The mission of the Illinois Arts Council is to build a strong, creative, and connected Illinois through the arts. They develop the state’s public arts policy, foster quality culturally-diverse programs, and approve grant expenditures. A small professional staff with in-depth knowledge of the arts develops and administers the agency’s programs, provides technical assistance and ensures the responsible and impactful distribution of all funds.
The Illinois Arts Council serves the people of Illinois through a variety of grants and services, primarily geared to:
- Support Illinois’ Arts Sector: Operating and technical support provided to organizations and programs statewide help keep Illinois’ arts sector vital, vibrant, and accessible to all.
- Advance Arts Education: The arts can be a part of the education of every single child in the state through the programs, services, partnerships, and collaborations of the Illinois Arts Council.
- Foster Creativity and Working Artists: Resources, opportunities, and direct support for the work of individual artists — the foundation of Illinois’ creative environment.
IAC Needed a Centralized Grants Management Platform
The Illinois Arts Council (IAC) struggled to manage grants awarded to their wide range of constituents, including individual artists, art organizations, educational institutions, government, and religious organizations, while also managing their grantee relationships, documentation, and communications. They needed a system that would allow their grants management staff to collect and report on each step of their grants process. With a portal, grantees and constituents could access and participate in grant opportunities; they’d be able to communicate and complete applications efficiently.
IAC began speaking with Provisio in 2018 to implement Salesforce. By 2020 they had the funding for Salesforce Experience Cloud as a grants management platform. Experience Cloud is Salesforce’s digital experience platform built on the Customer360 platform.
With Experience Cloud, IAC could quickly build their grantee and applicant portal to engage and digitize their business process to move more efficiently. Since all staff, grantees, and panelists, and constituents would be using this portal system, it needed to be easy to access and intuitive. This system would allow IAC to increase transparency throughout the grantmaking and awarding process. The system would also need to house their grant program criteria and requirements to reduce manual back-and-forth between staff and grantees. They needed a document generation, e-signature, and form builder for constituents to complete the application process. They also required an enhanced quality of data and reporting to track applicants and understand where their constituents were located to send awards and essential communications.
A Completely Revamped System
The Illinois Arts Council went live with their new system in December of 2020. With their Experience Cloud community portal, they can now view applicant information, notify applicants of deadlines and application status, be notified of any outstanding items, and see historical information on applicants and grantees. Their Experience Cloud portal allows for panelists to review and score applications, creating an easy way to effectively evaluate submissions. IAC can manage the entire grant process and communications within one centralized database, saving time, money and maintaining an efficient grants process. Using Formstack, they can build forms to collect panelist information and use for final reporting on submissions. With Formstack’s Doc Generation tool, they can utilize grant agreements and use E-signature technology to quickly sign their application agreements.
With Salesforce’s Experience Cloud IL Arts Council Can:
- Streamline the grant process for IAC staff, simplifying the ease of use
- Provide transparency for IAC’s grantmaking process for their staff, panelists, and current or prospective grantees
- Create more efficient workflows reducing the manual entry between staff and grantees
- Enhance reporting capabilities for IAC to make the best use of their information and data
- Customize their system to meet their their present needs with the flexibility to fit their organization’s needs over time
Provisio Provides Continuing Support
Following the completion of IAC’s Salesforce implementation, Provisio nurtured their technology journey with Managed Services, ensuring the new system continued to run smoothly. During this ongoing support, Provisio’s Salesforce experts also offered strategic advice to help IAC fully leverage the platform as the organization evolved.
In 2024, Provisio completed a secondary Salesforce implementation to help IAC further streamline its grants program. These solutions simplified their initial applications, reduced the total number of application types, and substituted reapplication with a yearly renewal process.
“Through both processes Provisio was a true thought partner with the IAC. We worked together to simplify and combine applications, revise criteria, and implement complex pathways within our platform. The work done created a more intuitive platform for our constituents and resulted in workflows that eased staff burden. The technical assistance, support, guidance, and problem-solving Provisio and Salesforce have provided on this journey has been instrumental in the IAC achieving the goal of better serving our constituents.”
-Jackie Banks-Mahlum, Director of Programs, IAC
Achieving More With Salesforce Experience Cloud
Through a steady partnership with Provisio, IAC implemented a flexible and fully customizable solution to more easily manage grants and communicate with grantees. IAC can now automate their grants process and engage with their staff and grantees better. In addition, applicants can follow an easy process through the Experience Cloud portal, allowing IAC to serve even more individuals within the Illinois Arts Sector.
Marjorie lives in Saint Louis, Missouri. She received her Master’s degree in English from Truman State University. Her responsibilities at Provisio Partners include content creation and technical writing.