The idea in one screen
Right now a grant application lives across a website download, a Word document, an upload form and a scoring spreadsheet. The proposal here is to give the application one home in HubSpot, so the whole journey (apply, assess, decide, fund, follow up) sits on a single record the team can see and track.
To do that well, each grant application becomes its own record type in HubSpot, a Custom Object we would call Grant Application. It works just like the Deals you already know: a Kanban board where every application is a card you move across the stages, from New EOI to Shortlist to Committee Review to Awarded or Declined. It carries its own fields (grant type, amount requested, scores, key dates, the uploaded application, and the reason if declined), and clean links to the organisation applying and the people involved.
The people stay on their normal Contact record. What changes is a Role field on the contact that marks what they are to the Foundation (Grant Applicant, Committee, Member, Donor, and so on). One person can hold more than one role, so we are not building a separate object for each type of person, just tagging the role they play. We can grow that into something richer later once we know the account better.
Two things make this possible: one Service Hub Enterprise seat (which unlocks the Custom Object, plus surveys, reporting and a knowledge base) and Marketing Pro (for the events and membership work that comes next). More on both below.
An organisation finds the grant on the Melbourne Women's Grants page
They apply
- Both Capacity Building and Enabling start with an EOI form, so the journey is the same for both grants
- The form captures the applicant and their organisation, and we only capture those details once
- The full application pack stays available as an optional download for anyone who wants more detail up front. It sits on its own and is not a required step in the flow
One submission, three linked records
This is the heart of it. The form spins up (or links to) three connected records so nothing is captured twice and everything is associated:
Role = Grant Applicant stamped on them. Linked to their Company.
What a grant record holds. Think of each grant record like a single file or profile for that application, with everything in one place instead of spread across documents and spreadsheets. Each detail is a "property" you can see, filter and report on. For example, the Grant Year lets you pull up every grant from the 2026 round in one click. A record looks like this:
We confirm the exact list with you. The application itself still comes in as a Word document for now, exactly as you do it today, no change to that process. The completed file can simply be attached to its grant record so it sits with everything else, or you can keep filing it in your own folders the way you prefer. Either way, the record ties the details together.
The whole process is a Kanban board, just like Deals
Every application is a card. The team moves it left to right as it progresses, and at any moment you can see exactly where every grant sits. Both grant types live on the same board, told apart by the Grant Type property on each card.
One board, no spreadsheet to chase. Shortlisted organisations complete the full application before they move into Committee Review. The Declined column always carries a Declined Reason, so you can see and report on why each one did not proceed.
Send the application out, the committee scores, the result comes back in
- The 9-member committee assesses outside HubSpot, the way they do now. They do not log into HubSpot to score, so this stays simple for them
- HubSpot does the gathering: the shortlisted application's details and file are pulled into a package Catherine sends out for assessment
- The committee scores against the criteria and returns approve or decline, with a score
- The team records the result back on the card: the Score and the decision. So the board still holds the outcome, even though the scoring happened elsewhere
- The card then moves to
AwardedorDeclined
Two simple things make this work: a Committee option in the contact type, so you can see at a glance who is on the panel; and a flag on the grant record (whether it lives on a ticket or the custom object) for any application that needs to be handled differently, so those are easy to spot and route.
Record the award and notify
- Automated notification to the successful organisation
Amount Awardedand decision date recorded on the card- The Company keeps its full history: what they applied for and what they were awarded, ready for next year
Capture why, then keep the relationship warm
- A
Declined Reasonis required on every declined card (for example: outside funding focus, eligibility, stronger applications this round). This is the field that lets you see and report on why applications did not proceed - Automated, considerate notification to the organisation
- The organisation stays in HubSpot for future rounds and updates
What happens after the award could be its own board
Once a grant is awarded, the relationship continues: onboarding the grantee, releasing funds, collecting progress and impact reports. That is a different journey from the application, so rather than stretch the grants board to cover it, it could live as its own separate custom object and board (a "Grantee" or "Funded Project" pipeline) linked back to the original application.
Flagged here as an option to keep the application board focused. We would only build this if and when you want it.
Grants belong on their own object, not Deals or Tickets
The grants board looks and works exactly like a Deal pipeline: cards moving across stages, drag to progress, see everything at a glance. So the team uses something already familiar. But it lives on its own object, not inside Deals, for one clear reason: a grant is money going out. Deals are built for money coming in. Mixing the two muddles every report.
You are currently running the grant pipeline on Tickets. That works as a quick board, but Tickets are really HubSpot's tool for service and support issues. We could carry on using them for grants, but it muddies the water: if you ever want Tickets for their real job (member queries, service requests), grants would be sitting in the way and the reporting would blur. A dedicated object keeps Tickets free for what they are meant for.
The trade-off is cost. Tickets work without the Enterprise seat, the custom object needs it. So if keeping costs down matters more right now, staying on Tickets is a perfectly reasonable choice, just with the trade-offs above. It is a budget-versus-tidiness call, and we are happy either way.
So we keep each kind of money in its own place:
Grant Application custom object, its own board. Not in Deals.
The dedicated Grant Application object also gives you stages that match how grants actually move, its own properties (grant type, amount requested, score, declined reason, the application file) with nothing borrowed, and reporting that answers grant questions directly.
The Role field: how we track who's who
Members, donors, applicants, reviewers, board and event guests all live on the same Contact record. Rather than build a separate object for each, we mark what they are with a Role field, set up as a multiple-checkbox property so a person can hold more than one role at once (say a Member who is also on the Committee), with each role ticked independently.
Likely roles to start: Member, Donor, Grant Applicant, Committee, Board, NextGen, Event Attendee.
This is deliberately the simple version for now. It keeps the model light while the system is new to us, and we can grow a role into its own structure later if the work genuinely calls for it. We would confirm the final list with you.
What it needs to run
Two licensing pieces. The grants tracking and the wider membership and events work each need a different part of HubSpot, and they sit side by side on the one account.
| What | Why it's needed | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| One Service Hub Enterprise seat | Custom Objects are an Enterprise feature, and Service Enterprise adds extras the Foundation can use | Unlocks the Grant Application custom object on the account, and on the same one seat you also get surveys (member and grantee feedback), advanced reporting and a knowledge base. The whole team does not need Enterprise. One seat for the person running grants is enough to switch it on, and others can work in the lower seat tiers. |
| Marketing Hub Pro | For the events and membership lifecycle work (Phase 2) | Email, automation, SMS, forms, social scheduling, lead nurturing and campaign tooling for events tracking and growing and renewing memberships. Pairs with the Service Enterprise seat above. |
We would confirm the exact seat and tier mix with HubSpot before anything is purchased, and as a not-for-profit there may be HubSpot pricing support worth checking.
Where Marketing Pro takes you next (Phase 2)
Once the grant round is settled, the same clean foundation supports the bigger prize:
- Events tracking for the Changemaker Awards, panels and community dinners, so attendance and engagement are easy to see and follow up
- Membership lifecycle: nurture and renewal journeys by email, automation and SMS, re-engaging lapsed members and bringing NextGen supporters through
- General lead nurturing: welcome and follow-up journeys for new contacts, donors and prospective members
- Social scheduling: plan and schedule your social posts from one place, alongside the rest of your marketing
- Build reports: dashboards across grants, events and membership, so you can see the whole picture in one view
- All of it reading from the same Role field and clean associations, so nothing built now has to be unpicked later
What we'd want to confirm with you
- Scoring: how reviewers prefer to enter scores, and whether you want each reviewer's score held separately or just the average and total on the record
- The application pack download: it sits on its own as an optional resource for people who want more detail. The only open question is whether you want to track who downloads it, or keep it as a plain link with no capture
- Stages and fields: the exact stage names and the fields that matter most for your reporting
- Role list: the final set of contact roles to start with