How is New Empact Work different from OpenWater?

What OpenWater does well

A single OpenWater account can run awards programs, grant cycles, fellowship evaluations, scholarship processes, abstract submissions with session scheduling, and general application workflows side by side. Its form builder is drag and drop and no code, so staff can stand up a branded microsite for a new program without engineering help. Its reporting exports cleanly to PDF, Excel, CSV, Word, and JSON, which matters when a board or a funder wants the data in their own format, not yours.

One practical detail worth knowing: OpenWater publishes a library of more than 65 pre-built, no-code connectors to association management systems, CRMs, payment gateways, and directory platforms. That’s useful if your team specifically wants an off the shelf click-to-connect option for a tool that happens to be on that list.

Two things are less clear from the outside looking in. AI shows up prominently in OpenWater’s marketing, with references to “AI features” and “AI technology,” but the public materials don’t spell out where AI actually sits in the review workflow or what it’s allowed to touch. And pricing isn’t published anywhere. Buyers go through a custom quote process, and independent reviews describe the cost as landing on the higher end, without a public number to weigh against your own budget until you’re already deep in a sales conversation.

What New Empact Work is built around

New Empact Work starts from a different premise: a program isn’t a one time event, it’s a structure that has to survive staff turnover, volunteer turnover, and board turnover, cycle after cycle, for years. Everything in the platform is designed around that continuity, not around getting through this year’s deadline.

AI’s role is a stated boundary, not a feature list. It drafts communications, checks for variance across reviewer scores, and flags inconsistency in how a rubric is being applied from one submission to the next. It never scores a submission and never makes the call on who wins or who gets funded. That’s a design commitment we hold to on purpose, not a checkbox that quietly expands once it becomes convenient to let it.

Every decision inside the platform is logged and traceable back through the full review, reviewer by reviewer, criterion by criterion. When a board member, a sponsor, or an unhappy applicant asks “why did we pick this one,” there’s an answer built into the record, not a reconstruction project through old emails and spreadsheet versions somebody has to go dig up.

Pricing is public. Three tiers, priced by the number of active programs and typical submission volume rather than by seat: $4,000, $8,000, or $15,000 per year. Run a single scholarship program with a few hundred applicants and you’re looking at the Flagship tier. Run five programs across a portfolio and you’re in Portfolio pricing. You can do that math yourself before you ever talk to us, which is deliberately different from a custom quote you can’t see coming.

Integration follows the same philosophy as everything else: standards over a proprietary list. New Empact Work connects to Stripe for payment processing today, and exposes an open API so your association management system or CRM can connect directly. If your systems already work over API, and most modern AMS and CRM platforms do, that gets you the same outcome as a pre-built connector without waiting on someone else’s roadmap to add it.

New Empact Work also isn’t a single track tool built for one narrow use case. The same structured intake, multi phase review, and audit trail configures to innovation challenges, awards, grants, scholarships, fellowship style evaluations, and general calls for applications, all with the same continuity and defensibility every cycle. There are two places it genuinely doesn’t compete today: abstract submissions built around conference session scheduling, and a no-code microsite builder for standing up a stand-alone branded program website. If either of those is the specific need, that’s exactly where OpenWater is built to help directly, and it’s worth choosing on that basis rather than a general impression of flexibility.

Side by side

A few questions worth asking either vendor

Whichever platform you’re evaluating, these questions tend to surface the real differences faster than a features list:

• Where exactly does AI touch a decision, and where is it explicitly kept out?
• If a decision gets challenged eighteen months from now, can you reconstruct exactly how it was made, or does that require someone’s memory?
• What does the platform cost for your actual program size, in writing, before a sales call?
• What happens to your program’s structure when the staff member who set it up leaves?
• Does the review workflow actually reduce the time volunteers and staff spend on coordination, or does it just relocate that work into a different tool?

Where OpenWater is the better fit

If your program specifically needs abstract submissions built around conference session scheduling, or you want a no-code, self-serve microsite builder to stand up a branded program website without engineering help, OpenWater covers that ground directly, and it’s worth choosing on that basis alone. Those two things aren’t edge cases we’re quietly weak at, they’re simply outside what New Empact Work is built to do today.

Where New Empact Work is the better fit

Outside of those two specific cases, most structured award, grant, scholarship, fellowship, innovation, or general application processes are squarely inside what New Empact Work is built for, most visibly on our innovation, awards, grants, and scholarship pages, but not limited to them. If your program repeats every year and has to hold up to scrutiny each time, this is where New Empact Work is built to be strongest. You get a platform designed around continuity rather than a single event, an AI boundary you don’t have to take on faith, a decision trail that holds up when someone asks hard questions months or years later, a review experience built to cut coordination time for volunteers and staff alike, and pricing you can see before the first conversation.

A few questions we get asked directly

Is New Empact Work a good OpenWater alternative for scholarship programs specifically?

If your scholarship program repeats every year and needs document verification, fair selection, and a decision trail that holds up when a donor or board member asks about a specific award, yes, that’s the exact profile New Empact Work is built around. The Scholarship Programs page has the specifics.

Does New Empact Work only handle the four programs listed on your site?

No. Innovation, awards, grants, and scholarship programs are our named solutions, but the underlying platform runs any structured application and review process, fellowship style evaluations and general calls for applications included, on the same architecture. The two things we don’t do today are abstract submissions built around conference session scheduling, and a no-code microsite builder for a stand-alone branded program website.

Can I move from OpenWater to New Empact Work mid cycle?

The cleanest path is to finish your current cycle on whatever platform you started it on, then launch the next cycle on New Empact Work with a full runway to set it up properly rather than rushing a switch mid review. Bring your specific timeline to a demo and we’ll map out what that transition would actually look like for your program.

Does New Empact Work integrate with the AMS or CRM we already use?

Yes. New Empact Work connects to Stripe for payment processing and provides an open API so your AMS or CRM can connect directly, standards based rather than dependent on a pre-built connector list. If your systems already work over API, which most modern AMS and CRM platforms do, that gets you the connection without waiting on someone else’s roadmap.

How does New Empact Work’s pricing actually compare to OpenWater’s custom quote?

We can’t compare a number to no number. What we can tell you is our three tiers, $4,000, $8,000, or $15,000 a year by program scope and volume, are the same three numbers whether you ask in January or June. Pricing has the specifics.