HI,

My name is Daniel Kertzner. I am a Program Coordinator for the Local Cultural Council (LCC) Program of the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC).

The MCC’s Local Cultural Council Program represents a vast network of talent, community resources and individual initiative that every year gives life to thousands of projects and programs in the arts, humanities and interpretive sciences throughout the Commonweatlh. The 335 LCCs receive a total of $4 million annually from the MCC to reallocate in support of community-based arts projects. This is the largest program of its kind in the U.S. Last year alone 7,000 grants were made, serving every municipality in the state. The LCC Program is volunteer-driven, with over 2,700 members serving statewide.

We are creating an online grants management system (possibly an intranet/possibly a portal) for these 335 local cultural councils. With this portal, LCCs will be able to access all of the information they will need to administer the LCC Program in an efficient and empowering way (including forms, grants management system, membership database, funding histories, technical assistance tools, etc.). It will also create opportunities for improved communication between LCCs, grant applicants, municipalities, and the MCC (via email, chat rooms, LCC-authored web pages, etc.).

We would like to include a "financial ledger" component within that system. (Something that would track spending and revenue, do automatic math functions, etc.) Do you know of any easy to use models out there we could use as inspiration?

Thanks much.

-- Daniel Kertzner (daniel.kertzner@art.state.ma.us), July 13, 2001