Dogwood Health Trust manages hundreds of
grants a year using Blackbaud Grantmaking.

Formed following the sale of Mission Health System to a for-profit entity,
Dogwood Health Trust is a private foundation serving 18 counties and the
Qualla Boundary, home to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

As a new health conversion foundation, the team at Dogwood Health Trust
had to move quickly. Within just a few months, they dispersed $18 million
to nonprofit organizations making an impact on community health. It was a
successful grant cycle, albeit with a complicated and complex process that
staff knew they could improve with full adoption of Blackbaud Grantmaking—
the comprehensive solution for grantmaking management.

“There were a lot of parts of our original process where we were closing
loops through email, collecting grant feedback through Excel spreadsheets,
and a lot of that work is what Blackbaud Grantmaking was built for and it
does really well,” explained Leah Jones-Marcus, impact associate at Dogwood
Health Trust. “Using Blackbaud Grantmaking, we were able to identify
opportunities to streamline.”

With SKY UX® for Blackbaud Grantmaking, the team at Dogwood Health
Trust also has the convenient advantage of a modern user interface powered
by Blackbaud SKY®—Blackbaud’s platform for social good innovation. “I think
the best thing about SKY UX for Blackbaud Grantmaking is just that you can
access the interface from any browser or on your phone,” said Senior Impact
Associate Emma Lawless. “I’ve used those features to answer questions or
complete a time-sensitive task while I’m not at my computer.”

Finding a Better Way

Following that first hectic grant cycle, the impact team was ready to refine
workflows, standardize processes, and determine their priority areas for
community impact.

“We had a really wide spectrum of requests—from organizations asking
for a van for afterschool youth programs to organizations needing deep
storage freezers for their nutrition program,” Jones-Marcus said. “We
were able to use dashboards in Blackbaud Grantmaking to categorize and
quantify the different priorities, understand who was responding to us, and
where the biggest needs were. This helped us determine the four strategic
priorities that our board adopted, with racial equity running through all.”

The team then turned their sights to workflow simplification. They reduced
the handoffs between systems and teams, adjusted approval levels, and
expanded their use of technology. “Where the rubber is hitting the road
for us now is in our follow-up stage where we do grant agreement, prep,
and payment,” explained Lawless. “Blackbaud Grantmaking has streamlined
the amount of manually moving files, it has cut Excel completely out of the
equation, and made the process go much faster.”

It was also time to standardize processes and communication. Instead of
one-off emails, Lawless now utilizes automated emails within Blackbaud
Grantmaking to communicate with applicants and grantees at key points
of the process. “This enables us to set expectations and ensure we are
supporting our partners.”

The Reviewer Portal has provided much needed standardization, enabling
all internal teams to use the same forms in the same way, which is great for
compliance. Working with a Blackbaud consultant, they created a standard
rubric within the application request record so reviewers can assign scores
based on specified dimensions. They were even able to customize the
rubric by priority area since some, such as affordable housing, have
special processes.

“Working with our consultant has allowed us to get more grants through
quicker and standardize the way we capture conversations with the
community,” Lawless explained.

For Dogwood Health Trust, this work goes beyond just making things easier
for staff. It is enabling a better experience for grantee partners with an easy
way to connect and clear expectations for starting a relationship.

Making a Difference in the Community

Dashboards in Blackbaud Grantmaking offer at-a-glance insight that enables
the team at Dogwood Health Trust to increase their impact. A dashboard
showing grant requests by priority area signals changing needs in the
community, like a rise in education requests or requests for substance use
disorder work. Categorizing requests by type of support—program support,
capacity building, or capital—is another way for the team to stay on top of
trends. “Dashboards in Blackbaud Grantmaking really inform a lot of our
work,” Jones-Marcus said.

A key impact measure for Dogwood Health Trust is the impact of grants by
county—not just where the provider is located, but the counties the provider
serves. Included in the grantee’s original application, this data is automatically
available for custom reports and dashboards so Dogwood can ensure they
are reaching the full 18-county region. In addition to quantitative measures,
Dogwood Health Trust can use a standard form in Blackbaud Grantmaking to
collect stories and photos to help amplify the great work their partners are
doing. “To me, storytelling is one of the most important parts. It helps us to
stay focused on WHY we are doing this,” Jones-Marcus said.