SurveyMonkey Apply vs Award Force Comparison

Notion

NetSuite

Bloomerang

Submittable

OpenWater

Reviewr

We are a small non-profit that runs a number of programs requiring review of applications, ranging from grant funding mechanisms to conference presentations. We are implementing Apply for 6 programs and so far I can say it offers a HUGE improvement to managing applications "by hand" with emails and documents and spreadsheets. The platform is easy for users to submit applications and makes reviewing simple and efficient. Plus, having all our applicants in one database and being able to pull reports historically is fantastic. The customer service reps are very knowledgable and helpful, and the system becomes intuitive fairly quickly so its easy to build out your own programs as needed. We're thrilled to be using Apply and look forward to integrating even more with the platform in the coming months!  

Solved so many of our grants management issues!

We were tasked by the Maine State Legislature to create an application & award process for a new scholarship to assist non-traditional students in completing their degrees. Initially, we utilized paper forms which were cumbersome and required manual entry. That evolved into Google Forms online which still required a lot of data cleanup and little in terms of support.

Apply streamlined our entire process and saved 100's of personnel hours. Design, collection, reporting, reviewing and more became efficient processes under the program's guidance. We have utilized the Single Sign On to reduce unnecessary data redundancy. The interface for users is slick and easy to use. The program can be utilized in a wide range of applications. The staff is courteous, professional and most importantly they are responsive.

Excellent product with many potential applications

From the day I first met the Apply salesperson, I've been impressed with the professionalism and thoroughness of everyone on the team.  Their product functions exactly as they claim, and they work closely with clients to customize each organization's platform.  We use Apply for our grants and scholarship programs, and although there are similarities in our use of the platform, they were customized to best fit each time of award program. The help desk is responsive, the on-board team is accessible and explains how best to use the system that they create with your input.  One of the great features of Apply is that we, the administrators, can go in and tweak the application, build reports and communicate with our applicants through the system.  We've been through onboarding, one full year's cycle of scholarships and grant making, as well as an annual review and subsequent tweaks, and we're in the midst of our second round, and we couldn't be more pleased.

So glad we went with Apply!

As a part of my role at Teach For America, I manage two teaching awards where we had looked for an online platform to manage our applications. My immediate team had used Apply last year, but only with one of the teaching awards. This year I had joined the team as a new staff member, and we were looking not only to add another application platform for the second teaching award, but we also wanted to build out a separate nomination platform. I am new to Apply and struggle overall with technology, especially navigating platforms. 

My team and I were lucky to work with Christian updating our existing teaching award application platform, building out a new platform, and creating a new nomination site. We initially worked with Mike and then Christian was assigned to us in the middle of our planning conversations. He quickly learned our context and figured out our needs in a short amount of time. It was rightfully challenging to figure out what was happening, but Christian did so with a lot of patience. We also needed to launch everything on a VERY tight timeline. We first spoke with Christian at the end of September and needed both new sites ready by November 2nd. Christian owned getting us organized by scheduling calls with us, checking in to follow up, and was able to meet our tight timeline. When we have talked with him, he is patient to talk with us, dedicated to getting answers to our questions, and resolving our needs/concerns. He has also been overall responsive to our emails. He was honest when the Apply site cannot be changed to meet some of our unique preferences, but brainstormed ways we could get around some of the hurdles. We have been happy with the Apply site and the customer service that has been provided. I highly recommend Apply and their services!!

Highly recommend Apply

We signed up with Apply in September 2015 as we were ramping up to our busiest granting year ever: 6 different grants on offer all with overlapping timelines and different requirements. Ours is not the simplest of granting processes, and Anna, our onboarding specialist, was amazing at helping us get everything set up to work the way we needed. As with all products that aren't specially built for you, there are some things that we wish could work in a different way for our situation, but these things are minor and really are particular to our way of working. Anna and the whole support staff are always able to offer us great guidance on how to use the system in the best way possible, and they are always open to improvement suggestions. 

I'm happy to say we have made it through the RFP, application intake, review, and award process of  5 out of 6 of the grants so far, and applicants and reviewers have been thrilled with the ease of the process. I can't imagine having gone through this granting season with our old archaic system! So thankful we found Apply! Next year's granting cycle will be a breeze now that we have this all set up. 

Saved me this year!

We bought a program for two very different award programs under two different association names.  It was the most economical way to do this.  We found out the two groups are quite as separated as we wanted and probably was not explained well enough in the sales process.

It is a lot to learn when you are busy - as we all are - and we were on a short time frame after making the decision.  Overall, it seems easy to use but not all of it is intuitive.  However, with repeated use, I can tell as an administrator it will get easier and easier.  But allow yourself more than 6-8 weeks (with holidays and travel mixed in) unless you can devote your full attention.
We did launch the program about 3 weeks ago and I've heard very few problems.  Mostly, people don't realize they have to open an account (separate from the one with our database) to start the process.
Otherwise, I know everyone is loving that they can login and out to make changes to their entries and only submitting when they are ready.  This system is getting rid of a lot of copying and shipping costs.  Because we don't have to have items shipped to us, we were also able to give them a week extra until the deadline.
More time will tell but on the front end, it seems to be working great.  On the back end, we're still learning the program.

New User - Initial Input

We love the customer service - highly responsive, highly motivated and trained and very friendly. 

Dynamic and user-friendly - highly reccomend

AF helps us with the process of application and judging of 9 different awards (individual and big companies can apply). There is a lot of data to collect. Until now we did it all via e-mails. It was a big mess. Award Force put it all in one place so it gives us more time and less work to manage it.

Award Force - my review after 1 month of using

Compare SurveyMonkey Apply and Award Force based on features, pricing, verified reviews, integrations & more. Find out which software is best for your business today.

Bloomerang’s fundraising software and donor database helps nonprofits acquire, engage, and retain donors.

NetSuite provides organizations with an integrated system helps them run their business. More than 41,000 organizations around the world use NetSuite to more easily grow and adapt to change.

Notion is a project and workflow management solution that helps businesses streamline operations related to goal setting, status tracking, lead management, and more on a centralized platform. It enables users to utilize the drag-and-drop interface to organize, rearrange, and develop ideas or plans.

SurveyMonkey Apply helps organizations to collect, manage and review any type of application or submission from one secure online portal.

Access Controls/Permissions

Accounting

Activity Dashboard

Activity Tracking

Administrative Reporting

Alerts/Notifications

Applicant Portal

Applicant Tracking

Application Management

Approval Process Control

Audit Management

Audit Trail

Business Process Automation

Categorization/Grouping

Collaboration Tools

Commenting/Notes

Compliance Management

Configurable Workflow

Contact Management

Contract/License Management

Credit Card Processing

Customizable Branding

Customizable Fields

Customizable Forms

Customizable Questions

Customizable Reports

Deadline Management

Document Review

Donor Management

Drag & Drop

Electronic Payments

Electronic Submission

Email Reminders

Email Templates

Financial Reporting

For Nonprofits

Forms Automation

Forms Management

Fundraising Management

Grant Application Management

Grant Award Tracking

Grant Discovery

Grant Management

Impact Measurement

Interview Management

Labeling

Member Database

Multi-Currency

Payment Tracking

Process Modeling & Designing

Ratings/Reviews

Real-Time Analytics

Recommendations

Reminders

Reporting & Statistics

Reviewer Management

Role-Based Permissions

Rules-Based Workflow

Scoring

Search/Filter

Single Sign On

SSL Security

Status Tracking

Task Management

Web Forms

White Label

Workflow Configuration

Workflow Management

SurveyMonkey Apply

Android

Web-based

iPad

iPhone

Program Director

The engineer who managed and implemented out buildout was AMAZING. He was a pleasure to work with, super friendly, knowledgeable and down to earth.

Scholarship Funds Manager

The help desk is responsive, the on-board team is accessible and explains how best to use the system that they create with your input.

Grants Coordinator

I love the new program to create reports - much more effective than the old one. I also really appreciate how customizable the visibility of each section is.

Operations Director

For someone who manages it on and off, it is too hard to remember how to change, add or remove features or stages. The reporting feature is a bit confusing.

Operations Manager

Perfect application platform with superb Customer Service.

Head of CIBSE Certification

The technical competence and knowledge of the product to solve problems was outstanding.

I liked the option to give reviews on different companies or websites. Its good to let others know your experience.

Our transition between Fluid Review and Survey Monkey apply was as smooth as we could have hoped for - and that was due in large part to the amazing transition support we received.

Retail Affiliate Care Agent

This is such a great and anonymous way of voicing your opinions as well as asking imperative questions.

Engineer tossed in extra training for us, because of the negative sales experience that follows.

SurveyMonkey Apply makes the application process easy to use for our applicants. The review process is seamless for our internal team.

Executive Director

We were able to integrate everything over from FluidReview and us being a renewable scholarship that was very important.

The payment integration is clear for several of our customized programs across multiple sites. We were able to integrate with other platforms upon accepted applications too.

Business & Project Operations Manager

It is well worth the cost and has made our program so much more efficient.

I do wish that there was some kind of rubbish bin for deleted files - some of our applicants have accidentally deleted their whole applications which has caused major problems for us.

We are still finding ways to get more out of the systems and are starting to use it in ways we couldn't with the previous system. Is never wuite being finished a bad thing.

Assistant Director of Planning

The user interface for the administration of the grant application process is very intuitive.

VP of Marketing

Although the cost was more than what we were initially planning to spend, the software goes above and beyond what I thought the capabilities might look like when we began the project.

SurveyMonkey Apply screenshot: SurveyMonkey Apply view active programs

SurveyMonkey Apply screenshot: SurveyMonkey Apply track applications


SurveyMonkey Apply screenshot: SurveyMonkey Apply view applications


SurveyMonkey Apply screenshot

Freelancers

Large Enterprises

Mid Size Business

Non Profit

Public Administrations

Small Business

OpenWater is a Washington, D.C. based Inc. 5000 company that works with associations through our Application and Review Cloud platform for awards, abstracts, grants, scholarships, and any other competitive review processes.

Reviewr is an online application submission management software used to power awards, grants, scholarships, and more from start to finish.

Submittable powers you with tools to launch, manage, measure, and grow social impact programs. From grants management to corporate social responsibility programs, partner with us to start making a difference, fast. With a smarter, more efficient workflow, make better decisions and bigger impact.


Award Force is an awards management software offering users tools for entry management, payment gateway integration, judging management, promotion, and more.

SurveyMonkey Apply vs Award Force Comparison

SurveyMonkey Apply

Award Force

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives