Blackbaud FIMS

Formerly MicroEdge

We use Blackbaud FIMS across the whole organization, minus the President.

MicroEdge GIFTS Classic is one of several systems we use in managing the funding we provide to nonprofit organizations serving the greater Houston area. There are four core users, three of which rely on MicroEdge for the bulk of their daily work to track awarded/declined/pending funding requests, payments due and grantee reporting requirements. Another 10 employees have view only permissions and may use the database as infrequently as once a month. We rely on the database to track due diligence information, ensure the correct person at the organization receives funding and to send out contracts, among other key activities.

MicroEdge GIFTS was used organization wide by four of our five total employees. As the organization is a private foundation, GIFTS was used to manage contacts, applications, reports, and payments of grants for our Grants Program. GIFTS was essential in keeping track of the application and payment history of the international organizations which applied to our foundation for grants for over three decades.

We currently use MicroEdge GIFTS Classic as our foundation's grants management system. While GIFTS Classic is a complex grant management system (GMS) with an antiquated interface, after using the database closely for almost three years, I have learned that this system is capable of helping us in all of our grantmaking - you just have to know how to use it! Currently only our Grants Department uses it, but we plan on rolling out GIFTS to other departments before upgrading to GIFTS Online. GIFTS helps us in tracking, monitoring, and managing online applications, requirements, payments, contract management, and contact management. It also serves as a way to consistently allow our program staff to monitor their philanthropic initiatives programmatically, while Finance still receives the necessary payment information they need (check requests, coding, payment information, etc). GIFTS also helps us generate reports (we use Excel rather than canned reports) to use as a reconciliation report to compare with the Finance Department to ensure we are tracking the same grantmaking expenses.