DCSL GuideSmiths

WaterAid is an international charity with a vision of a world where everyone, everywhere has safe water, toilets and hygiene. Since 1981, it has helped millions of the world’s poorest and most marginalised people access these vital human rights, expanding into 35 countries across Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Central America. The charity is headquartered in London, UK.

Although WaterAid already had a system in place to manage large grants, its capabilities were limited and the charity had outgrown it. Managing funds of £30 million+ each year, and with 150 active grants on the go at any one time, as well as historical records to access and manage, the charity needed a more comprehensive and robust grant management system. In due course this will be integrated with other back-office systems. The new system needed to be intuitive to use and include a database; a way of managing restrictions, approvals and income; easy reporting; and storage for key documents. It needed to be accessible via intermittent Internet connections, and be usable in different languages.

DCSL developed the system using Microsoft ASP.NET MVC 5 and C#, underpinned by SQL Server, to create a functionally-rich system which also uses the Internet efficiently, without requiring a high-speed connection.

The new Restricted Income System is able to capture all of the details of a grant and the conditions attached to it, and follow it through to project completion. Previously, systems administrators would have to download data into Excel to produce reports manually, whereas the new system supports live reporting. This is boosted by the ability to filter and search, so users can get to the information they need in a few clicks – for example identifying all grants for a particular country.

Read the full case study on our website: https://www.dcsl.com/clients/water-aid/