• FEATURES
• |
• CASE STUDY
• |
• FAQ's

Arts Tasmania

1. The Challenge:

“For the past three decades, the State Government has supported Tasmanian artists by funding the Arts Grants and Loans program through Arts Tasmania. Government support, alongside growing interest from the private sector in partnering with the arts, has helped to build a lively arts community of which Tasmanians are justifiably proud.

The Art for Public Buildings Scheme has provided hundreds of commissions for Tasmanian artists. Ten Days on the Island has engaged communities across the State and lifted our international profile as an artistically creative and confident place.

But it is the Arts Grants and Loans Program which provides the energy, giving artists the capacity to experiment, be innovative, to take risks in their work and to tell the world about life on our creative island.”
Paula Wriedt MHA
Minister for Tourism, Arts and the Environment (2007)

Arts Tasmania grants and loans program include rock musicians to jazz performers, playwrights and poets, photographers and visual artists.  The challenge for Arts Tasmania was to substantially improve their capabilities to advance grants, loans and commissions and the investment decision making.  Arts Tasmania’s legacy grants systems were comprised of spreadsheets, word documents, multiple databases, etc, not allowing for collaboration or proper transparency.

2. The Solution:

Grants-Tracker has been successfully managing Arts Tasmania’s grants, loans and commissions processes since February 2005.  Grants-Tracker’s web interface makes it very user friendly. This ensures high levels of user acceptance as it has the same look, feel and features as a normal web browser – with which nearly everyone has had exposure. Grants-Tracker is a next generation component based business system, using web technologies.

Grants-Tracker integrated with existing spatial data sets to:

• Enhance visualization of grant information, through web based mapping.
• Enhance analysis of grants data through map based reporting.
• Help you identify and determine areas where referrals to other parties may be required by integrating with their spatial data sets.

3. Business Impact:

Grants-Tracker has replaced Arts Tasmania’s legacy systems and has brought them many business benefits, such as:

• Improvements in the accessibility of grants and loans history for Arts Tasmania staff to aid due diligence.
• Reduction in duplicated effort caused by the use of multiple databases.
• Support of the full life-cycle of a grant, from the initial application through to approval, payments and acquittal.
• Support for loan establishment and also the Arts for Public Building program, through recording of the agreed projects and commissions to artists.
• Enhanced reporting – allowing Arts Tasmania to easily produce a comprehensive set of reports.
• Better management and communication – allowing Arts Tasmania staff to manage policy and program initiatives more efficiently and ensure they are working to the best possible advantage. Being web-based, it allows information to be shared effectively, greatly improving communications within Arts Tasmania and to stakeholders.
• Grants-Tracker’s approach to grants management recognises that each grants program has its own workflow and data requirements. At the core of Grants-Tracker is a workflow engine allowing Arts Tasmania to configure the software to keep up with changing business requirements, policy, legislation changes, etc.