Nonprofit · App Starter
Grant Management Template
A complete grantmaking system — application intake, panel review, awards, disbursements — generated into a codebase your organization owns.
Every grant cycle run over email and spreadsheets ends the same way: attachments in five inboxes, reviewers scoring against different rubrics, and a board meeting fed by copy-paste. This starter generates the whole pipeline as one application — public intake, structured review, defensible decisions — and hands your organization the code.
- 6 core entities
- Panel review built in
- Code you own
- Vibe + Governed modes
01 · Data model
What's inside: the data model
Grantmaking is a pipeline with an audit requirement. These six tables carry an application from submission to paid-out award, and every decision along the way stays queryable — which is what your board and your funders eventually ask for.
| table | what it holds |
|---|---|
programs | Your funds and cycles — eligibility criteria, application window, budget, and the rubric reviewers will score against. |
applications | Submitted requests with narrative answers, budgets, and attachments, moving through statuses from draft to decided. |
applicants | The organizations and individuals applying — contact details and their full history across your programs and years. |
reviews | One reviewer's scores and comments on one application, private to the panel until decisions are made. |
awards | Approved grants with amount, conditions, and reporting requirements — the record that outlives the cycle. |
disbursements | Scheduled and completed payments against each award, so what's been paid and what's still committed is always one query away. |
02 · Screens
Signature modules
Public application form
01Applicants create an account, save drafts, upload attachments, and submit before the deadline — no email, no PDFs. Eligibility questions can screen out mismatched requests before anyone writes a full narrative, which respects applicants' time as much as yours.
Multi-reviewer scoring
02Assign each application to a panel; every reviewer scores against the program's rubric independently, without seeing colleagues' numbers. Score spreads surface disagreement worth discussing, and conflicts of interest are a recusal flag, not a hallway conversation.
Award workflow
03Ranked results feed the decision meeting; approvals become award records with amounts, conditions, and reporting dates. Decline letters and award notifications go out from the same screen, so no applicant is left refreshing their inbox in June.
Disbursement tracking
04Each award carries its payment schedule — single payment, tranches, or milestone-gated. Finance sees what's due this month across all programs; the board sees committed versus paid at a glance.
03 · Process
How it works
- 1You
Describe your grant cycle
Tell Dual7 how your funding works — programs, eligibility, what applicants submit, who reviews, how decisions are made. Plain language is enough; the starter supplies the pipeline structure.
- 2Vibe mode
Shape it in Vibe mode
Refine conversationally: reword the application, adjust the rubric, add a two-stage review with a letter of inquiry first. Every change lands in code you can inspect before applicants ever see it.
- 3Governed mode
Launch through the governed pipeline
Deploy to your infrastructure with approval gates and an audit trail. Applicant data stays in your database under your policies — which is exactly where a funder's due-diligence questionnaire wants it.
04 · Fit
Who the Grant Management starter is for
Foundations outgrowing the email cycle
When applications arrive as attachments, every cycle starts with a week of filing. A structured intake and review pipeline gives program officers their week back — and gives trustees a ranked list instead of a binder.
Community funds run by volunteers
Volunteer reviewers have day jobs. A system where each panelist logs in, sees only their assigned applications, and scores against a clear rubric turns review season from a coordination problem into an evening's work.
Corporate giving and CSR teams
Corporate programs answer to two audiences: applicants outside and finance inside. Award conditions, disbursement schedules, and a clean audit trail make the program legible to both without duplicate tracking in the ERP.
Regranting intermediaries
Organizations that receive large grants and re-grant them downstream carry double reporting duty. Because the system is your code, the fields your upstream funder requires become part of the schema, and their report becomes a query.
05 · Yours
Customize it, own it
Make it yours
Programs differ more than platforms admit, and here the differences are yours to build. Add a letter-of-inquiry stage before full applications, weight rubric criteria differently per program, require a signed W-9 upload before the first disbursement, or add a post-award reporting module where grantees file progress updates against their award record — each is a conversational change in Vibe mode.
The application form itself is generated code, so it can fit your applicants rather than a form builder's limits: conditional sections by organization type, budgets as structured line items instead of an uploaded spreadsheet, autosave for applicants on unreliable connections. Your team can also edit the codebase directly — the generated app has no runtime dependency on Dual7.
Why a starter, not a subscription
Grant platforms typically price per cycle or per submission volume and hold your application archive on their side of the fence. This starter reverses the arrangement: intake, review, and award history are an application your organization owns, running on your infrastructure. Ten years of applicant history is a durable institutional asset — it should not live inside a subscription you might leave.
Owning it means operating it, and the governed pipeline is what makes that responsible: changes ship through approval gates with an audit trail, so the mid-cycle rubric tweak that would corrupt a fair process simply can't slip in unreviewed.
06 · Industries
Industry versions
Grant Management template — frequently asked questions
What does the grant management template include?
The full cycle: a public application portal with drafts and attachments, panel assignment and independent rubric scoring, an award workflow with notifications, and disbursement tracking against each award. Generated as a full-stack app in your repository.
Can reviewers score independently without seeing each other's scores?
Yes — that's the default. Each review is private to its author until the panel closes, at which point scores aggregate and spreads surface disagreement. Blind review protects the process; the schema simply enforces it.
Can I run multiple programs with different applications and rubrics?
Yes. Programs are first-class records, each carrying its own eligibility rules, application structure, rubric, and budget. One system runs your spring small-grants cycle and your invitation-only major fund without the two bleeding into each other.
How are disbursements and multi-year awards handled?
Awards carry a payment schedule — one payment, tranches, or milestone-gated releases across years. Disbursements record against the award as they're paid, so committed-versus-paid is always current for finance and the board.
Is applicant data secure enough for our funders' requirements?
The application runs on your infrastructure with data in your database, under your access policies — which is the strongest answer to a due-diligence questionnaire. Dual7's governed pipeline adds approval gates and an audit trail on every change. See the security page for specifics.
Can applicants save a draft and finish later?
Yes — applications persist as drafts with uploaded attachments until submitted, and applicants can return across sessions. Deadlines are enforced at submission, and you decide whether late edits or extensions are allowed per program.
Related
Dual7 App Starters
Build your Grant Management on your terms
A complete grantmaking system — application intake, panel review, awards, disbursements — generated into a codebase your organization owns. Describe your version to start — the output is a project you own.