Fluxx | Technology news for grantmakers

We know that Grants Management Systems (GMS) help grantmakers accelerate their impact, improve relationships with grantees, and unlock the power of data for reporting and decision making.

We also know that many organizations are stuck in outdated systems—or are manually tracking everything through an ad hoc process using email and spreadsheets—which means that too many grants professionals are spending countless hours tracking down information, searching through disparate documents, and manually moving the work forward.

To help Grants Administrators and Grants Managers advocate for new technology, we teamed up with our friends at Grantbook to build a simple guide.

So much has to go into a robust grants management solution in order for teams to successfully understand and leverage their data, and streamline their work. One of the most important factors is if platform administrators can control who sees what, and when. Why? Because grantmaking “takes a village.” It’s a team effort that relies heavily on each player, and when process confusion exists in your workflow, grantees have to wait longer for funds or basic information. Here’s what you want to do:

According to a recent report of over 2,500 reviews of foundations on GrantAdvisor.org, grant application management consumes 20-30% of grantmakers' time. What are the top sources of pain? Not being able to see the full application, the time taken to apply is disproportionate to the funding awarded, and the inability to save the application and work on it later.

Another fantastic year of Untapped philanthropy has come to a close! This year, the conversations felt charged, and the industry leaders we spoke with all seemed eager to support progress for our industry. And while our podcast tries to cover a few key topics equally — the future of philanthropy, technology, policy, and capacity building efforts for grantees — this season our conversations seemed to always come back to trust-based philanthropy. 

We explored how we might implement trust-based philanthropy, learned from the leaders who worked to define this movement for funders, and took an honest look at the prevailing power imbalances of nonprofits and foundations. These conversations left us feeling inspired and ready to make a change too. 

Untapped Season Finale: A new host + fresh topics: what's next for season 3 of Untapped Philanthropy

Fluxx’s Community Manager Shawn Garrison met with Art Johnstone and Michael Turner, the President and Vice President of Client Services at EMPH Partners.

About EMPH Partners

EMPH, which stands for the Emergency Management and Public Health Partners team is comprised of experts with nearly five decades of combined experience building and utilizing systems to manage grant funding, including experience using Fluxx Grantmaker to manage thousands grants, and tens of millions in grant funding.

Their particular area of expertise is working with partners to manage Federal pass-through grant funding, using Fluxx Grantmaker to offer sub-awards that meet the specific purposes and due diligence needs of each particular Federal grant program.

Fluxx Named the Leading Grants Management Software Solution

On the heels of a wildly successful (and in-person) annual conference, the Technology Association of Grantmakers (TAG) has released the results of their comprehensive survey on trends and insights into how technology is shaping philanthropy. The 2022 TAG State of Philanthropy Tech Report is now available, taking responses from 277 organizations across North America, the EU and the U.K. 

Someone once told us that a software implementation was akin to building a house. Sure, anyone can put up four walls, a few doors, and a roof and call it a house, but then it’s no more than just a shell. Building a house requires planning, layout, experts in multiple areas, and feng shui (if you’re into that sort of thing). 

Fluxx’s Community Manager Shawn Garrison met with Tiffany Ramos, Director of Operations at Pillar to discuss their mission, and how Fluxx has been an integral part of their operation.

About Pillar
Pillar was conceived out of the hardships realized by business from the COVID pandemic. Pillar saw a need to help small businesses survive during the tumultuous economic times by providing grants and loans to the small businesses within the Rainier Valley and Greater Seattle area in Washington state. As a result of their work, hundreds of small businesses are thriving today and continue to be a vital part of their communities.

The Need for Efficiency and Transparency
As the pandemic continued to impact small businesses, Pillar saw an increase in their grantmaking to ensure they kept to their mission within the community. They wanted to find a solution to help fill in some process gaps and be more efficient in their grantmaking. Additionally, they wanted to have greater visibility and control into how they were collaborating on grants and ensuring the right people reviewed the grants at the right time in the process. These needs ultimately led them to Fluxx.

The grants management process can vary depending on the size and scope of your organization. It is not uncommon to start with a simple approach involving simple tools, a combination of systems that are either stitched together or siloed (or for some, no system at all). 

It’s impossible to discuss the giving landscape in India today without acknowledging the drastic economic reforms that made it possible. In 1991, India adopted a new industrial policy to liberalize the economy, increase employment opportunities, boost production and productivity, and encourage foreign investments. The policy substantially deregulated the industrial sector. Today, India’s economy is one of the fastest growing in the world. And the profitability of the last 30 years has led to immense new wealth creation. Now, much of that new wealth is looking to give back, and India has seen a sharp rise in new philanthropists and donors. One organization looking to support these donors (and communities across the country) is Dasra.

Dasra is an intermediary and strategic philanthropy foundation in India's multi-stakeholder development ecosystem. Its goal is to help India achieve its sustainable development goals by 2023 by helping funders give more strategically to vulnerable communities. When the pandemic struck India, the team led by this week’s podcast guest and Dasra co-founder and Partner, Deval Sanghavi, sprang into action and employed swift and effective trust-based philanthropy practices to support communities throughout India.