Navigating Impactfully

What is Impactfully?

Impactfully is the foundation-facing operational platform built and maintained by Foundation Source. It is where foundation members — Officers, Directors, Trustees, and Foundation Persons — log in to make grants, manage expenses, review applications, run reports, and administer their foundation's data. As a Relationship Manager, Impactfully is the system you will spend most of your time working in.

Impactfully is organized into ten top-level modules, all accessible from a persistent dark-blue navigation menu on the left side of every page. Each module covers a distinct area of foundation management, and your permissions determine which modules you can see and what actions you can take within them.

NOTE:  Impactfully is a completely separate application from Enterprise Console. Enterprise Console is the advisor-facing management layer. Impactfully is the foundation-facing transaction layer. You move between them through a click-through (SSO) — covered in the next section.

How to Access Impactfully

You do not log into Impactfully. Instead, you enter Impactfully by clicking the 'Manage Client' on your Client Profile page from Enterprise Console. Clicking this button automatically logs you into Impactfully.

Step-by-Step: Entering Impactfully from Enterprise Console

1	Log into Enterprise Console Open Enterprise Console in your browser and sign in using your organization's credentials. You will land on the Dashboard, which shows a list of your assigned client foundations.

2	Find your client Use the Client List to locate the foundation you want to work in. You can search and filter by team, or by Client Name, Tax ID, or Historical ID. Click the foundation name to open the Client Detail page.

You can also favorite the client by clicking the Heart Icon on the right-hand side of the row. This will make them appear on your Favorites Tile on the Dashboard for easier access.

3	Click 'Manage Client' On the Client Detail page, click the ‘Manage Client’ button.

4

You are now inside Impactfully The browser redirects you to Impactfully, landing directly inside that foundation's workspace. You will see the Impactfully Dashboard for that specific foundation. No second login is required. What happened behind the scenes: Enterprise Console called the Impactfully SSO service, and redirected your browser. Your identity travels with you: all actions you take inside Impactfully are recorded in Impactfully's audit trail under your enterprise user identity.

NOTE:  Each ‘Manage Client’ click opens that foundation's instance. If you need to work in multiple foundations, you will click back to Enterprise Console and open each one in sequence (or in separate browser tabs).

The Impactfully Dashboard

The Dashboard is the first screen you see after entering Impactfully. It serves as your home base and provides at-a-glance summaries of foundation activity, quick-action shortcuts, and a global search bar.

Dashboard Components

Component	What It Does
Search Bar	Global search across grants and charities. Type a charity name, grant number, or keyword to jump directly to a record.
Advanced Search	An expanded search panel for filtering by date range, amount, status, or other criteria when a simple search isn't enough.
Shortcuts	Quick-access buttons for the most common actions: Make a Grant, Submit an Expense, and others. Clicking a shortcut drops you into the relevant workflow immediately. Certain buttons, like Make a Grant, may only be available for certain users within the foundation.
Tiles	Configurable panels showing summaries of foundation activity — grants by report code, pending approvals, MDR status, mission statement, and more. Tiles can be added, removed, and rearranged to match your preferences.

Customizing Tiles

Click the Tile Settings Menu (gear icon or similar control in the tile area) to see all available tiles.

Add tiles relevant to your day-to-day work — for example, the 'Grants Pending Approval' tile lets you see at a glance what needs action.

Each foundation can have its own tile configuration — your setup in one foundation does not affect others.

Left Navigation Menu — Module Overview

The dark-blue panel on the left side of every Impactfully screen is your primary navigation tool. It is always visible, no matter which page you are on. Each item in the menu corresponds to a major functional area of the platform.

The ten modules are listed below in the order they typically appear in the menu. Your permissions determine which items are visible and which actions within each module you can access.

Module	What It Covers	Who Uses It Most
Dashboard	Home screen with tiles, shortcuts, and global search.	Everyone — it's the entry point on every login.
Applications & Outcomes	External grant application forms (built with the App Wizard) and post-grant outcome reports submitted by grantees.	RMs, Program staff
Grants	Creating, tracking, and managing grant disbursements to charities. Includes the Make a Grant workflow, grant history, payment statuses, and Impact Plan assignment.	RMs, Officers, Grantors
Expenses	Non-grant financial disbursements (e.g., office costs, travel, member reimbursements). Includes expense submission, approval workflows, and category tagging.	RMs, Finance staff
Charities	Searching and granting to specific charities. Includes charity’s IRS status	RMs, Officers, Grantors
Documents	File storage for foundation documents. Supports folders, uploads, downloads, and deletes.	RMs, Administrative staff
Reports	Standard pre-built reports, user-defined reports, and dynamic (custom) reports for grants, finances, and foundation activity.	RMs, Directors, Finance staff
Finances	Real-time view of the foundation's assets, account balances, funding history, donor records, and transactions in process.	RMs, Finance staff, Directors
Contacts	A unified address book for all people associated with the foundation: members, grantees, applicants, donors, and others.	RMs, Administrative staff
Administration	Back-office configuration hub: members, permissions, committees, report codes, foundation preferences, notifications. This is where you manage who can do what in the system.	RMs, Foundation Representatives, Super Users

Module-By-Module Navigation Guide

Applications & Outcomes

This module has two connected functions: managing inbound grant applications from external applicants, and tracking post-grant outcome reports submitted by grantees after funds are disbursed.

• Applications Workspace — Displays all inbound grant applications. Each application moves through a lifecycle: Submitted → Under Review → Approved/Declined. You can filter by status, date, or applicant.
• App Wizard — The tool for building and managing application processes. Each process can include a Welcome Page, an Eligibility Quiz with branching logic, Application Forms, and Supporting Forms. Each process has a unique URL to share with applicants.
• Ask for Information — A built-in action that sends an email to the applicant requesting clarification without formally declining their application. The correspondence is tracked in the application's Correspondence tab.
• Outcomes Workspace — Tracks post-grant outcome reports. Once a grant is made, you can create an Outcome Form and send it to the grantee. The grantee submits their report through the Giving Hub portal. Reports appear here with status tracking.

Grants

The Grants module is the most-used module for most foundations. It contains the complete history of all charitable disbursements and is where the primary grant-making workflow lives.

• Make a Grant — Entry points: Dashboard shortcut or Grants → Make a Grant from the left menu. The workflow walks you through selecting a charity, entering an amount, assigning a report code and impact plan (if required), and submitting for approval or direct processing.
• Grant List — A filterable table of all grant records for this foundation. You can filter by status, date, amount, grantee, or grantor. Each row is clickable to open the full grant record.
• Payment Statuses — Grant status in Impactfully is actually tracked at the payment level. Key statuses include: Draft, To Be Released, Processing, Scheduled, Complete, Declined, Canceled, Pending Research.
• Impact Plans — When making a grant, you can assign each payment to a named Impact Plan and fiscal year to track progress toward the foundation's charitable goals.

Expenses

The Expenses module handles all non-grant financial disbursements — things like office supplies, travel costs, professional fees, and member reimbursements. Expenses are categorized and may require committee approval depending on the foundation's settings.

• Four Tabs — The module uses four tabs to organize expenses by workflow stage: Active (in progress), Approval Required (awaiting a committee vote), Approved (processed), and Declined.
• Expense Categories — Categories follow a colon-separated hierarchy: Category:Subcategory:Sub-subcategory (e.g., 'Employee Expenses:Travel:Airfare'). Categories are configured by Foundation Source — foundations do not create their own. 
  • More Information about Expenses: Foundation Expenses Overview & Qualifying Distributions Reference Guide
• MDR Relevance — Some expenses count as Qualifying Distributions toward the foundation's 5% annual distribution requirement (MDR); others (investment-related) do not. The category determines which bucket an expense falls into.

NOTE:  Once an expense is submitted for approval, the submitter can no longer edit or delete it. If changes are needed, the approver must use 'Request Additional Info' to return it to the submitter's Questions tab.

Charities

The Charities module gives access to view the total list of all charities in our Gold Standard Charity DB. Charities can be searched by Name, Tax ID, or Keyword.

• Search Results: Each search result will contain the charity’s IRS status, Tax ID, Subclassification, and the most recent IRS update date.
• Charity Profile: When clicking on a charity name from the search results, the charity’s full profile can be viewed, which includes About Details, Granting Activity, Applications, Grants, Outcomes, and Contacts. Additionally, the charity profile supports attachments or custom notes regarding the charity.
• Charity Research: The Charities module also offers a Charity Research request where a charity can go through the due diligence and compliance process to ensure it is a qualified entity for a grant.

Documents

The Documents module is a file storage workspace for foundation-level documents (separate from grant application attachments). You can create folders, upload files, download, delete, rename, and move files between folders. Access to documents is governed by each member's permissions — there are no file-level access controls beyond that.

Reports

The Reports module gives access to three types of reports covering grants, finances, and foundation activity. Data in standard reports updates daily — it does not reflect same-day transactions.

• Standard Reports — 38 pre-built reports organized into three categories: Grant Activity, Grant Request, and Financial Reports. Each can be subscribed to for automatic delivery on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule.
• User-Defined Reports — Custom report templates that you or a foundation member has saved with specific filters and columns. These appear in a separate list from standard reports.
• Dynamic Reports — A fully custom report builder where you select one or more data types (e.g., Grants, Grant Votes, Expenses) and configure your own columns and filters. Dynamic Reports open in a separate browser tab — this is expected behavior, not a glitch.

Report Subscriptions

Standard reports can be set up for automatic scheduled delivery to specific members.

Subscription filters for Grantee/Applicant are static — they do not update dynamically when new grantees are added. This is a known platform limitation.

Access the subscription settings from within any standard report record.

Finances

The Finances module provides a real-time view of the foundation's financial position. It is divided into two sub-sections: Assets and Funding.

• Assets — Shows the foundation's total asset value broken down by account (cash and securities), plus any alternative assets (e.g., real estate, private equity) and a Transactions in Process panel for in-flight items.
• Funding — A complete record of all contributions made TO the foundation (as opposed to grants made FROM it). The Funding by Donor view groups contributions by year and donor, and includes a Print function that generates tax acknowledgment letters for donors.

Contacts

The Contacts module is a unified address book for all people associated with the foundation. There are four contact types: Members (active login users), Foundation Persons (non-login staff or family), Grantees (grant recipients), and Applicants (external grant seekers). All share the same core data model: name, address, phone, email.

Administration

The Administration module is the back-office configuration hub. It is divided into two primary areas: People and Organization.

• People — Manage Members (login users with permissions), Committees (approval groups), and Interested Parties (non-login stakeholders who receive notifications).
• Organization — Manage Foundation Details, Foundation Preferences, Report Codes, Impact Plans, Foundation Notifications, and Permission History.
• Foundation Preferences — Global settings that affect all users: required fields, approval rules, notification defaults, and more. Changes here affect the entire foundation.
• Permission History — A full audit trail of all permission changes. Columns include: User, Module, Permission Changed, Action (Enabled/Disabled), Date, and Modified By.
• Impact Planning — The foundation's strategic planning tool. It lets you define named charitable goals (called Impact Plans), set target funding amounts by fiscal year, and see real-time progress as grants are made.
• Each plan has a Name and one or more Fiscal Year rows, each with a Planned Amount (the target disbursement for that year).
• Progress Metrics per plan/year: Allocated (the target), Planned (Complete + Pending), Complete (processed payments), Pending (approved but not yet paid), Remaining (Allocated minus Planned), and Exceeded (amount over budget if applicable).
• Impact Plans are assigned at the payment level — when making a grant, you select which plan and year each payment contributes to.
• Renaming a plan updates the name everywhere it appears, including on all historical grant payment records. Plans do not affect the foundation's MDR calculation.

NOTE:  Only Foundation Representatives can manage Impact Plans by default. This permission can be adjusted in the member's permission settings.

Members, Permissions & Limits 

Understanding how members and permissions work in Impactfully is essential for your day-to-day work. When foundation users have questions about what they can or cannot do, the answer almost always lives in Administration → People → Members.

Member Types

Type	Description	Login Access
Officer / Director / Trustee	Formal governance roles assigned to the foundation. Appear automatically based on the foundation's structure.	Yes
Foundation Person	Employees, volunteers, or family members added manually by the Foundation Representative. Defaults to view-only permissions until entitlements are configured.	Yes
Interested Party	Non-login stakeholders who can receive notifications and have scoped visibility. No profile or credentials.	No

Permission Structure

Each member's permissions are managed through a hierarchical tree organized by module. Within each module, granular sub-permissions control specific actions. For example, within Grants, separate permissions exist for: View grants, Make a grant, Edit a grant, Delete a grant, and Vote.

• Scope dropdowns — Many permissions include a Scope setting that controls which records the member can see: 'Own Only' (only their own submissions) or 'All Foundation' (everyone's records).
• Limits — Thresholds that refine a permission. For example, a member may have Make a Grant permission but with a Limit requiring committee approval for any grant over $10,000. Limits live inside the permission tree — they are not a separate menu.
• Copying Permissions — You can copy one member's full permission set to one or more other members at once by Selecting the User → Actions → Copy Permissions. This is a time-saver when onboarding multiple users with the same role.

IMPORTANT:  The Limits Agreement checkbox must be confirmed any time you add, edit, or delete a Limit. If you skip it, the change will not save. This is intentional — it creates an acknowledged record that the limit was set.

Common Questions

Q: I clicked 'Manage Client’ but landed on the wrong foundation. What happened?

A: The click-through is foundation-specific — it opens the foundation whose Client Detail page you were viewing in Enterprise Console. Return to Enterprise Console, navigate to the correct foundation's detail page, and click again.

Q: What is the difference between a Member and an Interested Party?

A: Members have login credentials and can access Impactfully directly. Interested Parties do not have login access — they receive notifications and can be configured with visibility settings, but they cannot log in or take actions in the platform.

Q: Dynamic Reports opened in a new tab. Is that a bug?

A: No — this is expected behavior. Dynamic Reports will always open in a separate browser tab. This is a known platform behavior, not a glitch.

Q: Can I work in multiple foundations at the same time?

A: Yes, but this is not advised. You can open each foundation in a separate browser tab by going back to Enterprise Console and clicking ‘Manage Client' for each one. Each tab will maintain its own independent Impactfully session for that foundation. However, you must consistently verify you are taking action in the correct foundation.