RSM Grants Management System: AI-powered efficiency for the full grant lifecycle
Grants management is a vital function for nonprofit organizations, but it is also one of the most time-consuming and resource-intensive. In addition, manual grants management processes are common, adding potential inconsistency and accuracy concerns. By leveraging automation and artificial intelligence, nonprofits can transform critical processes and increase efficiency across the grants lifecycle.
The RSM Grants Management System (GMS), built on Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit, provides a comprehensive end-to-end solution for modern grantmaking, fund management and program oversight. By combining automation, AI and data-driven insights, GMS reduces manual staff activities and empowers your organization to spend more time focused on mission and impact.
GMS leverages the Microsoft Power Platform with native AI capabilities to deliver flexible, intelligent and automated solutions for organizations that need to approve, track and report on both incoming and outgoing funds. With enterprise resource planning (ERP) integration, it establishes seamless financial processing, reconciliation and compliance.
The grantee portal, built on Microsoft PowerApps Portals, provides a central hub for all constituent activity. It supports grantees throughout the entire grant lifecycle, from planning and application to post-award reporting.
Portal features:
- Tailored grant applications for different categories of grants
- Role-based access and personalized grantee/organization profiles
- Organization roster and role management
- Secure login with Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) and OpenID Connect (OIDC) providers
- Request for proposal (RFP) listings and application submissions
- Scholarship applications support
- Demographic and organizational surveys
- Submission of required documents, budgets and narratives
- Customized milestone creation and reporting
- Submission of reporting requirements (expenses, narrative responses, metrics)
- Project codevelopment processes
- External reviewer/scoring module for objective evaluation
- Project metrics and progress reporting
- Vendor relationship management (W-9/ACH collection, invoices, disbursement history)
- E-signature integration (Docusign, Adobe Sign, PandaDoc)
- AI-powered grant-writing assistance for compelling proposals
- AI-driven application scoring and recommendation engine for fair, criteria-based reviews
PowerApps Portals provide a flexible, low-code environment that can be customized for any organization and maintained without developers.
Every organization strives to reduce staff time spent on repetitive tasks. GMS leverages Microsoft Power Platform tools and AI copilots to streamline operations, improve decision making and enhance constituent experiences. With GMS, you have access to:
- AI-powered chatbots that guide applicants and grantees through applications and reporting
- Automated scheduling, communications and reminders that reduce routine staff workloads
- An automated approval engine with AI review and recommendations that keep projects moving forward
- Predictive analytics that forecast funding trends, grantee performance and compliance risks
- Natural language query with AI Copilot in Power BI for quick reporting and insights
- Highly customizable workflows and templates adaptable to your processes
GMS simplifies vetting of potential grantees and ongoing partner verification. Automated integrations with Candid’s GuideStar and IRS Publication 78 pull real-time data into the system.
With AI-powered risk assessments, your organization can:
- Identify qualified partners quickly.
- Detect anomalies or red flags in applications or financial data.
- Prioritize due diligence activities based on predictive risk scoring.
GMS provides full visibility and control of funds across multiple sources, programs and projects:
- Fund credits and restricted funds: Establish and manage compliance with donor restrictions.
- Donor advised funds (DAFs): Manage community funds and donor-driven giving.
- Fund allocation and transfers: Allocate money to programs/projects with audit trails.
- Fund transaction reporting: Track and analyze all fund movements.
- Budgeting: Create budgets for any period with flexible, hierarchical structures.
- Disbursement schedules: Automate schedules with reminders and approval workflows.
- Invoices and vendor management: Submit and approve vendor invoices with W-9/ACH collection.
- Co-funding: Manage shared disbursements across funders.
- ERP integration: Integrate with accounting/ERP for reconciliation and general ledger posting.
- AI forecasting: Predict cash flow needs, return on program investment and fund utilization.
GMS provides a comprehensive set of features that give you the perspective you need to create and manage successful programs, including:
- Program initiation: Leverage standardized workflows to launch new initiatives.
- RFP development and management: Publish RFPs and manage responses with built-in scoring.
- Project pipelines: Track projects across pipeline stages.
- Project management: Perform budgeting, assign tasks, submit approvals and track deliverables.
- Application scoring: Combine external reviewer input with AI-driven scoring.
- Metric development and reporting: Define and monitor impact metrics to evaluate outcomes and measure success.
- Contract generation: Create agreements from templates, with automated amendments and continuations.
GMS comes with extensive application programming interfaces (APIs) and prebuilt connectors for hundreds of platforms, including:
- ERP and finance: Reconciliation, accounting and payments
- Candid’s GuideStar: Nonprofit due diligence
- E-signature platforms: Docusign, Adobe Sign and PandaDoc
- Fund transactions and vendor invoices: Streamlined accounting processes
- Event platforms: Event applications, including Cvent
- Marketing tools: HubSpot, Mailchimp and Constant Contact
- Microsoft 365 ecosystem: Native integration with Exchange, Outlook, SharePoint, Excel and Teams
- Exchange distribution lists: RSM prebuilt integration for communication management
With Power BI dashboards and AI-driven analytics, GMS delivers 360-degree insights across your grant portfolio, including:
- Fund financials reporting
- Metrics and program performance reporting
- Reporting by geography and over time
- Portfolio investment cycle dashboards
- Predictive analytics on grantee success and impact outcomes
- Data replication and data lake integration for advanced analytics
- AI Copilot for Power BI to ask questions in natural language and generate reports instantly
- Private foundations: Manage investee and investment pipelines and track service providers.
- Impact investors: Evaluate impact and manage blended capital programs.
- Community foundations: Manage donor advised funds, community initiatives and grantmaking.
- Charities: Manage scholarships, grants and loans; integrate with Microsoft Fundraising and Engagement.
- Public foundations: Enforce fund-matching guidelines; manage rates for services with financial reporting.
Transform your grantmaking with AI + automation
With RSM GMS, your organization benefits from a next-generation grants management system that combines automation, AI and Microsoft’s trusted cloud, enabling your team to focus less on administration and more on advancing your mission.