A few months ago, we launched The Grant Gateway, a grant application platform for AmeriCorps designed to give state service commissions a better way to manage Formula applications.
Something bigger happened.
Commissions began looking at the platform and asking a different question:
Why stop with Formula?
Today, we’re thrilled to welcome OneStar in Texas and ServeRI in Rhode Island as the two newest state service commissions adopting The Grant Gateway.
With their addition, nearly 20 state service commissions have now adopted the platform just a few months after its launch.
And increasingly, the reason commissions are choosing it extends well beyond AmeriCorps Formula.
One home for all the competitions service commissions run
State service commissions are grantmakers.
Formula may be the largest or most complicated competition on the calendar, but it is rarely the only one.
Depending on the state, a commission may also administer Volunteer Generation Fund grants, VISTA opportunities, Governor’s Service Awards, mini-grants, planning grants, special initiatives, and other state-funded competitions or application processes.
The Grant Gateway lets commissions manage multiple competitions through the same platform, while configuring the application, budget, deadlines, review process, scoring rubric, and workflow for each one.
That means a commission does not need one platform or set of tools for AmeriCorps Formula, another collection of forms for VGF, a spreadsheet for a mini-grant program, and an entirely different system for service awards.
The infrastructure can stay put.
The competition changes.
The application is only part of the work
This was one of the biggest lessons we learned while building The Grant Gateway with commissions.
A grant platform cannot simply be a place where somebody fills out a form and clicks Submit.
Commission staff are managing an entire process around that application.
There may be a Notice of Intent before anyone is allowed to apply. The Grant Gateway lets prospective applicants signal their intent and gives commission staff a workflow for reviewing those NOIs and moving approved organizations forward.
There may be organizational or financial risk assessments that need to be completed and reviewed.
There may be several rounds of internal and external review, with different reviewers, assignments, scoring rubrics, comments, and conflict of interest policies.
There may be clarification questions, revisions, and resubmissions before an application is ready for a funding decision.
The Grant Gateway connects those pieces instead of forcing staff to stitch them together across email, spreadsheets, shared drives, survey tools, and grant software that was never designed around the way service commissions work. Its reviewer tools include customizable scoring, conflict-of-interest management, independent reviews, clarification workflows, aggregated scoring, rankings, and exportable reporting.
Welcome, OneStar
We are especially excited to welcome OneStar, which plays an enormous role in Texas service and the nonprofit sector.
For the 2026 funding cycle, OneStar announced $29.3 million in federal AmeriCorps funding supporting more than 2,700 AmeriCorps members serving communities across Texas. Its work stretches well beyond AmeriCorps, with a broader mission of strengthening Texas communities, nonprofits, volunteerism, and civic engagement.
That makes OneStar exactly the kind of commission we want The Grant Gateway to be able to serve: a sophisticated grantmaker with multiple programs, significant scale, and processes where good technology should create more room for staff judgment—not more administrative work.
And ServeRI
We’re equally excited to deepen our partnership with ServeRI.
ServeRI is Rhode Island’s Governor-appointed service commission. Its work mobilizes AmeriCorps members and community volunteers around needs including education, health, housing, the environment, and other priorities across the state.
ServeRI already knows America Learns through its use of the Impact Suite for post-award grants management — timesheets, member files, progress reports, financial reports, and more. Now, The Grant Gateway becomes another piece of the infrastructure supporting its work.
And Rhode Island provides a great example of why the workflow surrounding an application matters. Its AmeriCorps competitions have historically included an intent-to-apply stage, formal application submission, and subsequent clarification work — exactly the kinds of connected steps The Grant Gateway was designed to manage.
Nearly 20 commissions in a few months tells us something
When The Grant Gateway launched, commissions needed a Formula solution quickly.
By May, 15 commissions had already adopted it.
Now we’re approaching 20.
We think the more interesting story is what commissions are doing next.
They are looking beyond the competition that originally brought them to the platform.
They’re seeing the possibility of one place where applicants can collaborate on applications, where staff can manage NOIs and risk assessments, where internal and external reviewers can do their work, where clarification and revisions remain attached to the application, and where the history of the competition remains visible and auditable. The platform also supports multiple simultaneous competitions, configurable application and budget templates, role-based applicant collaboration, and complete audit trails.
That is a much larger opportunity than replacing eGrants for Formula.
It is an opportunity to give state service commissions shared grantmaking infrastructure built around the work they actually do.
Formula.
VGF.
VISTA.
Governor’s Service Awards.
Mini-grants.
And whatever a commission decides to build next.
Welcome, OneStar and Serve Rhode Island. We’re excited to learn from and build with you.