A Headstart in Tracking Down Funds
NICVA | Tue, 17/06/2008 - 14:46 | Neil Irwin
Want to give yourself a head start in fundraising? Want to get ahead of the pack in tracking down funds? NICVA's newly revamped Grant Tracker website has reached the finish line.
NICVA has just launched the Beta Version of its all-new Grant Tracker website after months of in-house development. The Grant Tracker website is now in Version 4 and has come a long way since it first launched in 2001.
Over years NICVA has seen visitor and subscriber levels grow as Grant Tracker has established itself as a key fundraising resource for the voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland.
"I remember the old days" says NICVA's Member Services Manager, when the only local funding resource I had was a dog-eared copy of the funding for voluntary action handbook with a couple of dozen well-trodden funders".
Grant Tracker now provides information hundreds of funders relevant to Northern Ireland. The new website provides a facility for subscribers to personalise the content they see and create their own "MyTracker" resource which becomes their own personal funding directory, diary, newspaper and library.
The technical development of the site has all been done in-house by NICVA's ICT personnel, Stephen Gray, Feargal O'Kane and Paul Gormley. They have moved Grant Tracker from an expensive private sector platform to "Drupal" an open source medium. This has provided significant advantages to the small team of researchers who update information translating into even more up-to-date research and even better responses to Grant Tracker user's needs.
Over the next few months subscribers will be able to contribute to the design and function of the website by providing feedback on their experience of the new look site. NICVA may also convene focus groups to look at the website and offer constructive criticism of how it has developed.
"We need to finish some fine tuning to the site, such as how the exclusions list interacts with the grant search"
said Neil Irwin
"I am sure our users will help us with feedback on what else we need to do, but I am confident users will see a significant benefit of the new Grant Tracker over older versions"
