A grant tracker board for two: funders by stage, reusable pieces, reports due

What this board doesn't do, and where Instrumentl, spreadsheets and Airtable are better

Read on November 11, 2026 from each page named. Instrumentl's pricing page lists Discover at $299 a month paid upfront annually ($349 paid monthly) for up to 3 users, with funder matching, deadline tracking and a first grants pipeline; Pre-Award at $499 ($579 monthly) for up to 5 users, adding collaboration on proposals; and Full Lifecycle at $999 ($1,159 monthly) for up to 15 users, adding post-award spend tracking and accounting connections. Each plan has a 14-day free trial, and the page lists "37k+ active RFPs & 450k+ funder profiles". Its blog post on spreadsheets versus software says digital grant tracking spreadsheets do not have automatic reminders, and that Instrumentl sends automated reminders of upcoming deadlines and changes in requirements. Those are Instrumentl's own claims. If you need to find funders you don't know yet, get reminders or run reports after an award, that is a different tool from this board, and this board has no funder database.

Smartsheet's grant tracking templates page (June 26, 2024) describes a six-stage pipeline (prospects, active, submitted, awarded, funded, closed) with dashboard figures, a calendar template and a budget tracker. Airtable's nonprofit grant tracker template has Grant Applications, Foundations, Foundation Contacts and Programs tables, a Kanban pipeline with five statuses (In progress, Next steps needed, Pending, Funded, Denied), calendar views of deadlines, and automations that notify team members when a status changes. Notion's marketplace lists Toby Egbuna's Grant Application Tracker at 0 USD, with one rating so far. A spreadsheet or Airtable base is the better tool for adding up asks and awards, sorting by date and linking a funder to its contacts; this board does none of that.

How to run a grant pipeline on the board

1. 1One card per funder. Put the ask, the date, what the application needs and an owner on it. The example has eleven invented funders spread across the stage lists; the funders and amounts are invented.
2. 2Name an owner on every card. Write "Owner:" and a first name on the first line. In the example one person writes and the other reviews, and the card says so.
3. 3Start each title with DONE, WAIT or TODO. Change the word as things move. Nothing sorts by it, so you scan for it by eye.
4. 4Move a card to the next stage list when its status changes. Ideas, Drafting, Submitted, Awarded or Declined. A declined card keeps a note such as asking the funder for a feedback call before reusing a need statement.
5. 5Keep one card per reusable piece. The example has the organization history, the need statement in two lengths, the program description, the budget narrative, the evaluation plan and the letters of support. Each says who owns it and what is left.
6. 6Join a piece to every application that uses it. The example draws an arrow captioned "org history" from that card to the application using it, one captioned "300-word cut" for the shorter need statement, and a red one captioned "waiting on Alvarez" from the missing letter to the application that is blocked.
7. 7Give reports their own list. An award creates a report due later, so put each interim and final report on a card with its date and an owner, and note what the funder wants in it.
8. 8Keep the calendar too. Because the board sends no alerts, the last card says every date on a card also goes into a shared calendar.

The thread advice people give each other is mixed, which is why the board is meant to sit beside another tool and not replace it. On r/Professors (August 6, 2024), u/Rogue_Penguin suggests Notion and u/MamieF suggests the free tier of Trello. On r/nonprofit (September 15, 2019), u/KovirPage suggests Excel and Google Calendar and u/Jagitzes suggests tracking by funder with the reporting and renewal deadlines, plus adding every deadline to the main calendar with a reminder a month ahead. On r/nonprofit (February 6, 2026), u/progressiveacolyte says this is a database job and not a spreadsheet job and suggests Airtable, while u/internet11786 says their organization has had about 400 versions of a grant tracker, because each new hire makes their own. Each is one person's view.

Sharing it with a co-writer, a director or a reviewer

In the share menu, choose who gets the link. New boards start view-only, so a board member or a funder contact who only needs to read can use the link as it is, signed out, and sees everything but can't change it. To let the grant writer add cards, set Share to "Anyone with the link can edit"; they sign in free and write live, and you each see the other's changes within seconds. Anyone with the link can read the board, so leave out bank details, tax forms, logins and anything a funder told you in confidence. Two people typing in the same card at the same time are merged keystroke by keystroke, with no lock, so give each person their own cards. The 4-digit join code expires after 2 hours of inactivity. Free calls on the board run up to 60 minutes per call, with a warning 10 minutes before the end. Calls need a free sign-in for everyone, aren't recorded, and Pro has no limit.

If you only need a plain list of funders and stages to copy, the grant application tracker template is the shorter route. Applying for a graduate program, not a grant? See the grad school application board. Planning a thesis that a grant funds? See the thesis planning board. Another board with an owner on every card is the office holiday party planning board.

This board vs Instrumentl vs a spreadsheet vs Airtable

Limits of the free plan for grants

• Items. Each card and each list is 1 of your 150 free items, across all your boards. The example has 11 funder cards, 12 other cards and 8 lists, 31 in all (our count). A board for 40 funders over several years, with the same other cards and lists, is about 60 (our arithmetic); two of those make 120 and a third passes 150. Arrows and pen strokes don't count.
• Boards. The free plan includes 5 boards. Making your own copy of the example uses 1 of them; a card that opens its own board uses another, so the example keeps everything on one board.
• Photos. 3 images per board. The example has none. On the web a link card's preview picture no longer counts toward the 3, but the iPhone, iPad and Android apps still count it until their next update.
• No reminders, no due-date alerts, no sorting by date. The board doesn't tell anyone a deadline is close. Keep dates in a shared calendar too. Card colour is the border and text only.
• No sums. The example's totals are typed by hand: $79,500 asked or planned across 11 funders, $11,000 awarded, $11,500 waiting on a decision (10,000 + 1,500) and $48,500 not yet submitted (15,500 + 33,000), our arithmetic. Change a card and the totals card doesn't change.
• No funder database and no submitting. It doesn't connect to any funder or portal, and logins and tax forms shouldn't go on it.
• No PDF of the whole board. Use Copy as image to share a picture of the layout. Save as image works on Chrome on the web.
• Writing needs a free sign-in. A co-writer who joins by link or code can add cards and arrows, and the board counts as one of their 5.

Questions