Question
I run a fundraising consultancy focused on grantwriting for nonprofits.
I am exploring project management software that my team can use to manage all of our deadlines for all of our clients (and potentially to foster collaboration between my contractors, who don't see each other). Below are the resources that my assistant has identified.
Do you have experience with any of these? Or do you have any recommendations for services that we might use?
Thanks in advance for anything that you can offer!
In partnership,
Jeremy Gregg
Managing Director
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I have been looking at a few options in hopes of finding one that could track where we are in the grant writing process as well as the variables that you may need for managing your contractor and Alex may appreciate for billing. And of wanting to keep it budget friendly too!
Each of these offer opportunities for group collaboration, interact with other software (like DropBox or Google Docs), are pretty user friendly and have free trials. As I am not sure the full scope of what we wish to do included my favorites below. I also noted cost. For some I think that we could consolidate users by doing a Last Pass or Dashline share but I also am not sure if that would allow for the full scope of accountability.
In alphabetical order - need your thoughts on what is priority in order to determine a "best fit".
BaseCamp - https://basecamp.com/
$29 per month (internal) and $79 per month with client share.
To Do lists
Message boards
Online Chat (and pings for individual conversations)
File storage and organization
Scheduling
Automatic checkins
Notifications
Reporting
Project Manager - https://www.projectmanager.com/
$20 per month for team of 10 with client logins
Task Management
Charts
Time Sheets
Workload Tracking
Calendars
Gantt Charts
Online Chat
Smartsheet - https://www.smartsheet.com/
$10 per month basic plan or $15 per month per person for teams of 3 or more.
File Sharing
Alerts & Reminders
Gantt Charts
Calendars
Reporting
Resource Management
Please let me know your thoughts. There are others out there but these seemed to have the best features for the value.
Answer
Hi Jeremy.
I understood your need in a better detail when I went to greggpartners.com; at first, there are several options, the best one will depend on the internal experience your people have; If there is someone or more team mates knowing the same platform, it will give you learning curve leverage.
Nonetheless, assuming you have solved the stage above, as per my consultant experience; some conversations with colleagues and the answers you have received, JIRA, Trello y Basecamp are user friendly, easy setting up and have the right tools to track schedules, tasks and deadlines.
All of them have very good teams working on improvements: particularly, Atlassian the guys behind JIRA are always innovating and releasing new features focused not only on IT but in cosultancy.
Make the best choice. Take care!
