Meridian Foundation Grants Management Platform
A New York foundation running 40+ grant cycles a year moved from email and Excel to one auditable platform.
Impact
What changed.
Portfolio visibility
Board portfolio reporting moved from a six-week year-end scramble to a live dashboard available any day of the year.
Condition discipline
Of 312 active grant conditions, the foundation now tracks 100% to documented evidence — up from an estimated 60% before the platform.
Applicant experience
Applicant satisfaction scores rose from 3.1 to 4.6 out of 5. The foundation now hears from organizations that had previously found their application process opaque.
The challenge
Before
Meridian Foundation deploys roughly $24M a year across forty grant cycles supporting youth and education programs across the United States. Applications came in by email PDF, were logged in Excel, scored on a shared Google Sheet, voted on at committee, and then disbursed through a finance system that had no link to any of the above. Reporting back to the board on portfolio outcomes required a six-week scramble at year-end, and the program officers admitted they often could not remember which conditions they had attached to which grant.
- Grant applications received as email PDFs, logged into Excel by hand
- Scoring done on a shared Google Sheet with manual rubric application
- Committee voting recorded in meeting minutes, not in any system
- Disbursement happening in finance with no link back to application
- Grant conditions tracked in a Word document per grant, often forgotten
- Grantee reports emailed as attachments, filed in inconsistent folders
- Year-end portfolio report taking six weeks of analyst scramble
- No way to surface which programs were producing measurable outcomes
The solution
What we built
We built a grants management platform that owns the full lifecycle from applicant intake to portfolio reporting. Applicants apply through a branded portal with field-level rubric mapping, document upload, and budget structuring. Internal review routes the application to assigned program officers with structured scoring against the cycle's criteria. Committee deliberation is supported by a meeting-mode interface that captures votes, conditions, and notes in real time. Approved grants flow into a conditions tracker — every condition has an owner, a due date, and an evidence requirement. Disbursement is initiated from the platform and reconciled back to finance through an integration with the foundation's general ledger. Grantee reports come in through the same portal, mapped to the original logic model, and roll up to portfolio dashboards that show outcome metrics by program area. The board now sees a live portfolio dashboard instead of waiting for a year-end PDF.
Core workflow connections
How the system flows.
- Application SubmittedEligibility CheckProgram Officer Assignment
- Rubric ScoringCommittee BundleMeeting ModeVote Captured
- ApprovalConditions TrackerOwner + Due Date + Evidence Required
- Disbursement TriggerFinance IntegrationPayment ConfirmedAudit Log
- Grantee ReportLogic Model MappingOutcome Metric Aggregation
- Portfolio DashboardProgram Area Roll-upBoard Briefing
- Renewal ApplicationPrior Cycle ContextPrefilled Workflow
- Conflict-of-Interest declarations captured per scorer per cycle
- Document retention scheduled per IRS and state attorney general rules
- Branded applicant portal with field-level rubric mapping
Process
How we built it.
Application Submitted → Eligibility Check → Program Officer Assignment
Rubric Scoring → Committee Bundle → Meeting Mode → Vote Captured
Approval → Conditions Tracker → Owner + Due Date + Evidence Required
Disbursement Trigger → Finance Integration → Payment Confirmed → Audit Log
Grantee Report → Logic Model Mapping → Outcome Metric Aggregation
Portfolio Dashboard → Program Area Roll-up → Board Briefing
Renewal Application → Prior Cycle Context → Prefilled Workflow
Conflict-of-Interest declarations captured per scorer per cycle
Document retention scheduled per IRS and state attorney general rules
Branded applicant portal with field-level rubric mapping
Start a project
Running grants on email and Excel?
We build grants management platforms that respect both donor accountability and applicant dignity — not a recycled CRM with a grants skin.
No retainer lock-in · Month-to-month · Full transparency
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