About the Fish & Wildlife Compensation Program

BC Hydro is a provincial crown corporation owned by the government and people of the Province of British Columbia. They operate 31 hydroelectric facilities and two thermal generating plants that deliver power through a network of more than 48,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines.

BC Hydro funds the Fish & Wildlife Compensation Program (FWCP), whose mandate is to conserve and enhance fish and wildlife that have been impacted by BC Hydro dams.

Finding a way to eliminate manual processes

FWCP had two immediate problem areas they wanted to address: first, they wanted to improve how the review process was managed for grant applications, and second, they wanted to find a better, more efficient way to communicate with grant applicants. Before switching to SmartSimple Cloud, the Program had been using a mix of emails, word documents, physical file folders, and spreadsheets to manage these activities.

“Applicants would email applications to us, the administrative team would manually record them on a spreadsheet, and then we would print and ship binders to between 10 and 20 reviewers.”

“Over a period of a few short years, the number of grant applications was increasing rapidly. We were spending a great deal on supplies and resources to accomplish our work.”

“We definitely needed a new process, one that we could automate but would still support any paper-based requirements as needed to accommodate our review panels.”

Selecting SmartSimple

Marc and the FWCP team did an extensive amount of research before deciding on SmartSimple. They needed a supplier that could demonstrate a clear ROI while being able to deliver on a very demanding schedule. “We needed someone who could provide obvious value for dollar, and deliver a finished system within a 6 to 9 month timeframe. It was critical for us to be able to use our new platform for our fiscal 2017 grant cycle, or we’d be stuck using our old, manual system for another full year,” adds Marc.

“It was clear to us from the first demonstration that SmartSimple Cloud for Government Funding was the only vendor solution that could meet all of our requirements and deliver on time within our price range. Several other vendors were close, but they were either more costly, could not meet our privacy standards, or other key business requirements. SmartSimple Cloud for Government Funding was the one solution that could do everything we needed, and more.”

Working with SmartSimple

“The SmartSimple team was extremely attentive and met our demanding deadlines. They were a true partner during our implementation. And the support team has been just outstanding, answering our questions quickly while giving us the information we need to develop our own internal skills. I’ve actually been able to configure new grant types myself.”