Every grant, one record, both sides of the table.
A walkthrough of Sustain, from Sonate, in fourteen short chapters. About ten minutes, all on invented sample data.
01Where it lives today
The letter, the report, and the promise, in one place.
Today the award letter sits in an inbox, the budget in a spreadsheet, and the report date on a sticky note. The spreadsheet is doing the work of four systems, and the person who keeps it carries the rest. Sustain is designed to hold the letter, the conditions, the money, and the dates on one record for each grant.
- In an inboxHarbor Neighborhood Fund award letter, Brightwater, 2026.pdf
- In a spreadsheetApproved budget by line.xlsx
- On a sticky noteQ3 report due mid-October?
- In the proposal120 students enrolled by December
- The letter
- The conditions
- The money
- The promises
- The reports
- The dates
02One record, two sides
The funder and the grantee read the same page.
When both ends of a grant use Sustain, they share one award record instead of keeping two copies. The funder writes the terms and the payments; the grantee records progress, drafts reports, and logs spend. A switch on the award shows it from either side, and each side sees only what the other chooses to share.
This opens on the funder’s side. The switch sits at the top of the award.
Harbor Neighborhood Fund. Harbor Community Foundation to Brightwater Youth Collaborative, Jan 1, 2026 to Dec 31, 2026.
- Amount, period, and budget lines
- Reporting and payment schedules
- Milestones as set at award
- Payments made
- Milestone progress and evidence
- Report drafts and submissions
- Spend against each line
- A proposed change to the terms
Shared record. Both ends see both sides’ rows; spend shows to the funder only when the grantee shares it.
03One calendar
Know what is due next, and who has it.
Every report, installment, thank-you, milestone, and renewal lands on one calendar, across every funder, including the ones entered by hand. Each item names its owner and its state, and anything past its date rises to the top as late. The next 30 and 90 days read at a glance.
- Sep 26Thank Agnes Thornbury for $2,500Agnes Thornbury. Owner: Tamsin HollowayLate
- Oct 12Thank Felix Marchetti for $500Felix Marchetti. Owner: Tamsin HollowayDue
- Oct 14Q3 progress reportHarbor Community Foundation. Owner: Jerome AbaraDue, nothing drafted
- Oct 20Q1 contract reportCity of Port Ellery, Youth Services. Owner: Tamsin HollowayOpen, drafting
- Oct 30Quarter 2, $11,250Held until its gate is met. City of Port Ellery, Youth Services. Owner: Tamsin HollowayOpen
- Nov 15Second site open at Harbor HeightsHarbor Community Foundation. Owner: Tamsin HollowayAt risk
04Conditions
Every condition shows where it stands, and why.
Restrictions, reports due, payment gates, and thank-yous each sit on the record as their own row. Every row has an owner, a date, a state, and the evidence that satisfied it. The rule behind each state is written beside it, so nobody has to guess what a word means.
- RestrictionFunds support After-School Studio at the Port Ellery siteStands for the award period. Owner: Marguerite LindOpen
- Report dueQ3 progress reportDue Oct 14, 2026. Owner: Jerome AbaraDue
- Payment gateInstallment 2 follows the mid-year reportEvidence: Mid-year report accepted by Nadia Okonkwo. Owner: Reuben CastellanosMet
- Thank-you dueThank Agnes Thornbury for $2,500Was due Sep 26, 2026. Owner: Tamsin HollowayLate
Satisfied or waived when marked so, with the evidence attached. Otherwise overdue once the due date has passed, due soon inside the due-soon window, and open until then. A restriction with no date of its own stands for the award period.
05Milestones
See a promise slipping while there is still time.
A milestone is what the proposal promised: a target, a unit, and a date. The program director records progress with evidence, and two meters set time gone beside target reached. When time runs more than 25 points ahead, the milestone reads at risk, with the rule shown. Milestones are recorded by the organization, never verified by Sustain.
Output. Target 120 students by Dec 31, 2026. Owner: Jerome Abara.
- Mar 3140Spring enrollment
- Jun 3078End of spring term
- Sep 3095Fall enrollment, first month
Met when a recorded value reaches the target by the due date. Missed when the due date passes without one. At risk when the share of time elapsed is more than 25 points ahead of the share of target reached, or when the owner marks it so with a reason. On track otherwise. "Met" means a value at or above target was recorded by the date; nothing here is verified.
06The money
Know what is restricted without rebuilding it by hand.
Budget lines sit on the award as the funder wrote them, with planned and spent side by side. The restricted balance is worked out from those records, never typed, so the board and the bookkeeper see the same number. Each installment shows the condition that gates it, and Sustain records the money without ever moving it.
- Program staffrestricted$27,000 of $36,000
- Suppliesrestricted$5,500 of $8,000
- Transportationrestricted$4,200 of $6,000
- General operatingunrestricted$5,000 of $10,000
- Installment 1 of 2, $30,000Paid Jan 20, 2026, received Jan 25, 2026Received
- Installment 2 of 2, $30,000Gate: the mid-year report is accepted. Paid Aug 10, 2026Received
07Reports due
The report is drafted before the funder has to ask.
Each report due carries the funder’s template, the person writing the narrative, and the milestones it has to answer. The grantee drafts section by section and submits; on a shared record the funder sees it arrive, marks it reviewed, and accepts it. Nothing is emailed in this version: a draft copies out for funders who are not on Sustain.
Neighborhood Fund quarterly report. Due Oct 14, 2026. Narrative due from Jerome Abara.
- Nothing drafted
- Drafting
- Submitted
- Reviewed
- Accepted
- This quarter in three paragraphs
- Milestones
- Spend by line
- Questions for the foundation
Answers for: 120 students enrolled in After-School Studio; Second site open at Harbor Heights.
- Mid-year report, the last oneSubmitted Jul 14, 2026, reviewed Jul 21, 2026, accepted Jul 28, 2026Accepted
08Meeting-ready reports
Walk into every meeting with the page already made.
Five templates fit meetings that already happen: the program meeting, the board meeting, the funder check-in, the year-end, and the funder’s own board report. Pick the period, rename the template, or drop a section, then print it or download every table as CSV. Every number on the page links back to the record it came from.
- Program meeting
- Funder check-in
- Year-end
- Grants report to the board
- Awards held
- Committed, received, and outstanding by funder
- Restricted balances by award
- Spend against lines for the period
- Milestones by state
- Due before the next board meeting
- Renewals this year
09Gifts in
Every gift thanked, every pledge kept in view.
Donors and households sit beside the grants, with soft credit, in-kind gifts, and do-not-contact respected. A thank-you is due the moment a gift is recorded and stays due until it is sent. Pledges show each installment as paid or behind, and each campaign adds up the gifts given to it.
- Thank Agnes Thornbury for $2,500Due Sep 26, 2026. Owner: Tamsin HollowayLate
- Thank Felix Marchetti for $500Due Oct 12, 2026. Owner: Tamsin HollowayDue
- Thank the Oyelaran household for $1,000Sent Aug 20, 2026. Owner: Tamsin HollowayMet
- Hollis Vance, $6,000$4,500 paid, none behind
- The Oyelaran household, $5,000$1,000 paid, 4 installments behind
Campaign: Fall 2026 appeal, $3,000 given in 2 gifts toward a $25,000 goal.
10Grants out, for funders
Run a whole grant cycle from one desk.
A funder opens a cycle with a window, a form, and weighted criteria. Applications arrive with eligibility flagged, never rejected; reviewers score, declare conflicts, and see a consensus view. A decision writes the letter with the conditions in it, and payments, reports received, and the portfolio follow the award.
This opens the demo as Nadia Okonkwo, the program officer at Harbor Community Foundation, the funder.
- Cycle
- Applications
- Review
- Decision and letter
- Conditions at award
- Payments
- Reports received
- Portfolio
Brightwater Youth Collaborative, Neighborhood Fund 2027, closes Oct 15, 2026. A renewal, with lines and milestones carried.
- Need in the neighborhood26 of 30, Priya Venkataraman
- Plan and milestonesWeight 30, not yet scored
- Capacity to deliverWeight 20, not yet scored
- BudgetWeight 20, not yet scored
Service area as listed is outside Harbor County; confirm before review. A flag, not a rejection.
Conflict declared: serves on the cooperative’s advisory board; recused.
11Bringing grantees along
Grantees start on day one with their award filled in.
Sustain is built for funders to roll out to a cohort of grantees. The funder invites a grantee, whose first view is its own award with the lines, reports, payments, and milestones already set; it accepts, or proposes a change. In this version the invitation is shown on screen, not emailed, and every name is sample data. Either way, the grantee keeps its own records in its own name.
This opens the demo as Nadia Okonkwo, the program officer at Harbor Community Foundation, the funder.
- Brightwater Youth CollaborativeTamsin Holloway accepted the pre-filled awardAccepted
- Fairmont Family ServicesInes Quiroga accepted the pre-filled awardAccepted
- Cedar Street Food PantryInvitation shown to Oswin Fairweather; not on Sustain yet, so the funder holds the recordShown
- 2On track
- 4At risk
- 2Missed
- 2Met
Counts and named lists, never a score.
Systems and data capacity. The bookkeeper is out through November; a December start lets the setup land with her in the room. The funder accepts or declines.
12Knowing the organization
Your mission and programs, read back as things to watch.
The organization writes its own profile: mission, programs, mandates, and where it works. Sustain reads the records against it and names what to look at, such as two funders with reports due the same week, with each rule shown. Outside developments appear in a feed labelled SAMPLE, because every item is invented for the demo and the live feed is not built.
After-school and summer learning for young people in Port Ellery, run with the families who use it.
- Port Ellery
- Harbor County
- youth
- education
- Conditions clusterHarbor Community Foundation and City of Port Ellery, Youth Services both have reports due between Oct 14, 2026 and Oct 20, 2026.Rule: Two or more funders whose reports fall due inside the same 14 days, or whose budget lines restrict the same program. Named so the organization can ask one funder to move a date, or draft once for both.
- Restricted balance exposureSummer Bridge 2026: $12,000 of $20,000 is still restricted with 13 percent of the period left (ends Oct 31, 2026).Rule: Awards where the restricted balance is more than the set share of the amount with less than the set share of the period left: money that will have to be returned or renegotiated.
Shown because your profile lists Harbor County, youth, and education.
Sample developments, invented for the demo. The live feed is not built.
13Getting started
Start from the spreadsheet you already keep.
Bring in awards, gifts, or milestones from a CSV or XLSX file. Sustain shows the column mapping it guessed before anything changes, and importing the same file again updates the same records instead of doubling them. Everything comes back out as CSV, from awards and conditions to spend, gifts, pledges, and the audit trail.
The read-only demo shows the importer. Imports run in the sample tenant, where changes last until the tab closes.
- AwardAward title
- FunderFunder
- AmountAmount
- StartPeriod start
- EndPeriod end
- ProgramProgram, optional
- StatusStatus, optional
- First import2 created, 0 updated
- The same file again0 created, 2 updated
- awards
- conditions
- milestones
- spend
- gifts
- pledges
- calendar
- audit trail
14Who can do what
Everyone sees what they need, and nothing they should not.
Each organization gives its people a role: editor, reader, or finance, plus reviewer on the funder’s side. The funder writes the terms and the payments; the grantee writes progress, drafts, and spend, and may propose a change to the terms. Internal notes, review scores, other funders, gifts, and board materials never cross to the other side.
The full table, Who writes what, sits at the foot of the award.
Harbor Community Foundation
- Nadia OkonkwoEditor
- Reuben CastellanosFinance
- Priya VenkataramanReviewer
- Lou BrandtReader
Brightwater Youth Collaborative
- Tamsin HollowayEditor
- Jerome AbaraEditor
- Marguerite LindFinance
- Wen DelacroixReader
| On the shared award | Funder | Grantee |
|---|---|---|
| Amount, period, lines, and milestones as set | Writes | Proposes a change |
| Milestone progress and evidence | Sees | Writes |
| Report drafts | Reviews and accepts | Drafts and submits |
| Spend against lines | Sees, when shared | Writes |
| Payments | Writes | Marks received |
| Internal notes, scores, other funders, gifts | Its own only | Its own only |
Every meeting about the money starts from the same page.
One record for every grant, from the funder who makes it to the organization that holds it, with everything due on one calendar both sides can see.
- Conditions, milestones, and reports on the award
- The restricted balance worked out, never typed
- Gifts, pledges, and thank-yous beside the grants
- Built for funders to roll out to a cohort
Sustain, a Sonate Communications product. Every organization, person, and number in this tour is invented.