Registered charity handles thousands of funding requests a year
Star has won the contract to install a SAP Business One system for the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, one of the UK’s largest independent grantmaking foundations.
The foundation is a registered charity that makes grants to organisations that aim to improve the quality of life for people and communities in the UK. Last year 1,948 eligible applications were made, of which 517 grants were awarded, totalling £29.6 million across four programmes: Arts and Heritage, Education, Environment, and Social Change: Enterprise and Independence.
As an endowed foundation, Esmée Fairbairn does not have to rely on continuous fund raising, benefiting instead from the return on investment of the foundation’s endowment fund which currently stands at around £825 million.
However, the trustees and staff are keenly aware of the need to maintain stability in the amount of money that is available for grantmaking including a tight control of the foundation’s operational costs.
Ron Clarke, Finance Director for Esmée Fairbairn Foundation commented: “We run a very effective grantmaking and support operation and the new SAP Business One business management system will provide an opportunity to improve our performance even further.”
As part of its drive for even better financial stewardship, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation’s reporting requirements have increased steadily, putting added pressure on the foundation’s Sage Line 50 accounting system. It became apparent that a significant upgrade was needed. So Ron Clarke and his colleagues undertook a thorough review, carrying out an in-depth evaluation over a six month period of a number of alternatives, including Exchequer and the Access Dimensions business accounting system, before deciding on SAP Business One.
“Of the three final contenders, SAP Business One had a distinct edge. I had associated SAP with expensive enterprise resource planning software aimed at big commercial organisations but during discussions with SAP reseller, Star Computers, we realised that SAP Business One promised big system benefits at an affordable price. We also liked the system’s flexibility, its extensive Microsoft SQL Server based reporting capabilities and the fact that it could be easily customised, without requiring deep technical knowledge and expertise. That SAP is a long-established, stable and well-respected name in business software was an added comfort factor,” Ron Clarke added.
The aim is to cut back on time consuming manual processes and streamline financial and management reporting. The system’s Microsoft SQL Server environment gives tremendous data interrogation and reporting facilities while SAP Business One’s data importing tools will enable integration with the foundation’s other business application software. This includes the GIFTS grantmaking package, which together with a number of Excel spreadsheets, is used to administer and monitor the grants process. Currently, information is transferred manually from GIFTS to the financial accounting system.
“We see the new system – which includes the financial accounting and ledgers, banking, HR and reporting modules – as a means of helping us to work better. The ultimate objective is to realise a cost effective and efficient means of supporting the underlying reason for Esmée Fairbairn Foundation’s existence – making grants to organisations which aim to improve the quality of life for people and communities in the UK, both now and in the future,” Ron Clarke concludes.
Star Computers Limited is working closely with Clarke and his colleagues to ensure a smooth transition to the new system, which is scheduled to go live at the start of Esmée Fairbairn Foundation’s new financial year in January 2007.
