Reviews of Instrumentl

"A game changer for grant writing consultants!"

Overall: I rave about Instrumentl to everyone in my field and consider it an asset to hiring Full-Circle Fundraising for grant writing and prospecting. My clients greatly benefit from the information I am able to provide them.

Pros: It is intuitive and easy to use and supports my needs as a grant consultant.

Cons: I would like data entered under one funder to transfer to other applications, such as contact information.

"Instrumentl is a great way to get organized"

Overall: Instrumentl is a critical part of my grant research process and I am overall grateful that I have the ability to use it for helping clients to find grants.

Pros: I like that Instrumentl makes it easy to find grants for a project and that you can keep them organized in the tracker feature.

Cons: I would say that the biggest con for me is the price and I would like to see more payment plan options.

"Hands-down the BEST Grant Management Tool on the Internet"

Overall: I sing the praises of Instrumentl to grant writers every chance I get. I wish I'd committed to it sooner. I spent countless hours on the internet trying to find solutions to organization and tracking problems I experienced only to find that those solutions already existed in Instrumentl and I'd just been missing out before I subscribed. I have some suggestions I'd like to share as far as how to make the platform more user friendly specifically for consultants managing more than one nonprofit, but in general, Instrumentl more than meets my needs, has made my life as a busy grant writer easier, and has saved me countless hours of time. Instrumentl's team is incredibly responsive. If I submit an update on a funder, I get a response in a matter of hours from a real person. The ability to do this and the quick turnaround time of the Instrumentl staff person makes me feel confident that the results I'm getting in searches are up-to-date as much as possible.

Pros: As a busy grant writing consultant, I manage grant submissions for anywhere between 15-20 nonprofits at a time. Instrumentl's features make that possible and have allowed me to expand and grow my business in ways I wouldn't have been able to without it. The research component alone is worth the monthly rate (once you enter your keywords the platform continues to research on your behalf, alerting you to new opportunities that match the criteria and allowing you to sort results by newest so you aren't reviewing the same funders over and over again just to find any new ones). I use the reports on a regular basis to share updates and grant calendars with our clients and they love the format and information they include. I would be lost without the deadline and task reminders and appreciate that I can add documents (including copies of submitted proposals) to each funders' record for future reference. And I can keep track of how much we've requested and received for each project all in the same place.

Cons: Of all of the grant management platforms available, Instrumentl was the most expensive and I was concerned about whether or not I could afford it. But after about a month of use, it became very clear that Instrumentl was paying for itself in part with the time savings I was experiencing. I cancelled several other subscriptions to other grant management platforms because they just weren't as good as Instrumentl and I didn't use them anymore.

"Great product"

Overall: I have had nothing but outstanding experiences and results

Pros: I loved the ease of sorting though thousands of grants to find the most relevant to my projects.

Cons: I wish there could be more sub users per subscription. I would pay a premium for more sub users. Currently each account can have two.

"Instrumentl keeps getting better!"

Overall: I would recommend Instrumentl over any other grant prospecting software that I've used--not just for the features it has now, but for the team's dedication to future growth. It is noticed and appreciated. Thank you, Instrumentl!

Pros: I've been working with Instrumentl both as a freelancer and as a full-time grant writer for over two years now. It has been amazing to watch Instrumentl grow into grant management to better meet their clients' needs. Support staff are always kind, timely, and helpful, and they are dedicated to making sure their grant database is kept up-to-date.

Cons: It may help to have a dedicated "Feedback" option or email address to contact support with suggestions about new funders to add to the system or updates to existing funders. Using their normal support works okay for the meantime, though!

"Easy to use and keeps track of everything!"

Overall: My overall experience is that is easy to learn and maintain, easy to locate grants and the customer service is awesome. They also host training sessions which have been very informative and helpful. They are always willing to help and extremely responsive in getting back with you if you need help.

Pros: Instrumentl is very easy to learn and operate. It makes looking for grants easy and keeping track of them even easier. It is also user friendly for users of different generations.

Cons: I would like some more sub-categories in "Field of Work" that were more specific to my field. However, I have not had much trouble finding what I need.

"Instrumentl - Identifying, Managing and Improving Grant Funding Opportunities"

Overall: My overall experience with Instrumentl has been excellent. We have been able to uncover numerous grant funding sources that otherwise would have been missed. In addition, the process management tools offered by the platform provide an easy means to stay on top of every step of the process from early identification and research through grant submission and follow-up post submission.

Pros: The integration of the data bases of grant funding sources to allow for more effective pursuit of highly targeted opportunities.

Cons: I can't think of anything that I am disappointed with, or find lacking in the Instrumentl platform.

"Just makes things easier!"

Overall: My overall experience if quite beneficial to my consultance practice in that it allows me to both pitch ans service clients with a "big picture" of possible funding opportunities.

Pros: Instumentl's "system" provides fresh institutional funding prospects "on the regular" and puts them into my field of vision. It's a comprehensive and clean search engine for institutional funding and I like that.

Cons: It works fine for my purposes...which could best be described as a "very smart tickler file and research library."

"I can't believe I used to seek grants without Instrumentl!"

Overall: Overall, I am incredibly pleased with this software and all of the engineers and employees representing it.

Pros: The features that have made the biggest change in my grant writing process have been the submission deadline reminders, tasks, accessible funder profiles, and the awarded/goal/waiting sum amount counts at the top of my dashboard. All of these features have played a major role in the streamlining of my grant process, and have allowed me to continuously increase my output without sacrificing quality.

Cons: While there are some features I believe could be improved upon, most are small fixes that I have been able to quickly address with Instrumentl's software team. My perspective as a user of this product has always been respected, and it is clear that Instrumentl as a whole is invested in consistently improving upon the user experience.

"Found the hidden gem"

Pros: Our team loves the diverse grants that are identified for us each week. Ones have been discovered and recommended for us that we would never have found just searching the internet!

Cons: I wouldn't say "least", more like what could be improved. The opportunity categories could be broader- for example, with the label researching- we would like to have another layer of detail provided.

"Instrumentl: Best grants management system I've ever used"

Pros: Ease of use, beautiful interface, extremely intuitive. I was able to get up and running with no training. New database users can access free trainings and demos. The support staff is superb -- extremely responsive, friendly, and helpful.

Cons: I'd like to have a field or section where we can log payments to date. Most grantmakers don't make a full payment upon awarding a grant, and we like to see revenue received versus payments pending throughout the fiscal year. Also, multiyear grants have to be broken out into multiple records if you want to see how much of the grant is allocated to each year. (I requested this enhancement, and expect it to be implemented soon. Instrumentl is GREAT about responding to enhancement requests!)

"Best Grant Management Software EVER"

Overall: I love Instrumentl and I think it is an amazingly efficient, effective, and easy to use software that makes my life so much easier in relation to Institutional Giving. My direct supervisor and our Executive Director has been impressed with how much we've been able to expand in terms of grant requests and awards, and I'm incredibly grateful for how much the software has helped me in finding new funding opportunities.

Pros: I love the beautiful simplicity of Instrumentl. It's extremely intuitive and easy to train other team members on using the software. One of my favorite features is the grant discovery feature, which has helped me increase the total dollar amount we've requested by 80% and the total dollar amount we've been awarded by 50% compared to one year prior. It does so much of the tedious and time consuming work of searching for new funders and reviewing 990 forms, and then produces all the information in a beautiful summary that is also linked to the funder's webpage. I also love the way it helps us keep our grant applications organized and easy to view, so if we need to change due dates or projects to fund we can. I have talked about this software non-stop to anyone who will listen and recommend it every chance I get.

Cons: I find myself duplicating the master tracker in an excel spreadsheet so I can do more with financial tracking. So, the software is amazing for tracking the actual grant applications and moving them through the application process, but I found that I need additional ways to analyze the financial information and include other sources of income that are outside of the Instrumentl tracker (i.e. fundraising events, in-kind donations, event sponsorships, individual giving, etc.). This was mostly to get a bigger picture of our Development Department's financial activities, rather than a specific foundation-related tracking task.

"It's an investment, not an expense."

Overall: It's been great! I can't believe how many resources I've been turned on to that I didn't know about, and I've been writing grants (in different roles and different places) for almost 15 years.

Pros: Our team is a partner for non-profits and local governments, so we use this tool to help them identify, prioritize, and connect with "best fit" funders. We used to spend hours searching for the right resources (on top of writing the grants) - working with Instrumentl lightens that lift.

Cons: We haven't utilized all of the features yet because we're still pretty new and focused mostly on "discovery" - nothing to complain about or change so far!