CommunityForce Review: Scholarship and Grant Management Software

CommunityForce is a global technology platform that handles scholarship management, grant management, and awards management within a unified system. Its defining characteristic — and its primary differentiator from pure-play grant management platforms — is the ability to administer scholarship programmes and grant programmes side by side, in the same tool, without switching between systems. For educational institutions and community foundations running both types of award, this is a genuine operational advantage.

The platform covers the full lifecycle of an award: application intake, reviewer assessment, automated communications, eligibility verification, disbursement tracking, and reporting. Scholarship-specific capabilities — including GPA tracking, academic eligibility verification, and enrolment status monitoring — are built natively into the system rather than bolted on.

The trade-off is that CommunityForce's roots are in scholarship administration. Organisations running complex, multi-year grant programmes with detailed monitoring requirements, or those with sophisticated due diligence needs, may find that the platform's depth in pure grantmaking does not match what dedicated grant management systems offer. This review examines what CommunityForce does well, where it has limitations, and which types of organisation it is best suited to.

What is CommunityForce?

CommunityForce is a cloud-based platform providing scholarship management, grant management, and awards management. The company positions itself as a unified system for the full spectrum of award programmes — from academic scholarships with eligibility rules tied to academic performance, to traditional foundation grants, to corporate community investment awards.

The platform is used by higher education institutions managing institutional scholarships and external grants, community foundations distributing both educational awards and community grants, and corporate foundations running employee giving and community award programmes alongside scholarships.

The unified approach is the platform's central proposition: rather than running separate tools for scholarships and grants, CommunityForce provides a single application intake process, a single reviewer portal, and a single reporting environment that spans all award types. For organisations where staff administer multiple award categories, the operational simplicity of one system is a meaningful benefit.

What are CommunityForce's key features?

Application management: CommunityForce provides configurable application forms with conditional logic, multi-stage workflows, and support for different application requirements across award types. Applicants can save progress and return to applications, and the system supports supporting document uploads.

Scholarship-specific functionality: This is where CommunityForce differentiates itself from general grant management tools. Built-in features include GPA tracking, academic eligibility verification, enrolment status monitoring, and renewal management for multi-year scholarship awards. These capabilities are rarely available as native features in platforms designed purely for foundation grantmaking.

Reviewer portals: External reviewers and panel assessors receive access to a dedicated portal with scoring rubrics, blind review options, and communication tools. The system supports multiple review stages and weighted scoring.

Automated communications: The platform includes configurable automated notifications for applicants, reviewers, and administrators — covering application receipts, status updates, decision communications, and renewal reminders.

Award and disbursement management: CommunityForce tracks award decisions, payment schedules, and disbursement history. For scholarship programmes, this includes integration with institutional financial systems in some configurations.

Reporting and analytics: The platform provides built-in reporting on application volumes, award outcomes, demographic data, and disbursement history. Reports can be configured for different audience types.

What are CommunityForce's limitations?

Scholarship heritage in a grantmaking context: CommunityForce was built first as a scholarship platform, and some of the product architecture reflects that. Organisations running complex traditional grant programmes — with detailed monitoring requirements, multi-year grant agreements, and structured impact measurement — may find that the platform's grant management depth does not match what purpose-built grant management systems provide.

Monitoring and ongoing grant management: Platforms built exclusively for grantmaking typically offer more sophisticated tools for post-award management: structured monitoring milestones, KPI tracking, mid-grant progress reviews, and grant agreement management. CommunityForce's capabilities in this area are more limited by comparison.

Due diligence integration: CommunityForce does not include native integration with external verification sources such as company registries, charity regulators, or sanctions lists. Organisations with formal due diligence requirements need to handle these checks outside the platform.

Limited UK market presence: CommunityForce has a stronger presence in North American higher education than in the UK grantmaking market. UK-specific compliance requirements — such as Charity Commission verification and OFSI sanctions screening — are not built into the platform.

Custom pricing and mid-market positioning: Pricing is not publicly disclosed and requires engagement with the sales team. The platform is positioned at mid-market to enterprise organisations; it is unlikely to be cost-effective for small foundations.

Implementation timeline: Organisations typically require one to three months to fully implement CommunityForce, which should be factored into planning for upcoming grant or scholarship cycles.

How is CommunityForce priced?

CommunityForce operates on a custom pricing model. Pricing is not published publicly; organisations must request a quote based on programme volumes, organisational size, and required feature configuration. The platform is positioned as a mid-market to enterprise solution, and its pricing reflects this — it is not designed for small organisations with limited technology budgets.

Implementation costs should be budgeted separately from the subscription. The one-to-three month deployment timeline involves configuration work that may require either internal resource or support from CommunityForce's implementation team.

There is no publicly available free tier or trial version.

Who is CommunityForce best suited to?

CommunityForce is a strong fit for:

• Educational institutions managing institutional scholarships, departmental awards, and foundation grants within the same programme team — the unified system for academic and non-academic awards is a genuine differentiator here.
• Community foundations that run both scholarship programmes for students and community grant programmes for organisations, and want a single operational platform.
• Corporate giving teams managing employee scholarships, external community grants, and awards programmes within a single corporate foundation.
• Organisations with diverse award types where the administrative overhead of running separate systems outweighs any depth advantage from specialised tools.

CommunityForce is less well-suited to:

• Foundations focused exclusively on traditional grantmaking without a scholarship component.
• Organisations with complex post-award monitoring requirements.
• UK funders who need native Charity Commission, Companies House, or OFSI due diligence checks.
• Small foundations where a mid-market pricing tier is disproportionate to programme scale.

How does CommunityForce compare to WizeHive and Submittable?

The most direct competitors for combined scholarship and grant programmes are WizeHive (with its Zengine platform) and Submittable.

WizeHive's Zengine platform is highly configurable and can be adapted for a range of application management needs, including combined scholarship and grant programmes. It competes closely with CommunityForce for mid-market organisations that need flexibility. Submittable is often chosen for its faster deployment and user-friendly applicant experience, but it is more an application intake and review tool than a full award management system — scholarship-specific features like GPA tracking and academic eligibility are not part of its core offering.

For UK funders specifically, none of these platforms provides native UK compliance checks. Purpose-built UK grant management platforms offer Charity Commission verification, Companies House checks, and OFSI sanctions screening as standard features that these tools do not match.

Is CommunityForce used in the UK?

CommunityForce's primary market is North America, particularly US higher education. Its presence in the UK is limited. UK-based educational institutions and foundations considering CommunityForce should note that the platform's compliance framework, terminology, and support resources are oriented toward the US and Canadian context. UK-specific requirements — such as verification against the Charity Commission register, compliance with UK GDPR requirements under the Data Protection Act 2018, and OFSI sanctions screening — are not addressed natively.

UK funders evaluating platforms for both scholarship and grant management may find that purpose-built UK tools, combined with scholarship-specific processes where needed, provide a more appropriate compliance environment than a US-centric platform.

How does CommunityForce compare to dedicated grant management platforms?

For the scholarship-and-grants combined use case, CommunityForce fills a genuine gap. The challenge is that as grant management requirements become more sophisticated — particularly around post-award monitoring, impact tracking, and due diligence — dedicated grant management platforms pull ahead.

Platforms built exclusively for grantmaking typically offer more depth in:

• Multi-year grant management with structured milestone tracking
• KPI and outcome monitoring against grant objectives
• Grant agreement management with signing workflows
• Due diligence integration with external data sources
• AI-assisted application assessment and impact reporting

For a UK funder whose programme includes both scholarship-type awards and traditional grants, Plinth handles the full grant lifecycle — including AI-assisted assessment, built-in Charity Commission and Companies House verification, digital grant agreements, and monitoring tools — without the scholarship-specific academic features. Whether those scholarship features are essential depends on the programme. If GPA tracking and enrolment verification are genuinely required, a platform like CommunityForce addresses those needs. If they are not, a dedicated grant management platform provides greater depth where it matters most.

FAQ

What types of organisations use CommunityForce?

CommunityForce is used primarily by higher education institutions managing scholarship programmes, community foundations running scholarship and grant programmes simultaneously, and corporate foundations managing diverse award types. Its unified approach makes it most valuable where multiple award categories — scholarships, grants, employee awards — need to be administered from a single system.

How long does a CommunityForce implementation take?

A typical implementation runs one to three months, depending on the complexity of your award programmes and the level of customisation required. This timeline should be factored into planning for upcoming programme cycles.

Does CommunityForce handle multi-year grants and renewals?

CommunityForce includes renewal management features, which are particularly developed for multi-year scholarship awards. Multi-year grant tracking with structured monitoring milestones and KPI reporting is less developed than in dedicated grant management platforms.

Does CommunityForce integrate with Charity Commission or Companies House data?

No. CommunityForce does not include native integration with the Charity Commission register, Companies House, or OFSI's sanctions list. Organisations with formal due diligence requirements for grant applicants need to handle these checks outside the platform or use a platform that includes UK compliance checks natively. See our guide to automating due diligence in grantmaking for what UK funders typically need.

What is the difference between CommunityForce and WizeHive?

Both platforms serve organisations managing application-based award programmes including scholarships and grants. CommunityForce has stronger scholarship-native features — particularly GPA tracking, academic eligibility verification, and institutional enrolment monitoring. WizeHive's Zengine platform is more configurable across a range of application types and is frequently used for foundation grant programmes as well as scholarships. Neither platform is purpose-built for UK grantmaking compliance requirements.

How does CommunityForce pricing compare to alternatives?

CommunityForce operates on custom pricing and is positioned at mid-market to enterprise organisations. It does not publish pricing. Submittable offers more transparent, tiered pricing and is typically more accessible for smaller organisations. For dedicated grant management, some platforms offer free tiers or significantly lower entry points — Plinth, for example, has a free tier alongside paid plans.

Is CommunityForce suitable for small foundations?

CommunityForce's pricing and implementation requirements make it most appropriate for mid-sized to large organisations. Small foundations running straightforward grant programmes are unlikely to find the investment proportionate. For organisations with limited budgets, platforms with free tiers or lower-cost entry points are worth evaluating first. See our guide to free grant management tools for small organisations for alternatives.

Recommended next pages

• Grant Management Systems Compared: Fluxx, Submittable, Foundant, SmartSimple and More — Side-by-side comparison of all major platforms in the market
• AI for Funders: The Future of Grantmaking — AI capabilities to look for when evaluating grant management platforms
• How to Automate Due Diligence in Grantmaking — What UK funders need from compliance and verification checks
• Best Grant Management Software for UK Funders 2026 — A broader ranking of platforms suited to UK grantmakers
• Fluxx Grantmaker Review — A detailed review of one of CommunityForce's enterprise-tier competitors

Last updated: February 2026