The SmartSimple Blog

It’s hard to believe another year is almost over and we’re into the festive frenzy of the holiday season once again. While we all look forward to making merry with friends and family, we also like to make some time to share our good fortune with others. This season, SmartSimple has been collecting food, toiletries and winter accessories like hats and mitts for the Red Door Family Shelter . In this way, we could provide support to several families at once who need extra support at this time of year. The shelter provides temporary housing, counseling services, child care and a food bank to more than 500 families each year, including women fleeing from violence, those who have been evicted, refugees and young mothers who have nowhere else to turn. The Toronto team will also be volunteering at the Dovercourt Boys and Girls Club , packing food hampers to be distributed to less fortunate families in the community. Community Support for SmartSimple users during the Holida...

In an industry that’s been careful not to play political favourites, it’s not hard to guess who Silicon Valley will be voting for in 2016. With the exception of Peter Thiel, “The Donald” is scaring Silicon Valley leaders . A lot. It should be a good match. After all, Donald Trump is the poster-boy for capitalism and less government. And the new philanthropists from Silicon Valley (while reportedly much more generous with their wealth ) aren’t averse to the wages of capitalism. And frankly, they just want to be left alone to go about their business. But that’s where the similarity ends. Republican Party nominee Donald Trump (left) and Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton (right)  Silicon Valley unites against Trump Trump’s vocal anti-immigration stance is the prime reason he has the tech industry worried. In particular, his claim that the H1-B visas have to go has alarm bells ringing up and down the valley. It’s estimated that each H1-B salary offers a savings of $3...

Enter the term “trends in granting” into Google and you’ll get back 38,700,000 results. You’ll find a wide range of documents, including reports from well-respected organizations, blogs written by grantmakers, case studies and fact sheets. That’s a lot of information, and few have the time to sift through it all. Yet grantmakers need to keep up to date on the latest trends to learn what will be a short-term fad and what’s going to impact how they award funding in the future. How is the granting space changing? We did some digging ourselves and discovered three major topics of note that all revolve around the predominant theme of transparency in the granting industry. This is thanks to a range of factors, including the prevalence of smart technology and social media that has lead to the growing use of digital media to share outcomes. This topic is heavily influenced by the millennial generation moving into more senior, decision-making roles. We’re also seeing an increasing f...