Instrumentl

Pros: The system is easy to learn - well thought out, it's clear that they built a program for grants managers and thought through various pain points, like managing deadlines and reporting. It is the first software I've used that has integrated so well with Raiser's Edge which is awesome, because now i'm not having to manage my portfolio in two separate systems.

Cons: That I waited so long to buy it. It's an investment for sure, but one new funder more than pays for your annual subscription.

Pros: $7f

Cons: I have to be my pettiest self to name anything I don’t like about Instrumentl. I wish my core users weren’t able to see each other’s projects. I assume anyone on there is too busy doing their thing to mess with other peoples’ stuff, but it makes me uneasy. (This is an included feature if/ when I move to the next Consultant level…) Sometimes, the effectiveness of the matching is a little overwhelming (really large numbers of matches), but that just means I get to hone the search even more when the results are too expansive. The price is a little high, but I have to believe that I will eventually make the money back because of how well I will be able to serve my clients with this tool…

Pros: Our team appreciated several key features. The foundation listings reflect open and active opportunities, which saves time and increases efficiency. The platform supports team collaboration well and is intuitive to set up and use. The breadth of grants and foundations available is extensive and continues to grow, and the search functionality is robust, making it easy to identify strong matches.

Cons: At this time, we have not encountered any notable drawbacks. We have been using Instrumentl for approximately one week.

Pros: Instrumentl is intuitive and makes collaboration easy. It centralizes our funder searches, document storage, and deadline tracking so our team can stay on the same page in one place.

Cons: The initial data migration was a bit time-consuming. However, the Instrumentl support team was helpful in guiding us through the transition.

Pros: Instrumentl's Dashboard is so user friendly. The the layout of the custom home dashboard is especially useful because it can be filtered to show the opportunities by deadline, allowing for grant mapping for the calendar year. I also appreciate the status updates.

Cons: I'm not sure if this is more user error or not a function, but being able to remove a grant after further research would be helpful. There is the "abandoned" status, but in my experience, sometimes clearing the grant entirely from the tracking history would be preferred.

Pros: The reporting tools. I love that I can run quick reports of each of my initiates and see what open asks I have and what I have received. This saves me a lot of time.

Cons: The home screen view, being chronological, gets tedious at the end of the year. It would be nice if there were a monthly or quarterly expansion menu.

Pros: The ease of finding potential and matching donors for my NP. I Love that they send updates of new possibility or matches are available for me to look at. Now, i just need to do the research!

Cons: I have not really found many cons. We have only been using it 4 months, we have submitted to LOI and we got one invitation to submit a full proposal. No cons.

Pros: It is user friendly. The search functionality is great and I love that it continues searching and recommending new grants. It is really easy to organize and maintain different projects.

Cons: It is a little costly for a small business owner. After using it for one year, I came back to it because it saves so much time and the search features were far superior

Pros: Instrumentl is a top-tier, comprehensive grant management platform that modernizes how nonprofits and consultants find, pursue, and manage funding. It merges research, collaboration, AI assistance, tracking, and post-award tools in one place, replacing a patchwork of spreadsheets, calendars, and separate systems with an integrated workflow. If you regularly pursue multiple grants and need centralized control with automation and intelligence at each stage, Instrumentl is one of the strongest options available today.

Cons: Sharing with other Team members is a little tough due to them not knowing everything I know about Instrumentl.

Pros: Instrumentl helps me turn grant research into a real system. I like having funders, deadlines, notes, and opportunities in one place so I’m not reinventing the wheel every time. It supports consistent prospecting and follow-through, which is half the battle in grant work.

Cons: Like any matching tool, it still requires human judgment. Not every opportunity is a perfect fit right out of the gate, so you may need to filter, refine, and do a quick reality-check before investing time. There’s also a slight learning curve up front to get your settings dialed in, but that is with any grant search system.

Pros: The most valuable aspect of Instrumentl is the significant time savings it provides. I have reduced my grant research time by more than 50%, which is particularly impactful given that I am solely responsible for writing and managing all grants within my organization.

Cons: I do not have any significant cons to report. On the rare occasion that I identify an area for potential improvement, I share my feedback with the Instrumentl team. They are highly responsive and genuinely receptive to suggestions, which reinforces my confidence in the platform and its commitment to continuous improvement.

Pros: Instrumentl has been a huge asset as both a prospecting tool and a grant management system. I have already found and secured new grants as a result of this tool. It is very user-friendly, and I also like the reporting and tasks features, which help me stay on top of things.

Cons: It is more expensive than other platforms, but I do think you get what you pay for, and Instrumental is constantly looking to improve and add new features.

Pros: Our institution needed help finding available grant funding, primarily for smaller grants than those traditionally available through the National Institute of Health. Instrumentl finds grants from many routes that newer institutions qualify for. We have had many users across our institution use Instrumentl to apply for several grants over the past two years. The price for this service was far lower than their competitors.

Cons: Different users can see your searches for grants. While this is beneficial to ensure you are not overlapping grant submissions (the likely reason this feature was implemented), it is possible to mistake which one is your query and edit someone else's by mistake.

Pros: I love the prospecting feature - saves me a ton of time! There are many ways to view your grants pipeline. I am a fan of the calendar view, as it clearly shows me what I've got to do for that month. I wasn't accustomed to organizing my funders by project, but have found that to be extremely useful, as well. I have found the customer support to be very, very good, in terms of responsiveness and knowledge.

Cons: Honestly, I'm still learning, but so far nothing jumps out at me as a negative. I'm happy to update this review if/when that occurs.

Pros: I like how in-depth I'm able to research a funder before I even attempt an outreach, allowing me to best utilize my time and resources to ensure that I am making the most of all grant/stewardship opportunities. Because of Instrumentl, I've been able to impress donors with an in-depth knowledge of their funding priorities, history of giving, and preferred geographic range. I also enjoy the "Funder Matches" section because it helps spot many local opportunities that may not seem obvious at first glance. While many funders have direct websites, grant portals, and deadlines - Funder Matches helps to locate family foundations that often require more personal engagement.

Cons: All of the nonprofits I've worked at/collaborate with already have their own internal system for following and tracking grants, in which I've actually never had to use any of the grant management tools on Instrumentl. I'm sure it's a great management tool, but we've always tried to maintain our grants on an organizational Drive rather than 3rd party software.

Pros: Instrumentl is one stop shopping for everything we need for researching, cultivating and submitting proposals to foundations--990s, information on grants/year, openness to new grantees, annual grant levels, and more. It is very intuitive and easy to use. The search/project builder tool is excellent, as is the reporting function, which allows us to track/report on tasks, prospects, grants received, etc. It also allows us to upload communications and grant proposals and LOI, so everything is on one place.

Cons: No "cons" except that Instrumentl does not yet integrate with our CRM, NEON. When that occurs, we will give it six stars! Maybe 7!

Pros: Instrumentl is an all-in-one grant prospecting and management tool. It integrates well with other systems and workflows to keep us on top of emerging opportunities and saves our team hundreds of hours of work prospecting, qualifying, and project managing.

Cons: There is such a wealth of information in Instrumentl, it can be difficult to filter out opportunities that aren't a perfect match for mission, goals, or proximity. With experience, this becomes a bit easier, but it is often overwhelming for new users.

Pros: We have brought a new grant writer on to our team and Instrumentl has been a game changer in the way we approach tasks and management of grant funding. We have been able to upload old documents to this new system to ensure we meet our timelines.

Cons: I have enjoyed our onboarding calls and have learned so much about all of the new features that Intrumentl provides that we were not aware of. I would say that overall, I would appreciate more communication around new tools being released or a notification of new tools.

Pros: $80

Cons: I did not like the fact that I had to download an expense template, add my information to the sheet and then upload it. Now, with the new feature, I can go into the actual grant and enter each expense without uploading a document template etc...

Pros: Instrumentl is the best investment we could have made. It's intuitive and easy to use, and if you do have a question, the customer service is phenomenal. You get tremendous support as you set up your account and learn to use the product. It offers excellent features for both pre- and post-award grants management, including detailed spend-down charts, excellent, targeted prospecting to help us find well-aligned funders, an AI feature, and documents management. It helps our team work together to stay on top of a busy grants calendar, and the calendar is fully integrated with Outlook. The Instrumentl team continues to create improvements constantly, and are receptive to suggestions for ongoing enhancements. It's a secure platform that lets me search for funders I would otherwise miss, based on targeted project organization. I couldn't be happier.

Cons: There's honestly nothing I don't like. There are areas where the company is constantly improving, e.g., reporting, which we've asked to be more customizable. But in the less than one year since we've gotten it, they have already made multiple improvements.

Pros: It's easy to use and has so many features that has made grant research so much more efficient! All the free trainings have been so helpful and they are actually very useful!

Cons: I wish I could refine my matches a bit more to more accurately reflect my projects (this could be user error).

Pros: I like the ability of finding donors and foundations that can ultimately help my non-profit. I have a part-time employee and a team that are learning about grant writing and using the AI component to go along with it.

Cons: There seems to be a pretty big learning curve, so it is taking me a while to figure the software out. (For example, no one at InstrumentL told me about just searching my state within the software. I saw a google link to "Mississippi Foundations in Instrumentl" outside of your platform.

Pros: Instrumentl allow me to learn skills: search functionality, tracking and document management. By pairing Instrumentl’s filtered, funder-aligned search tools with ChatGPT's drafting capabilities, I’ve been able to accelerate narrative development, synthesize funder priorities, and customize applications with greater precision. This AI-enhanced approach has enabled me to move from research to proposal in a fraction of the time—without compromising quality.

Cons: Nothing. I just wish there wasn’t a minimum character requirement for my response to complete this question.