The Grantmaker

Over the last two years I've worked with YouthBank UK and the YouthBank network of Community Foundation Northern Ireland to develop a Management Information System to support youth led micro-finance. The software I developed ended up very customised around YouthBank, but with the rise of the Youth Opportunity Fund, and other growth in youth led grantmaking there appears to have been a real need for a more general information system supporting such projects.

All this led me to starting work at the start of this year on TheGrantmaker, a flexible web-based Management Information System for youth led grantmaking, based on top of the Drupal Content Management System. Mike Smith, my brother in law, took on role of chief coder, and has developed all the foundations for a top-notch system. However, things have got really busy here with the upcoming launch of Practical Participation – and time and money to develop TheGrantmaker further have dried up for now. So – I thought I'd drop a quick post here in case there was anyone interested in exploring ways to bring development back-to-life.

Right now, what I think is needed, is either some dedicated voluntary effort to turn TheGrantmaker into a high-quality open source product – or a business model that can support at least a couple more months of developer time to turn TheGrantmaker into a cost-effective product for Youth Opportunity Funds and other grantmaking groups.

If you think you might be able to help, drop me a line: tim@practicalparticipation.co.uk.