Complete grantmaking solution fulfills
promise for Manatee County government.

Of Florida’s 67 counties, 11 have passed a children’s services tax,
including Manatee County, which distributes over $13 million in grants a
year for children’s programs to more than 50 nonprofit agencies in the
tourism-driven coastal community.

In the past, Manatee County’s Human Services Division relied heavily on
a paper-driven process for grant applications, oversight, and reporting
for Children’s Services, which was not only time consuming but also
created challenges in data management. The first few attempts to break
free with technology from their paper-driven process either fell short or
created new frustrations. However, now with Blackbaud Grantmaking,
the staff sees real improvements with a streamlined online application process, easy-to-use dashboards, and robust grant tracking capabilities for
Children’s Services awards. At the same time, the division successfully uses
Blackbaud Grantmaking to expedite annual distribution of $3.6 million in
funds to address challenges of adult residents who are disabled, homeless,
or otherwise impoverished.

The transformation to a comprehensive yet effective and intuitive
grantmaking solution is a win for everyone involved in the process—
applicants, advisory board members, and staff—and ultimately Manatee
County’s children and vulnerable adults.

With Blackbaud Grantmaking, Human Services Manager Susan Ford said
she saves weeks of time a year on office tasks and can follow the progress
of Children’s Services staff much more easily than before. Likewise, the
contract managers she oversees can provide more meaningful reports
in less time, increasing productivity and allowing them more time to visit
the programs funded by Manatee County Children’s Services. “Blackbaud
Grantmaking enables our contract managers to be out in the field actually
monitoring programs in person every 60 days, versus once or twice each
year,” Ford said.

Emerging from a Paper-driven Process

Ford and Senior Human Services Analyst Kristi Hagen recalled how
Manatee County Children’s Services used to require an annual, daylong,
in-person event during which nonprofits each hand-delivered copies of a
30- to 40-page paper grant application.

Staff would provide copies of those applications to the 13 volunteers on
the county’s Children’s Services Advisory Board in batches of 10 or so at a
time. Each reviewer would turn in a scoring sheet for each applicant, with
staff ultimately keying in hundreds of scores into an Excel spreadsheet.
And once the Manatee County commissioners officially approved grant
awards, staff handled oversight and reporting with a paper-folder
based system.

Their first attempt to replace this manual process with an online
application didn’t resolve many of their pain points: the software solution
they adopted was built around a process that still required printed
applications and handwritten scores during the review process.

On the next try, a software vendor built a custom system for Children’s
Services that only lasted two years. “It was an epic failure, and again, we
had to print all applications and accept handwritten scores on paper,”
Ford said. “We could not make any changes or additions to the system
without contacting the program developers and paying for each change.

A Better Way from Beginning to End

With the subsequent switch to Blackbaud Grantmaking, Manatee County
Children’s Services finally found a flexible solution that worked for staff
members—not against them. Meanwhile, Manatee County Neighborhood
Services also found Blackbaud Grantmaking effective in receiving and
distributing funds geared toward at-risk adults, even though that effort had
different parameters and procedures.

Blackbaud Grantmaking works well for governments because it’s a
comprehensive, all-in-one solution that can be scaled to meet a variety of
complex needs, even as it keeps the user experience as simple as possible.
“I would recommend Blackbaud Grantmaking for other government
organizations, yes, definitely,” Hagen said.
For Manatee County Children’s Services, the improvements realized with
Blackbaud Grantmaking are noticeable from the start with the
applicant portal:

• A pre-screening process verifies an applicant is a qualified nonprofit
located in Manatee County.

• Application options are now available in accordance with the county’s
target areas: child welfare, behavior, adoption preservation, and gradelevel reading.

• Step-by-step guides answer anticipated questions along the way.

In the past, Children’s Services had to hire a consultant to help answer
“constant calls” related to the application, Ford said. “Our application is so
much easier to use now. Very few times do applicants come to us and say, ‘I
don’t understand what you want us to do.’”

Likewise, members of the Children’s Services Advisory Board can access all
applications and scoring guidance online with Blackbaud Grantmaking’s
reviewer portal. “They can review applications anywhere as long as they’ve
got an Internet connection,” Ford said. “Before they had to carry around
these humongous binders.”

Manatee County’s Children’s Services managers use Blackbaud Grantmaking
throughout the year for program oversight, leveraging time saved on office
reports for more frequent in-person visits with grant recipients.
Meanwhile, Blackbaud Grantmaking facilitates collaboration and allows
supervisors to easily see what staff members have accomplished. “I can
create dashboards that track what my people are doing,” Ford said. “Before, I
had to walk down the hall and pick up their files.”

Ford estimated saving weeks of work hours herself, just on quarterly reports.
Hagen and Ford encouraged Blackbaud Grantmaking newcomers to take
full advantage of Blackbaud University training and develop a vision for how
they want to use the solution. “Don’t be afraid to try new things,” Hagen
said. “We’re learning more every year, every day even, in understanding how
Blackbaud Grantmaking can work for us.”