Five Years, One Mission: From Excel Mail Merge to a Real-Time Grant Platform
The Center for Educational Reform runs the Yass Prize — a multi-million dollar annual grant program recognizing teachers making real impact across America. For years, the program operated through manual data exports, Word mail merges, and hundreds of static printed review documents.
This is the story of a five-year engagement that transformed that process one step at a time — ending with a real-time collaborative platform, four integrated systems, and one full month saved per grant cycle.
Hundreds of Applications. Hundreds of Pages. All Manual.
Each grant cycle, applications poured in through the GoodGrants platform. Peer reviewers needed to evaluate every applicant across three sequential review phases — with scores, comments, and status updates that had to be tracked, compiled, and formatted after each phase.
The output was hundreds of pages of reviewer documents, rebuilt manually for each phase. Data was exported from GoodGrants by hand, cleaned in Excel, merged into Word templates, and distributed as static files. Any change to an application required the whole cycle to run again. Review cycles that could have taken weeks were taking months.
The Five-Year Evolution
We didn't arrive in Year 1 and promise to build a React app. We earned the right to each next level by solving the current problem completely first.
Hundreds of grant applications. Three peer review phases. Hundreds of pages of reviewer documents. Everything was managed through manual Excel data exports, complex VLOOKUP formulas, and Word mail merges — rebuilt from scratch every review cycle. Navigation links and a table of contents were added manually for digital viewing. It worked. But it wasn't sustainable.
Manual data exports eliminated. We built a direct ETL integration with the GoodGrants API, pulling applicant data automatically into a SQL database. Document generation became programmatic — a script that looped through the database and rebuilt reviewer documents automatically whenever data changed. The three review phases could now refresh in minutes instead of days.
With the database architecture proven, we expanded and refined. Additional automation was layered in based on feedback from each review cycle. The system became faster, more reliable, and more tailored to how the review team actually worked. The foundation was being set for the largest transformation yet.
Static Word documents became a real-time collaborative web platform. Reviewers could now see live applicant data, leave comments, apply category tags, and advance or reject applicants — all directly from a browser. Tags pushed bi-directionally back to GoodGrants, triggering automated status changes without anyone touching the GoodGrants platform manually. An admin portal let the team manage review phases, users, and reporting. Security was built in from the ground up: authentication, CAPTCHA, and role-based access controls protecting sensitive grant data.
Salesforce Financial Automation: Expense Approvals Without the Friction
Beyond the grant management platform, DAMgoodData built a full financial automation layer inside Salesforce for the Center for Educational Reform — replacing a five-day email approval process with same-day, Slack-driven payments.
Dynamic Approval Routing
Orchestrated Salesforce Flows calculate the correct approver automatically — based on the employee's manager and the expense value. No manual routing. No missed approvals.
Slack-Based Approval Actions
Approvers receive expense details directly in Slack with one-tap Approve/Reject buttons. No login to Salesforce required for routine reviews.
Bill.com Automated Bill Creation
Approved expenses flow directly into Bill.com as vendor bills. First-time vendors are automatically created and sent a banking setup invite — turnkey from first invoice.
Granular Expense Entry
Line-item detail (cost per night × nights, not just total hotel) enables clean audit trails and faster finance review at every step.
One Full Month Saved. Every Cycle.
By Year 5, the grant review cycle had been compressed by a full month. Reviewers no longer worked through static Word documents — they collaborated in real-time through a secure web interface. Applicant status updates that once required manual GoodGrants data entry happened automatically through the bidirectional API.
The Salesforce financial automation layer meant expense approvals that once required email follow-up chains were resolved the same day through Slack. Vendors got paid faster. Finance had a complete audit trail. The team had time back to focus on what they actually do: advancing education across America.
This engagement is ongoing. Systems don't stay static — they evolve as the mission grows. That's the point.
Technologies & Platforms Used
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We charge ~10% of your documented cost savings.
For a non-profit that saves a full month of staff time every grant cycle, that's a fraction of what that month is worth. If we don't deliver measurable results, you don't pay.
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