SmartSimple Blog

Photo by Glenn Carstens

Originally written and published by SmartSimple Software COO & Co-Founder, Michael Reid, in his blog 'Charlie In The Jungle', a journal of his thoughts on what technology is, how it works, and why it matters.

I recently saw a blog post by a competitor criticizing our platform due to the inability to add fields to forms using drag and drop. I'm not going to reciprocate and criticize their platform, as I'm sure it's a fine solution for some organizations (plus, I do believe that it's unprofessional to criticize anyone's work). However, let me explain exactly why our platform does not use drag and drop.

Staff collaboration within MS Teams or Slack. Video calls for board meetings. Grant distribution via ACH and Bill.com. This is the “new normal” for philanthropy, and it’s happened in the span of weeks instead of years. Yet, with such a rapid change, how are grantmakers adjusting to a reality where technology is at the center?

Have you ever wondered if two entirely different companies that use SmartSimple can work together? We have the answer for you: SmartSimple’s Data Exchange, a secure method of transferring information between systems.

Whether you’re transferring information between insurance companies to service providers, or centralizing ad-hoc information from field research to foundations, SmartSimple’s Data Exchange provides the configuration to send and receive records between different SmartSimple systems. You can now export multiple levels of data and also organization and individual contact data to and from one SmartSimple system to another.

Effective communication is one of the most important and defining elements in an efficient grantmaking process. Regularly creating documents with information tailored to each stakeholder is a critical part of having everyone on the same page at every point of the grantmaking journey. The SmartSimple Cloud Web Page View feature provides the ability to create and display documents as web pages in order to quickly get every stakeholder on the same page. Administrators can create easy to use templates for grant agreements, confirmation pages, and on-demand pop-ups for applications, all of which can be formatted to your specifications.