Community Builders Project Makes Funding & Awards Programs More Accessible Online

Social Change Online has recently completed a project for the NSW Premier’s Department to make Funding & Awards projects more accessible online. There is a vast range of programs and awards that provide funding targeted at specific projects such as Capital Assistance programs and Rural Women’s Awards. With close to 150 programs from around 100 different funders listed, the current system had become unwieldy. A new site was proposed to bring funders and fundees together and form part of the award-winning Community Builders website. NSW Government agencies needed to be able to manage their programs themselves, and fundees needed to be able to search and find relevant information easily.

The project was not without its challenges. With funders ranging from State and Federal Government departments, foundations and trusts, to corporates and NGOs, Social Change Online found that each funder describes their funding programs in slightly different ways. This meant that standardisation of the terminology and structure of funding program descriptions was needed to be able to provide an easy to use online service for all funders.

Social Change Online customised a module of its AIMS Content Management System to develop the system. Key features include:

• funding programs are categorised by closing date, one or more categories, and funder.

• Index of funding programs closing soon so fundees can easily see what programs they can apply for in the next 2 months.

• Fundees can highly filter information that is relevant to them or their organization through the advanced search function.

• Fundees can see at a glance whether funding programs are open or closed.

• Site automatically generates an email newsletter each month listing funding programs closing soon.

The system was designed so that NSW Government funders can manage their own funding programs on the site with their own individual log-in, whilst still ensuring that information undergoes a quality assurance and approval process before publishing online. There is the potential for this facility to be made available to other funders in future.

The site was funded by Chief Executives Committee of NSW Government, and was sponsored by the Grants Administration Reform Project of the NSW Premiers Department. It meets an election commitment given by the Premier prior to the last state election and is expected to be launched in the next month or so.

Visit the Funding & Awards site at www.communitybuilders.nsw.gov.au