For most grantmaking foundations, three essential silos drive mission achievement: Grantmaking, CRM (Constituent Relationship Management), and Accounting. These areas represent more than just functional distinctions—they embody unique cultures, processes, and purposes within the organization. While the idea of unifying these functions under a single software system sounds like a good idea, the diverse demands of each, in many cases makes this approach impractical. Instead, foundations can benefit greatly from a “best of breed” approach, selecting specialized software that meets the unique needs of each silo while ensuring systems can communicate effectively.
This article explores why best-of-breed solutions offer the greatest value for foundations by enabling each function to operate at its best and explains how this approach supports interconnectivity to achieve the foundation’s goals.
1. Understanding the “Personality” of Each Function—and Why Best of Breed Fits
Each of the foundation’s three silos embodies its own operational “personality” and culture, making best-of-breed the best fit for supporting its unique objectives and work styles.
Accounting: Precision and Compliance at the Core
The accounting staff works at the foundation’s operational core, focused on accuracy, regulatory compliance, and financial accountability. Their work requires meticulous attention to detail, from budgeting to grant payments and audit trails. A best-of-breed Accounting system—like Sage Intacct—is designed to handle these complexities, supporting everything from rigorous budgeting to detailed reporting with clarity and structure. By choosing a specialized system for Accounting, foundations ensure that their financial and regulatory demands are met efficiently, enabling them to maintain the high level of compliance essential to their operations.
CRM: Fostering Advocacy, Engagement, and Partnerships
The CRM team’s work goes beyond grant management. This silo is the foundation’s people-oriented heart, dedicated to community engagement, advocacy, and collaboration. A CRM best-of-breed solution like Salesforce empowers the CRM team to focus on three critical areas:
Advocacy and Policy Influence: The CRM team connects the foundation with the broader community, advocates, and policymakers, often influencing public policy to support the foundation’s mission. CRM systems allow them to track and engage with policy influencers, gather advocacy metrics, and coordinate campaigns that align with the foundation’s strategic goals.
Community Outreach and Engagement: CRM systems are tailored to foster outreach, helping staff manage grantee relationships and engage community stakeholders. This outreach is more than relationship management; it involves educating and informing communities about available resources, new initiatives, and foundation impact. Best-of-breed systems provide the adaptability CRM teams need to manage relationships effectively across diverse channels and create personalized engagement strategies that resonate within various communities.
Collaboration and Partnerships: Effective partnerships are essential for maximizing impact, and the CRM team often acts as the bridge connecting the foundation with external organizations, nonprofits, and collaborative networks. Specialized CRM solutions facilitate these partnerships by organizing contacts, tracking joint efforts, and measuring collaborative outcomes, providing the foundation with a comprehensive view of its collective efforts and potential for broader impact.
By selecting a best-of-breed CRM system, foundations empower their CRM teams to build strong relationships, drive advocacy, and coordinate collaborations effectively.
Grantmaking: Balancing Mission Impact and Financial Accountability
Grantmaking operates at the intersection of mission-driven work and financial stewardship. Grantmaking teams must evaluate applications, assess impact, and manage resources, a role that requires both mission alignment and financial acumen. Best-of-breed grantmaking solutions like GivingData provide powerful features specifically for grant tracking, impact assessment, and compliance reporting. With the best tools, grantmakers can efficiently allocate resources and assess outcomes, ensuring that the foundation’s funds are used effectively to support its mission.
2. The Value of Best of Breed: Optimizing Each Area for Success
Best-of-breed systems allow each function to thrive in an environment that fits its specific needs, optimizing performance in ways that all-in-one solutions often cannot. Each area can operate with the features and workflows that best support its work, from compliance in Accounting to relationship management in CRM to outcome tracking in Grantmaking.
Specialized systems are also built by experts who understand the nuances of each area—whether it’s financial accuracy for Accounting, the adaptability needed in CRM, or the mission alignment required in Grantmaking. This expertise means that best-of-breed solutions not only meet but often exceed the expectations of each silo, contributing to a more capable, aligned organization.
3. Connecting Silos through Integration: Achieving Collaboration and Cohesion
While best-of-breed systems excel within each silo, integration is essential for achieving seamless collaboration and a unified vision. Siloed systems should “talk” to one another via middleware, creating a network that shares information and insights across the foundation.
Here’s how these integrations enhance mission fulfillment:
Data Flow: Financial data from Accounting integrates with Grantmaking, giving grantmakers visibility into budget constraints and funding availability.
Relationship and Policy Insights: CRM insights about grantees, community partners, and policy advocates inform Grantmaking efforts, helping grantmakers understand community needs and policy impacts.
Mission-Aligned Storytelling: Grantmaking’s impact metrics flow back into CRM, providing the CRM team with real-world outcomes and data that support advocacy efforts, deepen relationships, and drive community engagement.
With best-of-breed systems, foundations benefit from specialized tools that each department needs, while data-sharing capabilities ensure these tools are not isolated. This integration allows teams to sync, leveraging each other’s insights for more strategic decision-making and greater collective impact.
4. Conclusion: Why Best of Breed, Interconnected Systems Drive Mission Success
For grantmaking foundations, adopting best-of-breed solutions in Accounting, CRM, and Grantmaking enables each silo to operate with precision and effectiveness. The goal is not to eliminate silos but to connect them—so that each function can operate within an environment suited to its needs while contributing to a shared mission.
Value Stream Consulting has developed an AWS-based middleware solution called GMS Bridgepoint to support this integrated approach. GMS Bridgepoint is designed to facilitate the seamless connection of two or more best-of-breed systems, allowing each silo to operate at its best while still working in harmony with the others. By enabling data flow between systems, GMS Bridgepoint helps foundations leverage the strengths of each function, achieving operational cohesion and enhancing the foundation’s capacity to drive meaningful change.
If you’re interested in learning more about system integration or how GMS Bridgepoint can support your foundation’s mission, please contact us at Value Stream Consulting. We’d be happy to help you find the best solutions for your unique needs and set your foundation on the path to greater impact.
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