Case Study: New Belgium Family Foundation achieves 50% faster grant reviews and halves board meeting prep time with Submittable

Better Board Meetings, With More Time to Spare to Save the World

New Belgium Family Foundation, the philanthropic arm tied to New Belgium Brewing, supports environmental stewardship through grants but struggled for years with a burdensome, email- and spreadsheet-based process. Grant proposals arrived in different formats and required manual summarizing and packet assembly, making board prep slow and inefficient until they adopted Submittable’s grant management software.

Submittable provided an intuitive form builder, response templates, robust search, and review features that let board members vote and comment before meetings and produce standardized submission packets. The result: faster applicant workflows and clearer expectations for grantees, plus measurable time savings — Submittable cut submission review time by about 50% and saved at least five hours per board meeting prep (about 5 hours per review round), halving meeting and review times.

New Belgium Family Foundation

Mariah McPherson

Executive Director