GrantBridge

A Back Road Creative product.

GrantBridge is a complete, ready-to-run grant-consulting practice — business plan, operating procedures, and a working software system — serving both sides of the grant table: funders (foundations, government agencies, corporate giving programs) and recipients (nonprofits, municipalities, universities, tribal organizations, small businesses), across the full lifecycle from Pre-Award to Post-Closeout. Most consultancies work one side; grant handoffs fall between two advisors who never talk. GrantBridge closes that gap with one seven-stage lifecycle, one system of record, rate-card pricing with no contingency fees, and hard conflict-of-interest discipline — with 21 services, 8 operations documents, and a 214-test working application in the box.

The full 30-second pitch, with sourced numbers: PITCH.md.

Start here — guided reading order

1. The pitch — 30 seconds: who it's for, the problem, why it wins, headline numbers.
2. Executive summary — the whole business in two pages.
3. Business plan — the anchor document: the dual-sided model, conflict-of-interest policy, and operating model.
4. Services catalog and pricing model — what GrantBridge sells at every lifecycle stage, on both sides, and what it charges.
5. System overview — the GrantBridge System: what the included application does and who uses it.
6. Live demo — a scripted 5-minute click-path with talking points: run the system locally, then follow DEMO.md.

Map of everything

Area	Start here	Contents
Business	business/business-plan.md	Plan (anchor), executive summary, market analysis, services catalog, pricing model, engagement terms (with a sample engagement letter), marketing & sales, org & staffing, risk plan, compliance framework, glossary (the single source of truth for all names)
Operations	operations/operations-manual.md	The SOP index: client onboarding, funder-side + recipient-side lifecycle SOPs, reporting & deliverables, document management, quality assurance, closeout
System design	system-docs/system-overview.md	Requirements, architecture, data model, process automation map (SOP ↔ feature traceability), roles & permissions, forms catalog, reports catalog
Using the system	system-docs/user-guide.md · system-docs/admin-guide.md	Task-oriented guides written from the running system
Verification	system-docs/test-plan-and-results.md	Test suite + the three end-to-end verification passes
Code	system/	Flask + SQLite application, seed data, tests

Internal build records (not customer collateral)

Working records from the engagement that produced this package — kept for traceability, not part of the customer-facing document set:

Area	Files	Contents
Build status	PROGRESS.md · DECISIONS.md · KNOWN-ISSUES.md · FINAL-REPORT.md	Phase log, decision log, residual gaps, final inventory

Packaging note: hand the package to a customer as an archive of the tree only — git archive --format=zip HEAD -o grantbridge.zip from the repo root — so the .git history stays out of the deliverable.

Single-file handout: python3 system/tools/build_export.py (needs the pinned markdown package from system/requirements.txt) bundles every document into one self-contained, offline system/dist/grantbridge-package.bundle.html with a table of contents and all cross-document links rewritten to work inside the file. Open it in any browser and print to PDF — no server, no internet, nothing else to install.

License: see LICENSE — the single authority on both the terms and the rights holder. This line restates neither on purpose, so there is no second copy to drift out of step with it. A customer's definitive rights in the package transfer via a signed engagement letter (engagement terms).

Running the GrantBridge System

Requirements: Python 3.10+ with venv, and network access once (for pip install flask pytest during setup). The app itself runs fully offline on http://127.0.0.1:5000.

cd system
bash setup.sh     # one-time: venv, dependencies, database init + demo seed
bash run.sh       # start -> http://127.0.0.1:5000

Other commands (from system/):

.venv/bin/python -m pytest tests/ -q    # run the automated test suite
bash setup.sh --reset-db                # recreate + reseed the demo database

Demo credentials (seed data)

Username	Password	Role	Sees
admin	admin-demo-1	Admin	Everything + Users + Audit Log
gmanager	manager-demo-1	Grant Manager	Whole portfolio; all forms & stage transitions
specialist	specialist-demo-1	Specialist	Whole portfolio; tasks, updates, documents, F2/F4
finance	finance-demo-1	Finance	Whole portfolio; F4/F5/F6, obligation edits
funderclient	funder-demo-1	Client-Funder	Harborlight Foundation records only
recipclient	recipient-demo-1	Client-Recipient	Riverbend Food Alliance records only

The seed creates 4 clients (2 funder-side, 2 recipient-side) and 6 grants spread across six of the seven lifecycle stages (Post-Closeout, the terminal stage, is reached by walking a grant through Closeout) — including overdue items on the Dashboard, a mid-reporting-cycle grant (RIVER-G02), and a grant in Closeout (HARBOR-G02) with visible gaps in its Closeout Package Summary (R5).

Where data lives

Everything is local: system/instance/grantbridge.sqlite3 (database), system/instance/uploads/ (uploaded documents). Back up by copying system/instance/. No cloud services, no external APIs, no telemetry; the server binds 127.0.0.1 only.