SmartyGrants

IT GETS YOU ONLINE (AND HELPS YOU TICK THE ‘WEB 2.0’ BOX)

You can harness the latest technologies without having to pay an IT/Web developer bucket-loads of money every time you want to correct a typo or add a page to an application form.

Transparency and accountability are words that ring in the ears of every grantmaker. With SmartyGrants it becomes so much easier to show how you reached a particular decision or what proportion of your resources you are directing to particular issues. This should keep your board / council / managers / ministers and the auditors much happier.

SmartyGrants has been subjected to a rigorous vulnerability assessment and we passed with flying colours (most importantly, the assessment showed that each user’s data is secure and that it was not possible to obtain access to anyone else’s data from within SmartyGrants). All data is held in a secure data centre in Sydney, which means you will not breach any of the relevant State or Commonwealth Privacy Acts as none of your data is sent offshore.

SmartyGrants is not like a mobile phone – it does not get scratched and dented, it does not go out of date or become superseded by some later technology. Because SmartyGrants is a hosted solution we are constantly improving and upgrading it to take advantage of what’s new (and actually useful). When you purchase a subscription to SmartyGrants you’re not buying a “version” that is going to need upgrading sometime in the future, you are purchasing access to a constantly evolving product, ensuring you always have the most up-to-date grants management system.

If you were willing to spend several hundred thousand dollars, you might get a system that perfectly mirrors what you do now. However, ask around and you’ll find a smorgasbord of stories about expensive IT solutions that had to be replaced a few years later by yet another expensive technology solution. One of the fundamental problems with purchasing a custom-built system is that once delivered the developers move on to their next paying job, they don’t stick around. For the grantmaker, that means having to make do with what you purchased until you can afford to move on to something newer and better, or pay through the nose to attract the developers back to do some more work on their system. SmartyGrants allows you to avoid being stuck on that very expensive and often highly frustrating path.

How do you know that the way you are currently doing things is actually the best way to do things? With SmartyGrants you are joining an ever-growing network of grantmakers who share their methods, forms and approaches to problems. Naturally your programs will have their own quirks, but as our current users keep telling us, there is just so much they can learn from each other. More often than not someone else has already wrestled with and found a solution to a problem you’re currently facing. Why keep reinventing the wheel?

The more time you spend stuck behind your desk shuffling paper, the less time you have to be out working with your community, learning about their work and helping them build their capacity to successfully deliver projects. Being out and about in your community gives you the chance to really assess the strengths of applications, which will help you make more informed recommendations on future funding decisions and improve the outcomes of your programs.

How many grants have been made by your organisation over the past decade? Do you know which projects failed to deliver, or which organisations struggled with their financial management, or which used the funds in an inappropriate way? With SmartyGrants, you can get access to all of your organisation’s granting history – whether you have been in the job for 10 minutes or 10 years you will be able to see the history of a relationship with an individual or an organisation.

With SmartyGrants, you don’t need to try to get funding approval for a five-year (or longer) subscription or fund a big capital cost. You can sign up for a free trial to make sure the system will work for you before you hand over a single cent. What’s more, our annual subscription model allows you to make a short-term commitment. We’re confident that after 12 months you’ll be able to show more than enough savings and added benefits to justify continuing the subscription, but if you find SmartyGrants is not for you, you can move on easily and take all your data with you. We fundamentally believe in data portability and you can access all of your data in an open format at any point, without paying a cent more.

SmartyGrants has been developed by the Australian Institute of Grants Management (AIGM), the grants management body established by Our Community to help drive and disseminate best and next practices in grantmaking in Australia. Our Community is a decade-old social enterprise with a reputation for innovation and for delivering what we promise, on time and within budget. Over the past decade, we have worked extensively with both grantmakers and grantseekers, helping to drive thought leadership and best practice in this area. We have worked hard to ensure that SmartyGrants will meet the needs of both grantmakers and grantseekers. Our satisfied customers are happy to attest to the fact that we have achieved our aims.