GivingData Review: Grant Management Software for Foundations

GivingData is a purpose-built grant management platform designed for private, family, and independent foundations. Its central proposition is that grantmakers should spend less time managing their software and more time engaging with grantees — and it delivers on that philosophy through a combination of streamlined workflow management and notably strong portfolio analytics. This review covers what GivingData does well, where it falls short, and how it compares with the main alternatives, including Foundant GLM and Plinth.

GivingData has built a reputation particularly among foundations that have adopted trust-based philanthropy approaches. The platform's data visualisation tools — which allow programme officers to see the full portfolio at a glance, not just individual grants — are frequently cited as a genuine differentiator. For foundations moving away from email-based management or legacy spreadsheets, it represents a substantial upgrade in both structure and insight.

The platform is mid-market in positioning, with custom pricing and an implementation timeline of one to two months. It is predominantly used in North America, and organisations outside that market — particularly in the UK — should consider whether its compliance and regulatory features meet local requirements.

What kind of funder is GivingData designed for?

GivingData is built for private foundations, family foundations, and independent grant-making trusts — not for public-sector grant programmes, corporate giving departments, or community foundations managing donor-advised funds (though it can serve some of these use cases). The platform's philosophy is explicitly aligned with the trust-based philanthropy movement, which emphasises reducing administrative burden on grantees, building long-term relationships, and making grant processes more equitable.

This philosophy shapes the product in practical ways. Grantee relationship management is a first-class feature, not an afterthought. The application experience is designed to feel proportionate rather than onerous. Reporting tools are built to help programme officers understand their portfolio in context rather than simply pulling data tables.

For foundations that operate within a trust-based framework — or that are moving toward one — GivingData fits that working style more naturally than some alternatives built around high-volume, transactional grant processing.

What are GivingData's core features?

GivingData covers the full grant lifecycle from initial inquiry through to close-out and impact reporting. Core capabilities include:

• Grant lifecycle management — application intake, eligibility screening, review and assessment, decision recording, payment scheduling, and monitoring
• Budget tracking — fund-level budget management with visibility into committed, paid, and available funding across programmes
• Grantee relationship management — contact records, communication history, relationship tracking across multiple staff members and grant cycles
• Portfolio analytics and data visualisation — dashboards and charts giving a real-time view of the full portfolio, enabling programme officers to spot patterns, track geographic distribution, and understand the portfolio in aggregate
• Reporting — built-in reporting for internal review, board papers, and external communication

The portfolio analytics capability is GivingData's most distinctive feature. Many grant management platforms treat reporting as a backward-looking function — you run a report to see what happened. GivingData's visualisation tools are designed to be forward-looking and exploratory, helping programme staff understand what their portfolio looks like right now and ask questions of their data without needing to export to spreadsheets.

How does GivingData approach trust-based philanthropy?

Trust-based philanthropy is a framework that emphasises multi-year funding, unrestricted grants, reduced reporting requirements, and building genuine partnerships with grantees. GivingData's product reflects these values in its design choices.

The platform is built to support simplified application processes rather than lengthy form-filling exercises. Relationship continuity features mean that returning grantees do not have to re-enter information they have already provided. Monitoring and reporting tools can be configured to be proportionate to grant size — avoiding the situation where small grants generate disproportionate administrative burden for small organisations.

Programme officers who work within a trust-based framework often find that conventional grant management platforms — designed around high-volume processing and compliance documentation — create friction with their working approach. GivingData is one of a small number of platforms that has thought carefully about the relationship between grantmaker and grantee, not just the internal administrative workflow.

What are GivingData's limitations?

Being clear about where GivingData falls short helps organisations make better decisions.

Limited presence outside North America. GivingData's user base and market presence is concentrated in the United States. UK and European funders considering the platform will find less community knowledge, fewer peers to learn from, and less certainty about ongoing support and localisation. This is a practical consideration, not a disqualifying one, but it is worth weighing.

UK-specific compliance features are limited. The platform does not offer built-in integration with the Charity Commission register, Companies House, or the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI). UK funders who need to verify the regulatory standing of applicant organisations will need to conduct these checks manually or through separate tools. This is an area where purpose-built UK platforms have a meaningful advantage.

Complex multi-tranche payment management. GivingData handles standard payment schedules well, but foundations managing complex multi-tranche payment structures — where payments are conditional on milestone evidence, clawback provisions apply, or payment timelines extend over multiple years — may find the platform's depth in this area less comprehensive than enterprise alternatives like Fluxx or SmartSimple.

Custom pricing without a free tier. GivingData uses custom pricing, which means organisations cannot start using the platform at low cost and grow into it. For smaller foundations with limited technology budgets, this may be a barrier.

GivingData vs Foundant GLM vs Plinth

Foundant GLM is GivingData's closest direct competitor in the mid-market. Foundant tends to have more accessible fixed-tier pricing and faster implementation, but its portfolio analytics are less distinctive than GivingData's. Foundant is also predominantly North American.

Plinth is a different type of comparison: it is the platform built specifically for UK funders, with native Charity Commission and Companies House integration, AI-assisted due diligence and application assessment, and a free tier that allows organisations to start without a large upfront commitment. For UK foundations that also value portfolio analytics, Plinth's AI-generated insights and dashboards provide comparable functionality with the added advantage of built-in regulatory compliance.

What does GivingData cost?

GivingData uses custom pricing, meaning the cost is determined through a sales engagement rather than a published price list. The platform is positioned for mid-market foundations — not the smallest family trusts, and not the largest enterprise foundations with highly complex requirements.

Prospective customers should expect to engage with GivingData's sales team to receive a quote tailored to their number of users, grant volume, and feature requirements. Implementation is typically budgeted separately and takes one to two months.

There is no free tier or self-service trial, which means evaluation requires committing to a sales process before you can assess the platform directly.

Is GivingData right for UK funders?

For UK funders, GivingData raises a specific set of questions that North American foundations do not face in the same way.

UK grant management has regulatory dimensions that are absent in many other markets. Funders have obligations — whether formal or practical — to verify the charitable status, financial health, and governance standing of applicant organisations. The Charity Commission register is the primary tool for this, supplemented by Companies House for non-charitable applicants and OFSI for sanctions screening. Platforms that integrate with these sources automatically save considerable time and reduce the risk of missing a material concern.

GivingData does not offer these integrations. UK funders using the platform would need to conduct regulatory checks through separate tools and record the results manually. For a foundation with a low volume of applications, this may be manageable. For foundations processing dozens or hundreds of applications per grant round, the manual overhead is significant.

That does not make GivingData unsuitable for UK use — its portfolio analytics and trust-based philanthropy approach remain genuine strengths — but it does mean UK funders should weigh this gap carefully against the platform's other merits.

Frequently Asked Questions

What type of foundation is GivingData best suited to?

GivingData is best suited to private foundations, family foundations, and independent grantmaking trusts that value portfolio-level insight and a working approach aligned with trust-based philanthropy principles. It is less well-suited to high-volume community grant programmes, public-sector funders, or organisations that need built-in regulatory compliance checking.

How does GivingData's portfolio analytics work in practice?

GivingData's analytics tools provide dynamic visualisations of the grant portfolio — geographic distribution, funding by sector, grant size analysis, and pipeline status. These are designed to be used by programme officers as part of their regular work, not just by data analysts pulling quarterly reports. The intention is that a programme officer can open the platform and immediately understand what their portfolio looks like, rather than having to run a report and export it to a spreadsheet.

Does GivingData support trust-based philanthropy workflows?

Yes. The platform's design philosophy is explicitly aligned with trust-based philanthropy, which emphasises reduced administrative burden on grantees, multi-year funding relationships, and proportionate reporting requirements. Features like simplified application processes, relationship continuity for returning grantees, and configurable monitoring requirements reflect this approach.

How does GivingData compare with Fluxx for larger foundations?

Fluxx is positioned above GivingData in terms of complexity and configurability. Foundations managing very large portfolios, highly complex multi-programme grant structures, or requiring deep customisation may find Fluxx's depth necessary. GivingData is better suited to foundations that want strong out-of-the-box analytics and a grantee-relationship focus without the implementation overhead of a full enterprise deployment.

Can GivingData handle UK regulatory compliance requirements?

Not natively. GivingData does not offer built-in integration with the Charity Commission, Companies House, or OFSI. UK funders using the platform would need to conduct these checks manually. Platforms purpose-built for UK grantmaking — such as Plinth — offer these integrations as standard, which substantially reduces the administrative burden and the risk of oversight.

What is the implementation process like?

GivingData typically deploys in one to two months, which is faster than enterprise platforms like Fluxx or SmartSimple but somewhat slower than platforms with more opinionated configurations. The implementation process involves configuration of workflows, application forms, and reporting dashboards to match the foundation's existing processes. Support is provided by GivingData's customer success team throughout onboarding.

Is GivingData available in the UK?

GivingData is used predominantly in North America, but it is available to UK customers. However, UK-specific features — regulatory integrations, localised compliance tools, GDPR-native data handling — are limited compared with platforms designed for the UK market. UK foundations should evaluate whether these gaps are acceptable for their programmes.

Recommended Next Pages

• Grant Management Systems Compared — How GivingData sits alongside Fluxx, Foundant, Submittable, SmartSimple, and more in a full market comparison.

• AI for Funders: Opportunities and What to Expect — How AI is changing the grant assessment and due diligence workflow for foundations.

• Automating Due Diligence in Grant Management — A practical guide to what automated due diligence means and why it matters for UK funders.

• Trust-Based Philanthropy and AI Grant Management — How modern grant platforms can support rather than undermine trust-based grantmaking principles.

• Plinth AI Grant Management Features — Plinth's purpose-built AI tools for UK funders: due diligence, application scoring, impact reporting, and more.

Last updated: February 2026