About PhilanTech

History

In 2003, Dahna Goldstein was looking to make a difference. As a summer MBA associate at Ashoka, she started to research accountability in grant reporting, and learned that most foundations and venture philanthropies were collecting valuable data from grantees in inefficient ways, thereby wasting valuable grant money and resources that could be spent on program and service delivery.

With her background in educational technology, she saw an opportunity for an organization dedicated to enhancing efficiency in the social sector using technology.

PhilanTech was born.

The Center for Effective Philanthropy concluded that 13% of every foundation grant dollar is spent on grants administration. That means thirteen cents on every dollar granted - $4 billion annually - not being spent on service delivery. Dahna saw immediately the match between the need to create efficiencies in the grants administration process and PhilanTech's mission.

After receiving a grant from the Stewart Satter Social Entrepreneurship Fund at NYU Stern, Dahna set about creating the tool that is now PhilanTrack. With input from a broad range of foundations and nonprofits, through focus groups, questionnaires, and face-to-face meetings, the PhilanTech team has developed a product that fills a much anticipated need … a simple, well-organized, cost-effective way to do online what has previously been done laboriously and inefficiently on paper, and a method that is easy to both learn and implement.