How the American-Scandinavian Foundation Manages Grants

The American Scandinavian-Foundation offers grants, fellowships, and internships to further studies in and of the Scandinavian countries and cultures. These mostly academic awards are overseen by a small staff with the awards judged by former winners and fellowship grantees. The grants offer the winners opportunities to further research and develop their academic expertise.

Highlights from Our Interview with Sally from ASF

full interview

Before OpenWater

Before selecting OpenWater as their grants platform ASF staff had spent a large portion of their time assisting applicants and judges. Now, with OpenWater staffers can work on other projects that benefit the foundation instead of spending their time as tech support.

ASF Goals While Searching for New Software

• Finding a solution that would work for the many grant programs offered by ASF.
• Finding a software solution that would be easy enough for applicants and judges.

What ASF Judges Said About OpenWater

By slowly phasing in the OpenWater Platform to all of their programs ASF has seen the majority of their judges adapt to the program and become proficient.

When ASF started the quest for a new platform to replace a rather “clunky” older system, their judges told them it couldn’t be done. Many ASF judges have been in academia for years and had never found a system that they felt was easy to use and could support the grant programs at ASF.

When the staff at ASF introduced the judges to OpenWater, there was an end to the nay-saying. The judges were pleasantly surprised and the skeptics won over.

What Was Achieved

Running an international grants program can often be a challenge when your applicants come from other countries. OpenWater made it simple for ASF to manage the applicants from abroad and allowed them to best support the program here in the US as well as in Scandinavia.

Anytime the foundation needed support from OpenWater, it was offered quickly and reliably. An OpenWater staffer even spent a whole day at the offices of ASF to problem solve with the staff. Because OpenWater is simple to use, ASF staff have not had to spend a great deal of their time training the judges on its uses.

Full Interview