Well I'm glad that someone has finally found the courage and means to start an open source grants management system project! These folks have just launched and are focused on foundations and non-profits. (Their chosen technology stack -- PHP, MySQL, Linux -- matches that target market very well, too.)
I've offered to help these guys however I can and would certainly encourage you to do the same! There are very few COTS grants management packages focused on foundations/non-profits. Solpath could represent a neat solution for a whole bunch of cash-strapped grantors and grantees.
Perhaps you can help me out since I’m new to the grants management domain. Has there been any attempt at the federal or state levels to standardize data for granting information exchanges similar to what the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) is doing in the justice / homeland security arena? At a bare minimum, I'd be very interested in a DTD/XSD for the publication of grants announcements complying with the standards set forth by the Feds. Does anything like this exist?
Posted by: Thomas Beck | October 31, 2006 at 22:38
The standards that have been developed are available at Grants.gov. Technical information for applicants (http://www.grants.gov/agencies/applicant_information.jsp) and grantors (http://www.grants.gov/agencies/grantor_agency_information.jsp) are open and available. Take a look at those, and especially the system-to-system sections of those pages, and you'll find what you need!
What is your objective?
Posted by: Dave | November 01, 2006 at 17:12