Over a third (37%) of corporate foundations plan to increase their giving in 2025. With many traditional government grants hanging in the balance, these corporate foundations are more vital than ever to make lasting change in their local community and country as a whole.
However, even high-level corporate foundations struggle with many of the same workflow issues that community and independent foundations do. They are doing as much work as possible with as little staff as possible, ensuring that the funds coming in from the corporation go toward grants, community development, and other types of philanthropy.
Corporate foundation operations software like PlanStreet can help foundations of all sizes simplify their grant tracking, maintain compliant reporting, and scale their operations. Here's how.
What Is a Corporate Foundation?
In 2024, corporations gave a total of 44.4 billion dollars. Corporations usually donate money through their foundations. A corporate foundation works as a nonprofit, created by the corporation to carry out philanthropic efforts.
The core functions of a corporate foundation usually include:
- Grantmaking: Distributing money to other nonprofits, educational programs, community initiatives, disaster relief, and other charitable causes.
- Employee engagement: Spearheading matching gift programs, volunteering, and scholarships so employees can join in on the foundation's efforts.
- Community development: Supporting projects in education, healthcare, environmental issues, and more.
- Strategic philanthropy: Aligning charitable efforts closely with the corporation's mission and broader corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda.
- Oversight and governance: A dedicated board sets missions, approves grants, ensures regulatory compliance, and monitors impact.
- Resource provision: Donating products, in-kind services, technical assistance, and infrastructure to charitable causes
Even though most corporate foundations are separate from the business's core operations, they often reflect their values and goals.
Common Problems Corporate Foundations Face
Corporate foundations today face rising expectations to deliver social impact faster, with better outcomes, all while proving how they did it on paper. Yet many foundations still rely on outdated tools, manual processes, and fragmented systems that slow down change.
Some of the common problems corporate foundations face include:
- Complex legal compliance: Corporate foundations are separate legal entities, so they require dedicated staff to file proper documentation (including articles of incorporation and IRS documents), written acknowledgements to donors, follow public disclosure requirements, and more.
- Time-intensive work: Managing grant programs, reviewing applications, and overseeing disbursements demand significant staff time, which may require hiring more people.
- Inefficient grant processes: Manual grant review and approval causes delays and increase the risk of mistakes.
- Reputation management: Any mismanagement of grant disbursement or compliance can publicly implicate the parent company.
- Regulatory changes: Grantmaking rules can change fast across different regions and countries.
Corporate foundations need software solutions to ease these processes and allow them to allocate more funding to social causes they care about.
Meet PlanStreet: Case Management Software for Corporate Foundations
Configurable corporate foundation workflow management like PlanStreet works with a foundation directly, creating a software system fine-tuned to their specific issues. PlanStreet is purpose-built for foundations and human services. It's not a plug-and-play solution for every industry. It's made specifically to boost team collaboration for corporate foundations.
PlanStreet offers all the foundation program management tools in one software, including grant tracking, impact reporting software, and secure document management. Here's how our tools can solve common workflow problems at your foundation.
1. Workflow Automation Made for Foundations
Sometimes, just figuring out the ideal process for managing grants, social programs, or legal reporting can be a headache. Without the right tools, teams just have to "make do" with what they have until they have time to figure out a better solution. And more often than not, that time never appears.
That's why PlanStreet's nonprofit case management software is fully customizable. We work with your team to adapt workflows, forms, dashboards, and reports without heavy custom coding or expensive consulting.
PlanStreet offers:
- Custom workflows: Design processes that match your foundation's operational style that you can then replicate again and again for each grant or project.
- Task and role management: Assign, monitor, and prioritize work so that there's no duplication. Everyone understands what they're responsible for.
- Automated task routing: Save time with automated approvals, notifications, and reminders.
- Real-time dashboards: Track program status, funding cycles, and bottlenecks at a glance. Busy board members don't have to waste time tracking down the most up-to-date information; they'll always have access to it.
These features cut down your administrative costs so that you can focus on the work that drives your foundation's mission forward.
2. Powerful Team Collaboration to Keep Everyone on the Same Page
Corporate foundations have to work with many groups of people, including current staff, employees at the corporation, board members, and nonprofits that they're funding through grants. To keep everyone on the same page through email or phone calls is incredibly time-consuming. PlanStreet's client portal and features for internal teams offer centralized communication tools, keeping conversations, updates, and feedback in one place. This includes:
- Messaging and comment features to answer specific project questions.
- Simplified appointment scheduling.
- Online form submissions, which reduce paperwork.
- Easy-to-generate reports to make decisions based on what's worked previously.
3. Corporate Foundations Impact Measurement and Real-Time Reporting
In the world of corporate foundations, demonstrating impact is as important as achieving it. Nonprofits need a place that collects and stores information securely, so they can access it once it's time to assess upcoming KPIs, file critical IRS forms like Form 990-PF, and deliver updates to funders.
That's why PlanStreet provides:
- Dynamic reporting: Instantly create unique reports for funders or boards.
- Impact dashboards: Visualize outcomes, KPIs, and mission success rates in real-time.
- Custom templates: Design reporting formats specific to your foundation's metrics.
With PlanStreet, you're given the information your team needs to prove success and guide tomorrow's strategy.
4. Grant Tracking and Reporting Solutions
Grant funders need tracking tools to assess how nonprofits are using the money awarded. While nonprofits have their own reporting rules, organizations giving away grants must track the use of the funds and outcomes as well. PlanStreet's foundation grant management software can help in this process through:
- Grant distribution tools to help foundations track which nonprofits received money and how much.
- One-click PDF Excel reports to easily show board members and other relevant parties where grants have been assigned.
- Intuitive data filtering to make it easy to assess the status of each nonprofit's grant.
5. Secure, Centralized Document and Data Management
Every corporate foundation requires rigorous documentation to ensure the nonprofit is run properly. Items such as the declaration of trust, bylaws, tax exemption forms, insurance documentation, and more must be easily yet securely accessible. PlanStreet's robust cloud document management utilizes enterprise-grade data security, including encryption, access controls, compliance features, and audit trails. ensuring data is safe, private, and compliant.
PlanStreet's secure infrastructure offers:
- Robust version control: Avoid errors with trackable document histories.
- Role-based access control: Make it easy to share documents with the right people both inside and outside the organization.
- Comprehensive audit trails: Every action is logged for accountability and compliance.
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO): Ensure protection beyond just a password.
- Disaster recovery: Automated backups help corporate foundations move forward in worst-case scenarios.
Additionally, PlanStreet is proud to be both HIPAA and SOC 2 compliant, two of the most stringent security frameworks.
6. Seamless Integration with Existing Systems
If your corporate foundation has existing software that you can't bear to get rid of, that doesn't mean that PlanStreet isn't for you. Our platform integrates with many popular providers, including:
- Payment platforms like Stripe, PayPal, and Square
- Google SSO and Office 365 SSO
- Calendar solutions like Google and Outlook
- Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive
- QuickBooks for seamless accounting
Plus, our API capabilities mean that you can create custom connections and workflows, like automatically converting emails into action items.
Operate Smarter and Amplify Your Impact With PlanStreet
Corporate foundations that never move on from outdated tools and fragmented systems risk the opportunity to grow, doing more for the communities and organizations they serve. When you implement PlanStreet, you gain a platform and a strategic partner dedicated to enhancing corporate foundation data security, operational excellence, and impact measurement.
PlanStreet empowers corporate foundations to:
- Work efficiently: Bring all operational workflows to one place.
- Collaborate effectively: Enable teams and partners to work smarter together.
- Report transparently: Provide real-time data and insights to the required parties.
- Secure data: Protect sensitive information with industry-best security.
- Scale confidently: Support growth with integrity, every step of the way.
If your foundation is serious about scaling impact, accelerating operations, and leading with confidence, PlanStreet is the solution you've been waiting for.
Schedule a demo to see how PlanStreet can work for you.