scores presented to a committee that recommends or sets the final award amount within program budget caps.
Payment schedule: Set of dated milestone payments attached to an award. Each milestone can be released, held, or cancelled based on grantee compliance.
Grantee report: Periodic progress + impact report the grantee files against an active award. Missing or overdue reports auto-hold upcoming payments.
Portfolio impact: Roll-up of outcome metrics across all awards in a program — beneficiaries reached, projects completed, dollars deployed, and impact KPIs.
Reviewer assignment: Per-application reviewer slate (typically 3 reviewers per app) with declared conflicts of interest blocking ineligible reviewers.
Award letter: Branded PDF packet sent to a successful applicant covering award amount, terms, payment schedule, reporting cadence, and acceptance signature.
Decline letter: Notification to unsuccessful applicants with optional feedback summary; closes the application lifecycle in good order.
Payment hold: State applied to an upcoming payment milestone when grantee reporting is overdue or compliance issues are flagged.

Data model (for technical evaluators)

The app is built on a relational schema (Neon Postgres + Prisma). Entities:

Organization · User · Role · Program · GrantCycle · ApplicantOrganization · Contact · LOI · Application · ApplicationQuestion · ApplicationAnswer · ReviewAssignment · ReviewScore · CommitteeDecision · Award · PaymentMilestone · GranteeReport · ImpactMetric · AuditEvent