It’s a stressful time for many organisations awaiting Federal grant funding, as they stand by to find out if their grants will proceed under the new Government.
Ed Husic, the recently appointed Minister for Industry, recently told The Sydney Morning Herald that an independent board is currently in the process of deciding which grants will proceed under the Labor Government.
“Just because there’s a program that is branded Coalition does not mean that it’s cut,” Husic said. “If something’s working, I want it to be maintained. But if it runs against our values, it won’t go ahead.”
Regardless of which party is in power, it’s important that grant procedures are taken very seriously to ensure that taxpayers’ money is being distributed and managed appropriately – but there is no existing integrated software or model available in the market that tracks the delivery of grants for both funding bodies and funding recipients.
Until now, funding bodies have had to rely on large and clunky spreadsheets, with limited information, tracking and collaboration available.
At the same time, many public, private and not-for-profit organisations rely on grant funding to continue their work, but there are no standardised processes in place to ensure these funds are tracked with complete transparency and probity.
This is a significant gap in the market that SurePact identified through its comprehensive research, and is targeting with its new Grant Management Platform, a by-product of its Boosting Female Founders Grant win.
Earlier this year, Federal Member for Dickson, Peter Dutton, visited SurePact to congratulate the company on its progress with the platform. With the solution now six months further into development, and three out of the four required milestones passed, it is close to commercialisation.
When launched, the Grant Management Platform will support funding bodies in the administration, tracking, transparency and reporting of grant programs, allowing grant recipients and funding bodies to work together in one platform to collaborate, communicate and manage all lifecycle stages of a grant.
SurePact’s platform supports 360 degree end-to-end grant management probity, with full integration with SurePact’s existing Project and Contract Delivery Modules. Grant funding bodies will have insight into project and contact deliveries for an approved grant at all stages of the delivery, or as required.
The collaborative and dynamic platform will standardise grant management functionality and deliver outcomes with tangible results, removing question marks and saving millions of dollars for reinvestment into other community needs.
In one of the first major tests of the solution, SurePact is currently working with a Queensland State Government Department across three of their major grant funding programs from within their agency that administers funding across 77 Councils in Queensland.
SurePact Founder and CEO Megan Avard says the Grant Management Platform has been in development since the early days of the company.
“In 2018 we began analysing the gaps in the market,” she says. “What we found was that there were State Government departments managing millions of dollars they had allocated in funding on Excel spreadsheets, and local Councils managing the grants they received through Excel spreadsheets as well.
“There wasn’t a collaborative SaaS environment where you could have both parties talking to each other without confidentiality being compromised, answering the questions of compliance and probity and tracking taxpayers’ dollars.
“What we are doing with the Grant Management Platform is something that is not out in the market at the moment, and we are really excited about it. It is easy to use, it is intuitive, and it allows funding bodies to ensure their grants are being put towards their intended purpose and managed effectively.”
