If you’re looking for an alternative to Foundant, here are the top reasons to consider Submittable.
Foundant and Submittable are both application management platforms that organizations use to run grant, scholarship, and other application and review processes.
Using either of these solutions, you can build online forms, track funds, and report on impact.
But beyond that, there are a number of meaningful differences. Here’s everything you need to know if you’re comparing Submittable vs. Foundant.
Features at a Glance
| Submittable | Foundant | |
| Application collection | ||
| Drag and drop form builder | ✔ | X |
| Real-time collaboration for applicants with field presence | ✔ | X |
| Collect fees and payments | ✔ | X |
| Self-serve branding tools | ✔ | X |
| Self-serve go live | ✔ | X |
| Eligibility screening | ✔ | ✔ |
| File uploads | ✔ | ✔ |
| Responsive forms with branching | ✔ | ✔ |
| Charity check tool powered by Candid (formerly Guidestar) | ✔ | ✔ |
| Collection of third party references | ✔ | ✔ |
| Send additional forms | ✔ | ✔ |
| Review and workflow | ||
| In-app communication | ✔ | X |
| Side-by-side review for all users | ✔ | X |
| Draft submission reminders | ✔ | ✔ |
| Filters | ✔ | ✔ |
| Blind reviews | ✔ | ✔ |
| Multiple stages of review | ✔ | ✔ |
| Reporting and funding | ||
| Distribute funds | ✔ | X |
| Track funds | ✔ | ✔ |
| In-app reporting | ✔ | ✔ |
| Data imports and exports | ✔ | ✔ |
| Dashboards | ✔ | ✔ |
| Integrations | ✔ | ✔ |
| Security and accessibility | ||
| SSO | ✔ | X |
| GDPR certified | ✔ | X |
| SOC 2 Type 2 certified | ✔ | X |
| HIPAA compliant | ✔ | X |
| FERPA compliant | ✔ | X |
| Attainted VPAT | ✔ | X |
| Permission levels | ✔ | ✔ |
The top reasons to choose Submittable
Here are eight reasons many organizations choose Submittable.
1. Submittable is more secure
Organizations need to be confident that data is secure on their chosen platform—not only for their own peace of mind, but for the privacy of applicant data.
Submittable has industry-best security and compliance certifications. These include:
SOC 2 Type 2
A leading cybersecurity firm performs an annual audit of Submittable’s organizational and system security. Submittable was awarded a SOC 2 Type 1 certificate in 2018, and a SOC 2 Type 2 certificate in 2019, which was renewed in 2020.
GDPR
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) defines and creates laws concerning the privacy of individuals in the European Union. Submittable complies with requirements imposed by the GDPR and offers tools and processes to help our customers comply as well.
HIPAA
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is U.S. legislation that establishes safeguards and best practices that healthcare providers and others must follow to protect the privacy of health data. Submittable is HIPAA compliant and can provide a business associate agreement (BAA).
SSO
Weak passwords are a frequent source of security breaches. Single Sign On (SSO) reduces this vulnerability by allowing users to access Submittable through your trusted identity provider.
Foundant does not offer any of these security features or considerations.
2. You can achieve more in Submittable on your own
In Submittable, as a user, you can easily make updates or changes yourself. With Foundant, there are several situations in which you’d need to contact their team to ask that the changes be implemented for you.
The list includes:
- Customizing the branding of your organization’s online forms.
- Adding or updating guidelines to your online form.
- Editing some fields in your forms, like name and address.
- The ability to “go live” and begin collecting applications.
Having to contact someone else and wait for them to implement updates for you delays your work. It also gives you less control.
With Submittable, you can iterate on every aspect of your application forms, processes, and workflows as much as you want, without having to wait on somebody else.
Maximize your impact and serve your mission
Learn our best practices in our Grant Management 101 video series.
3. Submittable is more intuitive
Submittable customers rave about Submittable’s simple drag-and-drop form builder.
“Form creation [in Submittable] was easy to figure out. I was a little filled with dread the first time, but as soon as I started working in the form builder, it was just really intuitive. Same with the response templates—it’s simple to find everything I need. As only a semi-technical person, that’s empowering.”
Mariah McPherson, Executive Director, New Belgium Family Foundation
Foundant’s form builder is not drag-and-drop. Customers complain on software review sites about Foundant’s (un)ease of use:
“I find that [Foundant] takes a lot of time to learn. There is a site that helps you understand its features but I’d argue that the software is not intuitive.”
G2 Reviewer
4. Submittable offers award payment delivery
Submittable and Foundant both offer tools for award tracking for grant or scholarship recipients.
But only Submittable offers payment delivery. With Submittable’s Funds Distribution, you can click a button to deliver awards to recipients in as little as 48 hours, through our partnership with trusted payment vendor Stripe.
With Submittable, you can avoid writing paper checks, tearing through red tape, and other hassles when trying to get funding out the door. And you can get funding to your deserving recipients more quickly.
5. Submittable offers a better applicant experience
Applicants in both Submittable and Foundant can save their work and track their application status.
With a single account on Submittable, applicants can keep track of virtually unlimited applications—whether for personal use or on behalf of any number of organizations.
But Foundant requires anyone who applies on behalf of two different organizations to create two separate user profiles, including different email addresses.
At best, this is an annoying inconvenience. At worst, it’s a challenging barrier to using the platform.
As one user put it in Foundant’s customer forums:
“Even worse, these folks are generally some of our least tech savvy so the idea of creating a separate email address and separate log in [for Foundant] is especially cumbersome for them to figure out.”
6. Submittable has better applicant collaboration tools
Submittable and Foundant both provide applicant collaboration tools which allow groups of applicants to work together on a collective application.
But only Submittable’s collaboration tool allows applicants to collaborate in real-time to avoid duplicate work and easily coordinate.
7. Submittable has in-app communication
Submittable’s in-app messaging allows reviewers to see messages to and from applicants right alongside reviews—and avoids the headache of digging through an email inbox and toggling between browser tabs.
Foundant only allows sending messages over email.
“Personally, my email often feels like a black hole — where I lose information before I’m able to organize or address it. It’s an unbelievable relief to have the entire hiring/selection process taken out of my email and organized on Submittable.”
Christine Texeira, Education & Programs, Hugo House
8. Submittable can collect fees and payments
Submittable provides robust tools for collecting fees and payments in application forms. While not all opportunities require payment collection, many Submittable customers may offer products or services, sell tickets or registrations, charge an application fee, or even collect donations.
Foundant does not support payment processing within the platform.
Learn more about Submittable
Want to learn more? Contact one of our product experts to see how Submittable can simplify and improve your application process.
Natalya is a product marketer at Submittable focused on helping organizations get a ton of value out of the platform. She is a bookworm, adventure enthusiast and card-carrying cat lady as well as a writer and yogi.
