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State addition increases value of Grants Locator NCACC partner eCivis makes discounted early-bird subscription pricing available through July 31 A good match can be hard to find. Just ask any local government official who is tasked with locating a grant to help see through an under-funded project. Sometimes – after days of exhaustive research – grant researchers and writers must break the bad news to project managers: grant funding specific to our project doesn’t exist. Wouldn’t it have been easier to “just say no” at the beginning? No one likes to see hours of labor prove fruitless. That’s one way Grants Locator – a grants research tool produced by NCACC partner eCivis – can help make the most of a grant writer’s time. With Grants Locator, local government officials can set up project parameter guidelines in a few short minutes, then receive e-mail notification when potential matching grants become available. Grants Locator’s search agent e-mail notification system is one of several features that eCivis representatives showcased during a three-stop North Carolina tour in May. eCivis recently announced the addition of state grants to Grants Locator 3.0, which already includes federal and foundation grants information updated on a daily basis. eCivis will launch the state addition July 1 and has made special pricing available to interested local governments through July 31. Counties are already eligible to receive a discounted rate on the Grants Locator subscription service, as well as other services such as onsite training courses, through a partnership between eCivis and the NCACC.
Guilford County, an eCivis client since the inception of Grants Locator more than three years ago, has worked closely with eCivis on the product’s online interface. Coordinated Services Manager Beverly I. Williams said the county works so closely with Grants Locator client services associates and research associates that they almost seem like county employees. They certainly save county employees countless hours. According to eCivis, Grants Locator can double the speed of the application process. Using Grants Locator, county officials may be well into submitting an application versus still researching the grant under the old, manual process. eCivis employees spend 25,000 hours per year of research on grants, and speak to federal, foundation or state program officers about each grant. Staff also corrects 15 percent to 20 percent of grants that have errors or omissions. Grant descriptions and guidelines can stretch into documents hundreds of pages long. eCivis researchers sift through the fine print and mark up the grants “into something digestible.” eCivis has found that roughly half of the grant applications it reviews contain confusing or misleading statements. In addition to Guilford, nine North Carolina counties – Chatham, Currituck, Dare, Franklin, Harnett, Haywood, Hoke, Mecklenburg and Wayne – are currently eCivis clients. Guilford Deputy Manager David McNeill said that having the NCACC and League of Municipalities as partners to eCivis speaks to the quality and value Grants Locator offers. “You get phone calls all the time from people wanting to sell you something,” he said. “Having these two groups endorse the product opened the door to us for eCivis.” For more information, contact NCACC Director of Member Services Ed Wooters at (919) 715-0705 or ed.wooters@ncacc.org, or eCivis Regional Manager Nicole Haskins at (540) 921-3244 or nhaskins@ecivis.com.
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