Instrumentl's Grant Performance Dashboard is your central hub for visualizing and tracking your overall grant progress. Instantly gain insights into your grants pipeline and strategy.
With clear visuals, the dashboard lets you quickly & effectively share your impact with clients, leadership, and colleagues, showcasing the value of your work in a compact, meaningful format.
Spend less time on reporting and more time advancing your mission with confidence!
The Grant Performance Dashboard is available to all nonprofits, consultants, and other institutions on our Professional, Advanced, Enterprise and University Plans.
Overview
Get real-time insights from understandable data visualizations with our Grant Performance Dashboard. This feature makes it simpler to report high-level progress over time, keeping you and your team aligned on fundraising goals.
Track your grant trajectory, right at your fingertips! You can monitor grants at a glance throughout the prospecting, application, and post-submission phases.
Value add
Strengthen Your Grants Strategy—When you can clearly see, share, and interpret the results of your approach, you can focus your work more effectively.
Internal Reporting: Leave the data work to us! Report your progress to your manager at a moment's notice. No need to spend your valuable time tediously aggregating spreadsheet data to create graphs.
Status updates: Share the current state of your grants pipeline, relevant programs, and proposed & awarded funding across key dates.
Performance metrics: Dashboard visuals make it easy to track and compare common KPIs against goals and expectations. Filter and choose specific charts to share the trends and metrics that matter most.
Clean & Clear Results: Your Grant Performance Dashboard provides clear insights into your funding progress across key metrics.
Eliminate complicated and extraneous details: Leadership and clients won't need to decipher granular data reporting to see results.
Maintain client data integrity: Consultants can share high-level project performance for each client, without diluting the results with other client work. No need to worry about exposing sensitive data either!
Chart types
There are seven (7) high-level grant performance charts currently available on your Dashboard. These metrics cover prospecting, application, and fundraising efforts with simple, visual reporting:
Amount Awarded: Assess success by grant awards over time. Easily visualize your total yearly award sums ($).
Grants Won / Lost: Measure your wins against losses. Quickly compare the number of opportunities won vs. lost across the years.
Grant Win Rate: Track trends in your win rate over time using changes in grants won.
Applications Submitted by Status: Observe patterns in submissions across years using the total number of applications submitted, broken down into awarded and declined outcomes.
Submissions to New vs. Repeat Funders: Understand patterns in giving from funders based on the number of applications you've submitted to new vs. returning funders.
Total Amount Requested: Monitor how proposal values change across time via aggregated proposal amounts ($).
Grants Researched: See just how much work you've put into researching grants and finding new matches over the years. Track the number of saved opportunities over time.
Data Views
Your Dashboard charts have dynamic functionality! You hold the power to choose which metrics you'd like to view & share with others. Check out the ways you can tailor and glean more information from your charts below, then follow along with applied examples in the chart walkthrough section.
Filter by projects
By default, the Dashboard aggregates data across all projects using your grant statuses and required amount or date fields. You can then filter the data by specific project(s) to compare trends.
Consultants can easily filter their Dashboard by client projects to show aggregated performance data on a client-by-client basis.
Details by segment
Hover your mouse over a given chart section:
View the specific numeric value attributed to a particular category by year and segment color.
Click on the chart's colored-coded key:
Click on a listed category in the graph's legend to exclude all corresponding data from the display.
Click into a given chart section:
Access a detailed list of the underlying grants that comprise these data, such as linked Grant Name, Funder, Project, Status, Notification Date, Amount Awarded, Amount Requested, Submission Date, and Saved Date.
📊 Dashboard Charts
To access your Grant Performance Dashboard, navigate to the top right of your screen to open the Reports page. Filter by selected projects, or view all project performance by default.
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To compare underlying grant statuses & dates used in each chart's data, you can skip directly to the Chart Data Table.
♦ Amount Awarded
This bar chart neatly showcases the total dollar amount received each fiscal year for all your hard-earned grant work.
After you submit a successful application and receive a notice of award, you can update the grant's status and record the sum received & date notified directly within Instrumentl.
'Amount Awarded' includes grants saved to an Awarded status (Awarded - Active or Awarded - closed) with the "Amount Awarded" and Notification Date fields filled out.
♦ Grants Won / Lost
'Grants Won / Lost' is a stacked bar chart that compares the total number of awarded and declined opportunities.
The key under all chart names assigns a color to represent each category displayed. Here, green indicates Awarded opportunities, and red indicates Declined opportunities:
To reflect these data, relevant grants should be saved to an Awarded or Declined status with the Notification Date completed.
In the example above, FY2024 had a cumulative 54 grants marked as either awarded or declined. When viewing the exact breakdown by each segment, there were 48 awarded grants in green and 6 declined in red.
Even without checking, you can gauge how the stacked bars align with those figures.
♦ Grant Win Rate
Naturally following 'Grants Won / Lost', the 'Grant Win Rate' is a trend line that illustrates the percentage of grants you've successfully received over time.
Your win rate is calculated using the number of grants awarded out of the number of grants you've been notified about — the same data displayed on the "Grants Won / Lost" bar chart!
To reflect these data, relevant grants should be saved with the appropriate Awarded or Declined status and the Notification Date completed.
Since the previous 'Grants Won / Lost' chart indicated 48 Awarded and 6 Declined grants in FY 2024, the win rate is calculated as 48/54 = 89%.
♦ Applications Submitted by Status
View the number of all submitted applications by outcome in a stacked bar chart. You'll receive the total number of applications submitted for that fiscal year, along with a breakdown of award-winning vs. declined applications.
To reflect these data, relevant grants should be saved to the appropriate Awarded, Declined or Application Submitted status, with the Submission Date completed.
The vertical Y-axis measures the count of applications. A quick glimpse indicates significantly fewer declined applications in red.
When hovering over the green Awarded section below, you'll see there were 39 awarded applications, making up the majority of all submissions in FY24. What a successful year!
♦ Submissions to New vs. Repeat Funders
This stacked bar chart provides insights into giving from "New" funders compared to "Repeat" funders based on the number of applications submitted:
'New Funder': New funders are defined as funders to whom you've previously applied, but never actually awarded you with grant funding.
'Repeat Funder': A repeat funder is a funder to whom you've previously applied and has awarded you grant funding.
In other words, if you apply multiple times to the same funder but are repeatedly declined (per the Declined Status), they are considered a new funder each time. If you were declined a grant in FY2022 but later awarded a grant in FY2023, they will not appear as a repeat funder. However, if you later win a grant from them in FY2024, it will appear as a repeat.
To reflect these data, relevant grants should be saved to the appropriate Awarded, Declined or Application Submitted status, with the Submission Date completed.
The Y-axis displays the total count of submitted applications by funder type. To see the funders associated with those submissions, click into a specific segment to open a list of those grants.
In this example, there were nine (9) applications sent to repeat funders in FY24:
Clicking a category name in a chart's legend (below the title) removes that data from the display. To isolate and view Repeat Funders only, you'd click on New Funders to exclude them:
By reconfiguring the chart, it's now easier to see the growth in submissions to repeat funders! Notice that removing 'New Funders' automatically rescales the Y-axis application count from increments of 20 down to 5:
In just one click, you've essentially transformed the chart into "Submissions to Repeat Funders". You can reverse the view by clicking on the legend text again.
♦ Total Amount Requested
This straightforward bar chart shows the total requested grant dollars by year, based on application submission dates.
To reflect these data, relevant grants should be saved to the appropriate Awarded, Declined, or Application Submitted status, with the Amount Requested and Submission Date fields completed.
♦ Total Grants Researched
Observe trends in the number of opportunities saved over time. Take a deeper dive into your prospecting efforts and how many grants you've added to your tracker each year.
The 'Grants Researched' chart encompasses all grants saved to your tracker, regardless of status. Note that these grants appear under the fiscal year in which they were saved.
For example, if your fiscal year is set to October 1st - September 30th, then any funding opportunities saved to your Tracker during November 2024 ('SAVED DATE') would fall into FY 2025:
Underlying Chart Data
Ensure your dashboard accurately reflects your grant journey without missing data! Charts aggregate grant data based on a combination of one or more saved tracker statuses, date fields, or awarded amounts.
Hover over the grey information symbol ⓘ next to any chart's title to verify which grant statuses and fields it pulls in.
The table below lists the grant information used in each chart, including 1) which statuses to save grants under and 2) the respective date or amount fields to fill out.
Note: Grants without a notification date are assigned to their assigned year.
Chart Name | Grant Status | Fields |
Amount Awarded ($) |
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Grants Won / Lost |
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Grant Win Rate |
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Applications Submitted by Status |
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Submissions to New vs. Repeat Funders |
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Total Amount Requested ($) |
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Grants Researched | Any - Saved to Tracker | N/A |
FAQs
How can I share my dashboard results externally?
How can I share my dashboard results externally?
There are several easy recommendations to save, tailor, and report charts:
Take a quick screenshot of a given chart view to easily copy & paste any images you'd like. This method is recommended!
While dashboard charts are currently not embeddable, you can simply send them on a cadence. Add your images to an email, chat message, document, spreadsheet, presentation slides, or shared file.
Consider placing your desired chart images into a text document to customize and display the results however you'd like. Then you can easily convert it into an impressive PDF for presentation! It's especially convenient to keep your personalized templates to swap out charts for future reporting.
Alternatively, click the gray download arrow on the right side of a chart to save the image as a .png file.
Note: this method may not be optimal for larger bar charts and can vary based on your screen specs. Screenshots are the optimal go-to to capture what you want to share!
How can consultants track grant performance for each client?
How can consultants track grant performance for each client?
Consultants can filter charts by one or more client projects to present data on a client-by-client basis. Your clients can get a clear, high-level overview without unnecessary complexity.
How are "fiscal years" defined in these data?
How are "fiscal years" defined in these data?
The Dashboard's fiscal years align with your designated fiscal year. Data is aggregated by fiscal year, submission date, or notification date. These may differ slightly from the "year" dropdown menu if a grant was applied for in one year and awarded in the next.
For example, awards charts are organized by grant receipt/award date, so the Dashboard calculates the awarded amount based on the application's submission date or notification date.
You can also verify how your grants were classified for a given fiscal year by clicking into a bar section to view the specific dates.
Note: Grants without a notification date are assigned to their assigned year. E.g., when there's no submission date entered for an awarded grant, it will fall back to the fiscal year associated with it when it appears on your Dashboard.
Why isn't my Dashboard reflecting certain grants?
Why isn't my Dashboard reflecting certain grants?
To ensure your dashboard displays accurate performance metrics, update your grant statuses and complete the appropriate date fields and/or award amounts. If you notice missing data:
Hover over the ⓘ information symbol for each chart to find out why.
Check the Reported Data table above.
Click the sections of the bar charts to view full lists of the underlying grants' statuses & fields. This provides a clearer sense of the data inflow.
What is an "Awarded" status?
What is an "Awarded" status?
Grants saved to an "Awarded" status include both "Awarded - Active" and "Awarded - Closed". These statuses also feed into other post-award management features, such as Awards View & Awards Reports.
Instrumentl aims to simplify your data reporting and all your grant efforts. Our Grant Performance Dashboard and visualization capabilities are continuously improving — stay tuned for more!
Contact Us 
Have questions about the Grant Performance Dashboard? Message our friendly Support team via your account's chat bubble when logged in, or email us at hello@instrumentl.com.