PhilanTech, the D.C.-based small business that aims to reduce transaction costs for administering grants, is having an exciting quarter. Dahna Goldstein, founder and CEO of the company, was recently tapped for
MindShare, and PhilanTech itself was just named a "
Best for the World" company by the nonprofit
B Lab.
PhilanTech was founded in 2007 and was a beneficiary of the
Pipeline Fellowship out of New York. It is a certified B corporation, which indicates that it is committed to triple-bottom-line sustainability. For Goldstein, that starts with "empowering people to work more efficiently. Foundations make $47 billion in grants to nonprofits annually," she explains. "Thirteen percent of that is spent on administering those grants. That 13 percent amounts to $6 billion."
Goldstein thinks that foundations and nonprofits should be delivering services instead of pushing papers. So she created a platform, PhilanTrack, to make managing the grant application process easier for both sides. "We reconfigure the grant information we receive from foundations," she says. Doing so allows nonprofits to save their information on the platform and reuse it from grant to grant. "We're streamlining the process."
Services on PhilanTrack include sourcing grant opportunities, researching foundations, managing relationships, and storing documents. Some services are free and other incur a cost. Prices are set on a sliding scale based on the size of foundation or nonprofit. For example, a small nonprofit (under $250,000 annual budget) would pay $250 for a one-time set-up fee and $55 per month for licensing.
According to Goldstein, there are 1,600 organizations on the platform. Clients are national and "all over the place," she says. "Everytime we get a foundation on board, all of the nonprofits [it supports] come on board too."
Goldstein hopes that the connection to her MindShare peers will help PhilanTech grow. "I'm super excited," she exclaims. "It's an amazing group of CEOs. As a first-time CEO, I'm excited to learn from speakers and other CEOs in the program."