Endowment invests in New Hampshire’s health
with trusted grant management solution

In its first two decades, the Endowment for Health has awarded more than
1,500 grants, totaling more than $60 million, for programs and projects “to
improve the health and reduce the burden of illness for the people of New
Hampshire—especially the vulnerable and underserved.”

And, from the time it started operations in 2001, the private nonprofit
foundation has relied on the grantmaking software that has evolved into the
cloud-based, fully-hosted solution now offered with Blackbaud Grantmaking.
Looking back, Chief Financial Officer Sue Fulton—one of the Endowment’s
first employees—recalled her concerns as to whether the purchase of new
grantmaking software was necessary and worth the investment. “It took
me a year to recognize how important it was,” she said. Yet she remains as
convinced now as ever. “I do not understand how a foundation can operate
without a grantmaking software system. It’s just too important.”

An Effective Tool for Transparency,
Compliance, and Communication

Fulton continues to trust in Blackbaud’s grantmaking solution to
support transparency, visibility, and compliance for the Endowment,
whether she’s reporting to the Endowment’s Board of Directors or
she’s preparing for an annual audit. “Since we started in 2001, when
our auditors come in, I’m able to provide them exactly what they are
looking for.”

She credits Blackbaud Grantmaking for evolving effective
communication and efficient workflows that allow staff and their
grant partners to maximize their impact on public health.
To illustrate, she pointed to an Endowment community partner,
the Southern New Hampshire Area Health Education Center, which
operates NH Needs Caregivers, a program to address the licensed
nursing assistant workforce shortage in the state. When the program
reached out to the Endowment after an unexpected disruptive delay
in other expected funding, Endowment staff completed the review
and approval process, providing grant funding within 24 hours.
The efficiency in workflows allowed the NH Needs Caregivers
program to operate seamlessly, and 12 individuals were licensed as
licensed nursing assistants in the three-week period that may have
otherwise caused the program to end.

Grants Program Associate Andie Hession sees similar advantages, though
she has a different vantage point. Hession joined the Endowment just after
its 20th anniversary, bringing a background in public health, environmental
education, and sustainable food systems.

While she hadn’t used Blackbaud Grantmaking before joining the
Endowment, Hession said learning and using the solution has been a
positive experience. She especially appreciates that the entire staff can
access the platform anytime, from anywhere, on any browser, one of
the more recent adaptations to the comprehensive solution, which is
now powered by Blackbaud SKY®—Blackbaud’s platform for social good
innovation. “Blackbaud Grantmaking is a useful tool for all staff to manage
the grantmaking process,” Hession said.

Fulton, meanwhile, credited Hession for implementing the more intuitive
setup offered through Blackbaud SKY “flawlessly.” Program staff have also
shared their positive feedback about the more intuitive user experience.

Seamless Workflows for Everyone

The Endowment relies on Blackbaud Grantmaking’s dashboards, which are
instrumental in their review process, making it easy for reviewers to share
their thoughts and comments with one another, while also keeping clear
track of the grant’s status and other details.

“The workflows really work for us,” Hession said. “We’re a pretty small staff,
but Blackbaud Grantmaking is something that keeps our process smooth
and information accessible.”

Fulton chimed in, “When someone finishes the primary review, it flows off
their dashboard and pops onto the secondary reviewer’s dashboard.”
Fulton has shared stories with Hession about the days before the
Endowment’s 2007 transition to online grantmaking, when many grant
seekers would rush six paper copies of 250+-page grant applications to the
Endowment just before the deadline. The Endowment even made additional
copies and distributed for review. “I think of the time and dollars wasted
making copies, folders, and filing the paper applications,” Fulton said.
Online grantmaking has improved the review process and given a wider
group of organizations better, easier access to the Endowment’s application
and reporting tools. Fulton and Hession welcome Blackbaud’s continued
investments in streamlining the technology. “Equity is central to the future
of our grantmaking,” Hession said, “and these technology upgrades are
important to ease administrative burdens for applicants.”

Support for Field Building, Strategic Initiatives

Beyond functionality and efficiency, Blackbaud Grantmaking and the
customization features of its Blueprint module have been a key element in
supporting a shift in the Endowment’s grantmaking philosophy to a fieldbuilding approach that began in 2014.

About 90% of the Endowment for Health’s grant awards are strategic
investments that align with work by program directors around five targeted
statewide initiatives: Healthy Aging, Health Policy, Health Equity, Children’s
Behavioral Health, and Early Childhood.

To tackle complex social problems, the Endowment works in partnership
with community members, civic leaders, organizations, advocates, and
experts from many sectors to jointly reach common goals. “Sometimes
strategies are identified by a coalition or working group focused on a
priority area. Sometimes the innovative ideas come from grant seekers.
And sometimes the Endowment identifies opportunities based on
research, emerging practices, or the good work of other funders,”
Hession said.

In the beginning, community partners were unfamiliar with the approach
and concerned about its effectiveness, Fulton and Hession explained. Now,
stakeholders in each field can articulate specific examples of how their
work is stronger for these investments. Partners in the field of Children’s
Behavioral Health, for example, convened to develop shared goals. They
have been successful in advocating for inclusion of children’s mental health
in the state’s 10-year Mental Health Plan, introducing Rapid Response
mobile mental health crisis units, and the creation of a center of excellence
to promote quality services and promotion of evidence-based practices.
“We are able to track investments in each domain of our Theory of Change
due to the flexibility of Blackbaud Grantmaking’s Blueprint,” Hession said.
“Blueprint also allowed us to operationalize the Measurement Framework,
a tool developed to measure outcomes and impact.”

Fulton added, “I never imagined our grantmaking system and processes
would look so different today than they did 20 plus years ago. In partnership
with Blackbaud, we have been able to take advantage of innovative
technologies to implement streamlined processes and be as efficient
as possible.”