Bright Funds
Bright Funds operated a workplace giving, employee volunteering, and corporate grants management software platform serving corporate employers and nonprofit organizations. Founded in 2012 and acquired by Submittable in 2025 to form a combined corporate social impact software suite.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2012
- HeadquartersOakland, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Bright Funds does
Bright Funds was a workplace giving and volunteering software company founded in 2012 and headquartered in Oakland, California. The company operated a unified platform that combined corporate grants management, employee giving programs, and employee volunteering coordination into a single solution, addressing the fragmentation that HR and CSR teams face when administering donations, volunteer hours, and corporate grants across separate systems. The company served two primary horizontal customer segments: corporate employers seeking to operate workplace giving and CSR programs, and nonprofit organizations receiving donations routed through those programs.
The platform's primary functional value was consolidating employee giving, corporate grants, and volunteer program administration into a unified software layer, with separate registration and management pathways for nonprofits. No proprietary technology stack, AI/ML capabilities, or patents were disclosed in available source material, suggesting a primarily workflow and SaaS-based architecture rather than a technology-differentiated offering. The company maintained a small team of 11-50 employees and raised approximately $2.95M in seed and early-stage funding between 2013 and 2017 from investors including AGO Partners, Bloomberg Beta, Wellspring Growth Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Access Ventures, Hattery, and TechFellow Fund.
In 2025, Bright Funds was acquired by Submittable, a grants management platform, with the combined entity now offering a comprehensive suite spanning corporate grants, employee giving, and employee volunteering. Pricing, revenue model, named enterprise customers, and contract structures were not publicly disclosed, indicating a B2B SaaS model with undisclosed commercial terms. Post-acquisition, the Bright Funds brand is positioned as part of Submittable's broader corporate social impact software suite.
Bright Funds firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Bright Funds
- Website
- https://hello.brightfunds.org
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2012
- Operating status
- Acquired
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Bright Funds operated a workplace giving, employee volunteering, and corporate grants management software platform serving corporate employers and nonprofit organizations. Founded in 2012 and acquired by Submittable in 2025 to form a combined corporate social impact software suite.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Bright Funds industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Workplace Giving and CSR Software
- NAICS
- Grantmaking and Giving Services (81321), Other Grantmaking and Giving Services (813219), Grantmaking Foundations (813211), Grantmaking and Giving Services (8132)
- SIC
- Services-Management Consulting Services (8742)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Corporate Foundations & CSR Grantmaking (BPAGAKAC)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Community Foundations (BPAGAKAB), Grantmaking & Philanthropic Funds (Institutional Donors) (BPADAOAB), Scholarships, Grants & Donor-Funded Awards Management (EDALAJAB)
Keywords
Where Bright Funds is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Oakland
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Markets served
Bright Funds business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Bright Funds product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Bright Funds provides a software platform that enables corporate employers to operate workplace giving programs, manage corporate grants, and coordinate employee volunteering. The platform is sold to HR and CSR teams at companies seeking to centralize employee donations, volunteer hours, and corporate grants administration, and it also supports nonprofit registration and management as receiving organizations. Following the 2025 acquisition, the offering is now part of Submittable's comprehensive corporate giving and grants suite.
Product overview
Bright Funds is a unified workplace giving and volunteering software platform. The company has recently been acquired by Submittable, and the combined entity now offers a comprehensive suite of corporate grants, employee giving, and employee volunteering software solutions as a single integrated platform.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Bright Funds Workplace Giving and Volunteering Platform Unified workplace giving, corporate grants, and employee volunteering software platform for corporate employers (HR and CSR teams) and the nonprofits that receive donations through it; now integrated into Submittable's corporate giving suite following the 2025 acquisition.
Companies that use Bright Funds
Customer profileSegments2 records
Ideal customer profiles1 record
Bright Funds technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Bright Funds partnerships and signals
Strategic signalRecent moves5 records
Expansion highlights3 records
Bright Funds competitors and assessment
Company assessmentEmerging players
- Givinga: Givinga is a workplace giving and corporate philanthropy platform that offers donation processing and matching gift capabilities comparable to Bright Funds' employee giving functionality.
- Millie: Millie is an emerging employee giving and volunteering platform targeting mid-market employers, with a comparable product focus on workplace giving and CSR engagement.
- Deed: Deed is a workplace giving platform that connects employees with nonprofits through corporate donation matching and volunteering programs, targeting a similar CSR buyer segment as Bright Funds.
Broad incumbents
- Blackbaud: Blackbaud is a large nonprofit and CSR software suite vendor (parent of YourCause) that competes in adjacent categories of grants management, donor management, and corporate philanthropy software.
- Salesforce.org (Philanthropy Cloud): Salesforce.org's Philanthropy Cloud is an enterprise employee giving and volunteering platform built on Salesforce, competing with Bright Funds for global corporate CSR accounts.
- Submittable: Submittable is a broader grants and submission management platform that acquired Bright Funds; it overlaps in corporate grants workflows and serves adjacent CSR and nonprofit customers.
Direct peers
- Goodworld (now part of Frontstream): Frontstream (formerly Goodworld) provides workplace giving, donation processing, and CSR software to enterprise customers, directly competing with Bright Funds in the same product category.
- Benevity: Benevity is the leading enterprise CSR software platform for corporate giving, volunteering, and grant management, directly competing with Bright Funds in the same customer segment and product category.
- Kindsight (formerly CanadaHelps' CSR platform, now part of Bonterra): Kindsight is a workplace giving and employee engagement platform serving enterprise CSR teams, offering overlapping functionality in employee giving, volunteering, and corporate grants.
- YourCause (a Blackbaud company): YourCause is an enterprise CSR platform for employee engagement, corporate giving, and volunteering, now part of Blackbaud, and serves the same HR/CSR buyer as Bright Funds.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat3 records
Key risks4 records
Key highlights5 records
Customer concentration
Bright Funds social profiles
Digital presenceBright Funds financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Bright Funds leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles2 records
Bright Funds funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds6 records
Investors9 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Bright Funds M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Bright Funds
What does Bright Funds do?
Bright Funds provides a software platform that enables corporate employers to operate workplace giving programs, manage corporate grants, and coordinate employee volunteering. The platform is sold to HR and CSR teams at companies seeking to centralize employee donations, volunteer hours, and corporate grants administration, and it also supports nonprofit registration and management as receiving organizations. Following the 2025 acquisition, the offering is now part of Submittable's comprehensive corporate giving and grants suite.
Is Bright Funds a public or private company?
Bright Funds is a private company. It is classified as corporate owned and is currently acquired.
When was Bright Funds founded?
Bright Funds was founded in 2012. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Bright Funds based?
Bright Funds is headquartered in Oakland, United States, in the North America region.
Who are Bright Funds's main competitors?
Emerging players on record are Givinga, Millie and Deed. Broad incumbents are Blackbaud, Salesforce.org (Philanthropy Cloud) and Submittable. Direct peers are Goodworld (now part of Frontstream), Benevity, Kindsight (formerly CanadaHelps' CSR platform, now part of Bonterra) and YourCause (a Blackbaud company).
Does Bright Funds have an API?
No public API is recorded for Bright Funds.
What industry is Bright Funds in?
Bright Funds's product category is Workplace Giving and CSR Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is BPAGAKAC, Corporate Foundations & CSR Grantmaking, with a secondary code of BPAGAKAB, Community Foundations. Its NAICS code is 81321 and its SIC code is 8742.