In the 2024 TAG State of Tech survey, 21% of respondents revealed that their organizations use their Grant Management System (GMS) as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool. While it might seem convenient to use one system for multiple functions, relying on a GMS for CRM purposes has significant limitations.

We want to share why a dedicated CRM like Salesforce offers a more flexible, scalable, and integrated solution compared to a GMS. Let ImagineCRM share the benefits of Salesforce having implemented it for over 200 organizations.

1. Limited Cross-Departmental Data Visibility and Reporting Capabilities

A GMS is built to handle grant-related workflows—such as managing applications, tracking deadlines, and ensuring compliance. While this makes it highly effective for specific grant management tasks, it falls short when you need a system that provides visibility and data integration across multiple departments or when you're looking for comprehensive impact reporting.

With a GMS, pulling in data from other critical functions like accounting, marketing, advocacy, or fundraising is often difficult, if not impossible. These systems don’t offer a holistic view of your organization’s operations. In contrast, a CRM like Salesforce can serve as the backbone for your entire organization by seamlessly integrating data from various sources, giving you an accurate 360-degree view of your performance.

**Impact Reporting and Dashboards:** Unlike Salesforce, which allows you to create real-time, customizable dashboards that showcase performance metrics across all departments and functions, a GMS tends to be limited to grant-specific metrics. Salesforce enables you to track and report on not just grant applications but also on the impacts your grants are having, pulling data in from your grantees automatically when they submit reports. These capabilities help demonstrate your organization’s success to stakeholders and board members, allowing you to pull reports easily, seamlessly, and quickly. With a few clicks the reports can be generated using the data that is in Salesforce.

**Time-Saving Automation and AI:** One of the key benefits of using Salesforce over a GMS is the ability to automate routine tasks and processes. While a GMS may offer some basic automation, Salesforce excels with its powerful automation tools, including **Salesforce Flow** and **Einstein AI**, which streamline workflows across departments.

For example, Salesforce can automatically route tasks, send reminders, update records, and trigger follow-up actions without requiring manual intervention. This kind of automation saves your team valuable time, freeing them to focus on strategic initiatives rather than administrative tasks. This also saves big money when you compare the manual workarounds many GMS systems require to do what Salesforce does with automation and not staff and salary time.

Furthermore, Salesforce’s AI capabilities can take your reporting and insights to the next level. Einstein AI can analyze your data, predict outcomes, and suggest next steps, helping you make more informed decisions. Whether it’s forecasting grant success rates, donor retention, or program impact, AI-driven insights can help you act more quickly and strategically—capabilities generally unavailable with a GMS. And now Salesforce is empowering even greater use of AI with autonomous AI Agents who can work for you.

Comprehensive Reporting and Analytics: Running reports in a GMS can be a slow, manual process, often restricted to grant-specific data. Salesforce, by comparison, offers robust reporting and analytics tools that allow you to build complex reports across multiple data sources with just a few clicks. Whether you want to monitor fundraising performance, donor engagement, or grant outcomes, Salesforce provides the flexibility to generate actionable reports that align with your organization’s goals. These reports can be shared in real-time, giving teams across departments the insights they need to make data-driven decisions quickly and effectively.

2. Restricted Flexibility and Scalability

One of the critical limitations of using a GMS as a CRM is its restricted flexibility and scalability. While a GMS is designed for managing grants, it doesn’t provide the adaptability organizations need as they grow and evolve. With Salesforce, however, you gain access to a robust, scalable platform that supports your organization’s growth while empowering your team to become more self-reliant.

**Best-in-Class Technology:** GMS systems are highly specialized, focusing on grants alone, and as such, they often don’t keep pace with the latest advancements in technology across other sectors like fundraising, marketing, and AI.
On the other hand, Salesforce is constantly evolving, integrating the best-in-class technology from across industries. Whether it’s AI, advanced automation, or integrations with tools like Slack for collaboration or Tableau for advanced analytics, Salesforce allows you to leverage cutting-edge technologies as soon as they are available. By relying solely on a GMS, you limit your organization’s ability to innovate and stay competitive, missing out on technology that can streamline processes, enhance donor engagement, and provide deeper insights into your impact.

**Scalability as You Evolve:** Another challenge of using a GMS as your CRM is the lack of scalability. As your organization grows, whether in terms of fundraising capacity, staff size, or program expansion, your system needs to evolve with you. Salesforce’s declarative development model—often referred to as “clicks, not code”—means that non-technical users can easily adapt the platform to meet new needs.

You can create new workflows, automate complex processes, and integrate additional systems without needing to bring in developers for every change. This flexibility ensures that your organization can scale seamlessly as its operations become more sophisticated.
In contrast, GMS systems often require more rigid configurations, limiting your ability to adapt quickly. Changes typically involve technical customizations, which can slow down your growth and increase dependency on external developers. As a result, organizations using a GMS can face bottlenecks when trying to scale their systems in response to new opportunities or challenges.

**Becoming Self-Reliant:** One of the greatest strengths of Salesforce is its ability to empower organizations to become self-reliant. With **Salesforce Trailhead**, an interactive and free learning platform, your team can gain hands-on experience in real-life scenarios, learning how to use and customize Salesforce according to your specific needs. This not only builds your organization’s internal capacity but also reduces reliance on expensive consultants and developers.

Trailhead offers a wide range of learning paths, from basic configuration to advanced automation and AI integration, helping your team stay current with the latest features and best practices. The self-paced, on-demand nature of Trailhead means that your staff can upskill and grow alongside the platform, allowing your organization to become more agile and responsive to change. A GMS, in comparison, typically lacks such comprehensive learning and development resources, making it harder for your team to gain independence and mastery over the system. One of the key benefits of this learning opportunity is that Salesforce opens up a huge range of career opportunities, as the leading CRM with over 55,000 nonprofits and foundations using the platform the skillsets are hugely sought after.

3. Ecosystem and Integration Limitations

One of Salesforce's most significant advantages is its vast ecosystem, which extends far beyond what a traditional GMS can offer. Salesforce is home to a thriving AppExchange marketplace, where over 700 nonprofit-specific apps are available for organizations to download and use. These apps range from fundraising and volunteer management tools to program impact reporting and donor engagement systems. The breadth of available tools speeds up the time it takes to get Salesforce up and running, allowing organizations to start reaping the benefits of a fully integrated CRM much faster.

In contrast, GMS systems tend to be niche, offering limited integration capabilities and few third-party apps, which can slow down an organization's ability to streamline operations and unify data across different departments. The limited ecosystem means you may spend more time and resources trying to customize your system to meet your organization’s evolving needs, which Salesforce handles easily.