Organisation & background
OpenWater was founded in 2007 by Timothy Spell and Kunal Johar as nonprofitCMS/awardsCMS, and renamed OpenWater in 2014. It was acquired by Advanced Solutions International (ASI), developer of iMIS, in 2022, and continues to operate under its own name.
Functionality
OpenWater is application-and-review software for associations, foundations and universities, handling awards, grants, scholarships, fellowships, conference abstracts, accreditations and volunteer or leadership applications as configurations of one engine. Each programme is split into rounds, with drag-and-drop forms using conditional logic and rule-based submission fees such as early-bird discounts and late fees. Administrators approve submissions, organise judges into teams and assign entries in bulk, then mark winners or move entries to a later round, with optional public voting. Results export to Excel or PDF, an accessible theme covers public-facing pages, and iMIS users get deeper integration.
Localised features
The accessible theme for public-facing pages conforms to WCAG A and AA, audited with PowerMapper SortSite and backed by a VPAT; the admin interface is excluded.
Implementation model
Self-service: Administrator-configured by default, with reactive vendor support available on request rather than a structured implementation-partner engagement.
Hosting
Cloud-hosted by the vendor on multi-tenant infrastructure, with a separate database for each customer.
Last full research
August 2026