GrantedGE, a sophisticated grants management system, was developed by Fusion Labs to fill a need within the information system requirements of non-profit foundations. It was determined that foundations required a software application that computerized the processes for managing grants through the entire lifecycle, including:

Functionality

Captures the initial grant request either by manual entry or through on-line capture of grant information from the web

Provides methods to log initial grant research including linking grant requests to data in both Financial Edge and Raiser’s Edge

Provides tracking of grant requests through approval, potentially allowing on-line distribution of approval logs and on-line capture of approvals

Transmits grant request data to Financial Edge for the ‘seamless’ processing of grant checks

Transmits grant check data from Financial Edge to the grant system for historical reporting

Allows processing of both standard grants, designated grants, grant commitments, competitive grants and scholarships

Allows full reporting for both standard operational reports, as well as tax and audit reports including IRS 990 reporting

Allows on-line access for online grant requests, online proposal applications, online scholarship applications, and more.

Allows on-line access to specific grants to check on status, especially if grants are tied to deliverables, milestones, budgets, and more.

Technology

Developed using Visual Basic.Net, utilizing a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database environment.

Integrated with products from Blackbaud, Inc.: Financial Edge, Raiser’s Edge and NetCommunity

Integrated with sophisticated reporting services, both Microsoft Reporting Services and Crystal Reports

The screenshots contained on these pages are representative samples of the complete functionality offered by the GrantedGE system.

The screen, shown below, depicts the custom home-page with links to the major functions within the GrantedGE system, including the
potential for the user to create links to external systems. A major feature of the home-page is the ability to display current alerts
and notifications providing the user with a list of actions that need to be completed. The menu items on the left-side of the screen
provide the major functional area included with the GrantedGE system.

 

Assign user-defined grant type. Grant type can categorize based user, amount, donor, or other
Simple entry of funds supporting the grant request; can be multiple funds
Link to Raiser’s Edge for fund characteristics; Link to Financial Edge for available budget
Entry of recipient (beneficiary of grant) and payee (receipt of grant check)
Entry of number of payments; payments can be scheduled in varying amounts by varying dates
Grant Characteristics to allow the grant to be categorized based on foundation/user-defined requirements
Correspondence documents can be created and/or linked
All standard media (pdf, doc, xls, graphics, etc.) linked

GrantedGE is integrated with several reporting tools. The main GrantedGE application allows the user to establish reports generated in either Microsoft Reporting Services and Crystal Reports to be attached to the report menu. The reporting subsystem also allows the users to access

Report Builder to create ‘on-the-fly’ reports.

The screen shown below is just one example of an ‘out-of-the-box’ report. Built in the Microsoft Reporting Services environment, it allows the users to:

Access the report directly through an Internet browser, by accessing an Intranet-based report server. This allows reports to be accessed without the need for the GrantedGE application to be running.

Use a set of pre-defined parameters to access the key data elements that the user requires.

Export the report data in a variety of formats. As shown in the screen the user has a variety of export options that includes Adobe PDF and Microsoft Excel formats.