CommunityForce vs OmniStar Grants

CommunityForce is a web-based awards management platform for grants, scholarships, fellowships, and research funding. It supports programs from funding discovery and applications through review, awards, disbursement, compliance, reporting, and closeout. Application tools include conditional forms, eligibility screening, shared applications across opportunities, and applicant dashboards. Reviewers can collaborate using scoring and rubrics, while administrators can manage bulk awards, renewals, and post-award requirements. Phoenix searches Grants.gov, IRS Form 990 filings, and a curated list for opportunities matching an organisation’s funding profile. Its AI features can summarize applications, suggest reviewer scores, flag AI-written essays, and answer questions using live platform data. The platform provides ad hoc reports, dashboards, exports, and embedded Microsoft Power BI dashboards. Integrations include Salesforce, DocuSign, Stripe, Twilio, SendGrid, SMTP email, and Google Translate. The company says each organisation has a separate database and file storage in a private Microsoft Azure environment. It states that it is FedRAMP certified and SOC 2 Type II, and supports Section 508, FERPA, and PCI-DSS requirements. Pricing is available on request; the product pages direct prospective buyers to request a demo or speak with an expert.

OmniStar Grants manages grant work from pre-award planning through administration and post-award reporting. It is built for government agencies, charities, universities, research institutions, and foundations, with funders, applicants, and recipients using the platform. Application workflows include SmartForms, eligibility checks, invitation and multi-stage rounds, collaboration, structured reviews, scoring, conflict checks, and digital approvals. Award administration covers contract generation, notifications, milestones, variations, payments, budgeting, and document versioning. Post-award tools handle progress and acquittal reports, outcomes, financial reconciliation, dashboards, reminders, and program closure. Administrators can configure forms, workflows, templates, dashboards, and reports, including drill-down reporting and data exports. Integrations include ABR/ABN, GrantConnect, FMIS, document and records management, ORCID, Microsoft Teams, Europe PMC, and DocuSign, plus REST APIs and webhooks. Listed security controls include role- and record-based access, single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, audit logs, and encryption at rest and in transit. OmniStar says it is IRAP and ISO 27001 certified. The cloud service is accessible through devices and browsers; pricing is tailored to internal users and available by quote.