Community foundations occupy a specific operational niche in the nonprofit sector. They manage grantmaking on behalf of donor-advised funds and field-of-interest funds, they coordinate complex relationships among donors, grantees, and community partners, and they handle a higher volume of grants per staff member than most private foundations.
The operational workflows that support this work involve significantly more documented stages than a typical nonprofit grant program. Each stage produces records that need to be retained, communications that need to be tracked, and decisions that need to be documented for the foundation’s audit trail. Here are six stages where online forms connected to Salesforce reduce the workload meaningfully.
1. Letter of Inquiry (LOI) Intake
Many community foundations use a letter of inquiry process as a screening step before full grant applications. The LOI is short, captures the prospective grantee’s program concept and funding request at a high level, and allows the foundation’s program staff to provide early guidance before either party invests significant time in a full application.
An LOI submitted through a digital form connected to Salesforce NPSP creates an Opportunity record with the LOI record type, links to the prospective grantee’s Account record, and routes to the appropriate program officer based on the program area indicated in the LOI. The program officer reviews the LOI in Salesforce, communicates a decision back to the prospective grantee (proceed to full application, decline, or request additional information), and the decision and rationale are documented on the LOI record.
2. Full Grant Application Collection
After an LOI is approved (or for foundations that accept full applications directly), the grant application form is the most substantive intake document in the workflow. Community foundation applications typically include organizational information, project narratives, project budgets, organizational budgets, board lists, IRS determination letters, audited financial statements, and various supporting attachments.
A digital grant application form with document upload routes the full application package to the Opportunity record in Salesforce, with required attachments validated at submission. Conditional logic shortens the form for organizations applying for smaller grants where some application components are not required, or for renewing grantees who have already provided organizational documentation on file. The full application is reviewable from a single Salesforce view rather than a folder of email attachments.
3. Site Visit Scheduling and Documentation
Community foundations frequently conduct site visits as part of due diligence for grant decisions. Coordinating site visit scheduling, capturing site visit observations, and routing visit notes to the application record are workflow steps that paper and email handle inconsistently.
A site visit scheduling form sent to the prospective grantee captures preferred visit dates, key contacts, and any logistical information needed. The scheduled visit creates a Calendar event linked to the Opportunity record. A site visit documentation form completed by the program officer after the visit captures structured observations, attendee lists, and any follow-up commitments. All of this lives on the Opportunity record, supporting the eventual grant decision and creating an audit trail for the foundation’s records.
4. Grant Decision Documentation
Community foundation grant decisions typically involve a committee or board review process. The decision itself needs to be documented with the decision rationale, the grant amount approved (which may differ from the requested amount), any conditions attached to the grant, and the appropriate signatures or approvals.
A decision documentation form completed during or after the committee review captures the structured decision elements and updates the Opportunity record with the approved amount and decision rationale. For conditional approvals, the conditions are documented as related records (perhaps as related Tasks or Cases) that will need to be resolved before the grant agreement is executed. The complete decision history is in Salesforce, accessible for board reporting and audit review.
5. Grant Agreement Execution
Once a grant is approved, the grant agreement is the legal document that establishes the terms of the funding relationship. The agreement typically includes the grant amount, the term, the purpose, any restrictions on use, reporting requirements, and the signatures of both the foundation and the grantee.
Digital grant agreement workflows with e-signature capability allow the foundation to send the agreement, capture grantee signatures, and execute the document without the printing, mailing, and scanning that paper processes require. The signed agreement attaches to the Opportunity record, the grant status updates to active, and the grant payment workflow is triggered.
For larger or more complex grants requiring additional schedules or attachments, the agreement workflow can include separate forms for budget acknowledgment, reporting timeline confirmation, or specific compliance certifications that are part of the agreement package.
6. Grant Reporting
Active grants require ongoing reporting. Interim reports document progress against grant deliverables; final reports document outcomes and financial performance at the end of the grant period. Coordinating these reports across an active grant portfolio is a persistent workflow challenge for community foundation operations teams.
Grant reporting forms pre-filled with grant-specific information from Salesforce make reporting faster for grantees and produce cleaner, more comparable data for the foundation. Required narrative sections, structured outcome data, and financial reporting fields all route to a Grant Report custom object linked to the parent Opportunity record. The foundation has a complete reporting history for each grant, accessible from the Opportunity record, supporting renewal decisions and impact reporting to fund advisors.
Automated reminders for upcoming report due dates eliminate the manual deadline tracking that program staff would otherwise maintain across an active portfolio. Grantees receive structured reminders with direct links to pre-filled report forms. The foundation operations team sees a centralized view of report status across the portfolio rather than tracking individual grants in separate spreadsheets.
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