Chapter Five
The numbers: What accelerating mission driven work looks like
Under the hood
People use Submittable to run tens of thousands of programs each year. This provides us a unique perspective on how people run their programs and how they make progress happen. Let’s take a look at the numbers from 2023 and some of our product highlights that made these results possible.
A big collective impact
The people that used Submittable in 2023 made a huge difference in important causes that matter across the globe.
Total programs created
Total applications received
Reducing burden for over 3 million applicants
We consistently hear from our customers across sectors that one of their most important goals is to create a good experience for their applicants. So, we’ve built our platform to make creating great applicant experiences a breeze.
We grant food pantries in churches and social service organizations in Detroit and surrounding counties. Most of our applicants have never applied for a grant before. Submittable has made it easy to structure questions that guides them to tell their story…Our agency partner pantries are very diverse and serve seniors, low-income residents, single mothers with children, homeless men, and more. Being accessible, approachable, and inclusive is baked into our entire grant process.
Customers who switch to Submittable because their previous vendor left them unsatisfied with a burdensome applicant experience
Customers who identify a better experience for applicants as a top benefit of using Submittable
Key features for reducing applicant burden
Here are the tools Submittable customers say are key to easing the way for applicants.
We are doing cartwheels because of it. The application was simple enough for applicants to navigate through it and to get it submitted. With the software, they didn’t have to spend two, three weeks trying to figure out how to even submit your application. They’ll give up if it’s too frustrating and too complicated for them.
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Ease of use
70+ file types
Eligibility screening
Mobile friendly
Editable
Collaborative
Auto save
Accessible for everyone
Accessibility is key to progress. Increasingly—and rightfully so—governments and philanthropists are focusing on making sure that the opportunities they offer are fully accessible to humans with a broad range of disabilities. We’re proud to support them in these efforts.
[Submittable is] more accessible to folks with disabilities. Better reporting helps us better track our DEI efforts.
People estimated to be living with a disability by the World Bank
Of disabilities are not “apparent”, meaning they do not display physical characteristics
Of people benefit from accessible design and best practices
Good accessibility improves usability for everyone. To that end, here are our principles and approach to accessibility. The bottom line? Submittable is purpose-built to be accessible for everyone.
Submittable’s accessibility principles
Human-centered design
Our design process keeps users at the forefront, from ideation through to delivery. We advocate for usability and iterate frequently to ensure we’re delivering a high-quality product.
Web accessibility
We’re well-versed in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and have a VPAT, or Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT), which informs our Accessibility Conformance Report. Submittable undergoes a yearly audit with a third party consultant.
Continued learning
Accessibility is a journey, and we’re on this journey with you. That’s why we explore continuous learning opportunities through communities of practice.
Submittable’s approach to accessibility
Technical functionality
This refers to the innate capabilities that determine the experience applicants have on our product, which are evaluated for our VPAT.
Guidance from our team
While technical functionality can get you far, choices you make can create a more accessible experience for your applicants—and we are here to help. Our implementation, customer success, and technical support teams have all undergone training and have access to resources to help our customers follow accessibility best practices throughout their programs.
Mitigating fraud
Fraud has become an increasing concern for governments and enterprise philanthropy teams in particular. Only by mitigating fraud can you ensure that your investment truly makes the kind of impact you intend.
Estimated stolen by fraudulent actors from the Paycheck Protection and COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs COVID relief programs
The most streamlined and innovative fraud prevention in the market
Learn more about how Submittable’s Knowledge Based Authentication and Identity Verification prevent fraud.
Applicants screened for fraud via KBA or IDV within Submittable in 2023
Advancing AI for good
Submittable is developing the following AI tools to serve all stakeholders in the grantmaking process. We plan to onboard our first customers in Q1 of 2024.
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Time-saving answer suggestions for grant seekers
Faster form creation and best practice adherence for grantmakers
Accessible applications across language barriers
Accurate data extraction from documentation
Our Responsible AI Principles
We’re committed to ensuring that AI is a tool that is used for good. That’s why we’ve committed to a set of five strict principles to ensure the AI tools we develop are ethical, responsible, and impactful.
Empowering: Help humans make better decisions and achieve more while preserving human agency.
Accountable: Leverage human-in-the-loop monitoring and continuously evaluate and improve.
Transparent: Make users aware of when, where, and why they’re interacting with AI.
Equitable: Identify, mitigate, and correct for bias and engage stakeholders in model development.
Private & Secure: Implement world-class measures to ensure all data is private, secure, and never shared.
It all comes down to saving time
We know it can sound a little cliché, but we hear it again and again: one of the most valuable things Submittable offers is time back in their days that our customers can spend on meaningful work.
Of customers say Submittable saves them time
Average time admins save per week (per administrator)
Average time reviewers save per week (per reviewer)
We save so much time using this platform compared to our previous software. We appreciate the workflow tools. The reporting has been crucial and we're so excited to dive into more of that this upcoming year.
We asked our customers in our survey, where in the program lifecycle does Submittable save you time? Here's what we heard:
Save time administratively creating and managing programs
Save time communicating and coordinating with applicants
Save time in the review process and making decisions
Save time accessing data and running reports
Easy, agile, fast
I’ll repeat: easy, agile, fast. Possibly, these three words best encapsulate the most unique aspect of Submittable when considered alongside competing products. And it makes a big difference. We constantly hear from customers that with Submittable it’s possible to be more responsive to their community, such as by spinning up a program quickly to meet an emergency need, or by making fast adjustments to application forms if they learn that they had worded a question in a confusing way.
The most helpful aspect of Submittable is creating and changing applications without having to put in a ticket or waiting weeks for changes to show up.
Customers describe Submittable as “easy” or “very easy” to use
Submittable customers can build out a new project in two weeks or less
Customers who switch to Submittable did so in part due to being unable to easily make changes on their own and in real time to their program with their previous vendor
Being able to do everything on your own is fantastic. We can do everything ourselves with the easy-to-use form builder.
Our easy-to-use, drag and drop form builder
Submittable’s hallmark form builder is a major reason why customers say we’re easy to use.
11 million efficient, effective, unbiased reviews
No matter what kind of review you need, Submittable has the tools to streamline your process and help you meet your goals.
Custom reviews on Submittable in 2023
Yes/no reviews on Submittable in 2023
Automated reviews on Submittable in 2023
We created this scholarship to make experiential learning accessible to all students. Using Submittable has helped us craft a more objective review process because we can minimize the information reviewers can access, apply consistent scoring rubrics, and easily identify score nuances among reviewers to level the playing field and make the review process more transparent.
Eliminating busywork by automating reviews
Learn more about our advanced Automated Review feature—it’s like having a whole team of “you” to get way more done, faster.
Submittable makes the review process for our team VERY easy!
Facilitating stronger relationships
As trust-based practices have taken hold and extending more opportunities to historically oppressed and/or underrepresented populations remains a major focus across industries, we’re proud to help the majority of our customers meet their goals around diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Customers who say Submittable helps them meet DEI goals, like:
- Building stronger relationships with applicants
- Crafting a more inclusive, accessible, and/or less burdensome applicant experience
- Running a more objective review process
New features for facilitating stronger relationships released in 2023
We're constantly focused on improving our products to align with our customers priorities. In 2023, we released the following enhancements to provide more transparency and trust between funders and applicants in Submittable.
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Submitter profiles
Organization records
New integrations
Applicant portal updates
Delighting our customers
Here are the top benefits Submittable offers customers, according to them.
Of Submittable customers benefit from one or more of the following:
- Easier and faster to create projects
- Improved administrative workflows
- A better experience for applicants
- More efficient communication and collaboration
- Easier access to data and reporting
I love Submittable, and recommend it all the time.
Streamlining funds tracking and disbursement
Most social impact programs on Submittable involve distribution of resources from funders to awardees. We offer tools to both track and disburse those funds—and we’ve seen some big investments last year.
In funding tracked on Submittable in 2023
Funds distributed by Submittable in 2023
[Submittable is] much more streamlined and efficient. We save time during the review and scoring process, and efficiency through the [funds distribution] function. It's a game changer for our small staff.
Paying awardees in two days on average
Learn more about Funds Distribution from Submittable in this product video.
Easier management of reimbursement lifecycles and drawdown grants
Last year, we released the following capabilities to improve common payment pain points for our customers:
A simpler and faster way for grantees to request reimbursement
A simple, one-step approval process and bulk request management tools
More transparent award communication and visibility for grantees
Clearer design for making awards in tranches for drawdown grants
Putting more control into the hands of applicants and awardees with new Request Forms
In 2023 we released Request Forms, a new tool which gives your applicants and awardees the ability to facilitate form submission. Here are some of the benefits:
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Effortless communication
Efficient management
Amplified impact
Impact measurement begins with easy access to data
For most practitioners we speak to, measuring impact is top-of-mind. So, we’re creating tools that put your data at your fingertips, so you’ll always be prepared for a Board meeting or a stakeholder question.
Customers who use Submittable’s reporting tools say they achieve one or more of these benefits:
- Perform data analysis
- Identify insights/make data-driven decisions
- Compliance/audit preparedness
- Answer stakeholder questions
It allows us to keep everything that we need in terms of documents in one place aside from our own database. The reports are useful and help us understand who our grant applicants are. We're able to collect data that wasn't as easy to collect and analyze previously.
Easy, breezy compliance and audit readiness
Submittable logs every step of your program so that you can ensure program compliance and always be audit-ready.
[Submittable] is an invaluable tool for workflow management…it has saved us on audit headaches as well.
Automate your Single Audit readiness with a powerful new feature
Preparing for a Single Audit doesn’t have to suck. We’re unleashing a new capability to help our customers always be ready, with tools that:
Exports all data associated with each submission
Keeps data clearly organized and labeled within folders
Keeps transaction history clear with an automatically generated and timestamped log
Partnering for your success
Our purpose is to power your good work. That’s why each of us—the humans who work at Submittable—are here as your strategic partners.
We want you to be successful. And you’ll feel it from the first sales conversation, where we really take our time to understand your program. Throughout implementation, we help you design a project that will meet all of your goals. At your mid-year review, we check in on how we’ve met your expectations and identify new opportunities for growth. We’re all in it together, because we know how important the impact of your good work is, and we care.
Average time for tech support to respond to a Submittable customer or applicant
Customers reaffirm that Submittable was the right choice within four weeks of beginning implementation
Customers satisfied with Submittable customer support
Giving customers more bang for their buck
Something that has consistently delighted us since our founding is just how versatile Submittable’s platform is. We consistently see customers uncover more value over time, as they begin to use Submittable not only for every grant in their portfolio, but also for every application program they offer, every award or competition they run…sometimes, everything!
We purchased for grantmaking, and have been so pleased with ease of use that we've begun utilizing for our awards program, as well.
Customers have found a new use for Submittable since purchasing
We use it for everything! It’s enabled us to consolidate our grant making, public art calls, exhibition management, awards, and scholarships to a single platform.
Innovation that doesn’t quit
Evolving and improving is part of our DNA. It's how we make sure that we'll be a solution that can solve our customers problems both today and into the future. And we keep customers updated about all these enhancements in as many ways as we can think of: through our email newsletter, live trainings, quarterly round up webinars, in-app notifications and tours...the list goes on.
New features and enhancements on our grant management system in 2023
The system is constantly upgrading and we're all receiving notifications about those upgrades and that's super helpful.
Methodology
The data in this chapter as well as throughout the 2023 Impact Report was sourced primarily from product usage metrics between December 1, 2022 and Nov 30 2023, quantitative and qualitative data gleaned from Submittable’s most recent customer survey, which was conducted from October 2 through November 14, 2023, and other Submittable proprietary sources such as events Submittable hosted or content Submittable created. Where any external content or data has been referenced, the source has been credited.