How to help your grantseekers find more money (and save you time) with the Funding Centre

SmartyGrants is integrated with the Funding Centre, the system that gives grantseekers the tools to find grants, submit better applications, and manage the “life cycle” of those applications.

By helping grantseekers to work smarter, the Funding Centre means grantmakers spend less time assessing ineligible applications and more time on high-quality projects.

SmartyGrants trainer David Bradley describes the Funding Centre as “the SmartyGrants for grantseekers”.

“Our Community developed SmartyGrants to make grant management easier for grantmakers, to bring it into the digital age. The Funding Centre is the other side of things. It’s for applicants who are searching for funding or needing to better manage their fundraising and grant applications,” Mr Bradley said.

Free promotion for your grant programs

The Funding Centre’s online grants directory enables grantmakers to reach thousands of enthusiastic grantseekers who have the expertise to help your grants programs meet their objectives. There are about 4,500 live grants listed on the Funding Centre, updated daily, including many SmartyGrants rounds. Advertising your grants on the Funding Centre is FREE.

Grantseekers can access grants in three ways: via the search tool on the website; via email alerts; and via the monthly EasyGrants newsletter.

Grantseekers can filter searches to match their own preferences; filters include organisation type, eligibility, location and grant category (e.g. Sports and Recreation, Arts and Culture, Community Services and Development). That means Funding Centre subscribers are only searching for grants they’re eligible to apply for, saving grantmakers (that’s you!) time assessing ineligible applications.

Help applicants submit better applications, save time assessing grants

Trainer David Bradley says the Funding Centre was built to meet the needs of not only grantseekers but also grantmakers.

“The more that applicants know about what information needs to be provided or the sort of questions they’re going to be asked, the better the quality of their applications. Better applications make it easier for grantmakers during the assessment process, and that means better projects are being funded.”

The Funding Centre’s Help Centre provides a variety of fundraising tools and resources to help applicants to lodge better applications. These include a template grantseekers can use to guide them in collecting and tracking supporting documents, a budget template, and an overview of grantseeking basics. There’s also an answers bank designed to make form-filling quick and easy for applicants; it consists of answers to questions commonly asked by funders who use SmartyGrants.

Connect to SmartyGrants, spend less time chasing progress reports and acquittals

The Funding Centre dashboard helps grantseekers accurately track and manage the life cycle of their grant applications, which means funders spend less time chasing applicants for late progress reports and acquittals.

“Essentially, a user’s dashboard is a personalised grantseeking space through which they can add grants they’re interested in, set tasks with an assigned due date and track all important dates using the calendar tool, which can also be connected to an external calendar,” Funding Centre manager Stefanie Ball said.

Funding Centre subscribers can also connect their SmartyGrants account to their Funding Centre dashboard to bring across any applications made through SmartyGrants.

To learn more about how the Funding Centre works, watch our free webinar, which covers the key elements of the Funding Centre, the grants database, the dashboard, and the tools and resources available to create better applications.

MORE INFO: SmartyGrants public webinar | Trial the Funding Centre | Promote a grant | Contact the team at [email protected]