How Motorola Solutions evolved their grants program

Motorola focuses on giving back through strategic grants, employee volunteerism and other community investment initiatives, and their strategic grants program supports organizations that offer first responder programming and technology and engineering education. The Foundation is one of the many ways in which the company is helping to create safer communities. For more information on Motorola Solutions corporate and foundation giving, visit our website: www.motorolasolutions.com/foundation

The challenge

Given the important work their charitable partners do, Motorola recognized the need to improve the grant experience, including enhancing usability, and upgrading applications and reporting — but their legacy grant partner of 17 years couldn’t keep up with their evolving needs. They needed to build a relationship with a new partner without taking on too much administrative burden or causing a gap in their offering. Could the switch to Benevity’s Community Investment solution meet Motorola’s predetermined launch date while also seamlessly integrating 17 years' worth of historical data and institutional knowledge?

The solution

Clear a pathway for a smooth transition

It’s no easy feat moving almost two decades of information over to a new platform, which is why Benevity provided Motorola Solutions with structured implementation guidance, including all the necessary documentation and best practices. These resources gave Motorola everything they needed to come to Discovery sessions with questions and completed documents that would move the process forward smoothly. Benevity also created processes to ensure there was consolidated feedback among Motorola’s key stakeholders, and held regular check-ins to align on decisions that kept the schedule on track.

Focus on goals

To create the best experience for their grantees and partners, Motorola Solutions had a clear vision for what they needed their grant platform to be able to provide.

• Reduce applications from organizations outside of their focus areas.
• Automate custom reports to reduce internal administrative burden.
• Re-map and migrate 17 years' worth of historical granting data.
• Integrate with the Foundation’s bank to enable automatically-batched grant payments.

By keeping these priorities front and center, Benevity was able to get it right the first time, on deadline.

Stick to the timeline

Motorola also wanted to be able to offer employee giving and volunteering, in addition to their granting program. But with a hard launch date for their grants implementation, Benevity built a structured, sequential rollout plan, starting with launching the granting program followed by employee giving. The last piece of the puzzle was integrating the third-party banking partner, who Benevity’s team met with weekly to help navigate their process, resulting in a successful launch.

The result

Motorola Solutions Foundation’s switch from a legacy partner to Benevity’s Community Investment solution was a bold move for the brand, but the results speak for themselves:

• 40% increase in the number of organizations who started the application process — This led to increased grant applications and more efficiency.
• Better use of time and resources — The eligibility quiz resulted in a 43% reduction in the number of proposals ultimately submitted, which drove an overall improvement in proposal quality and made better use of the Foundation team’s time by ensuring stronger applicant alignment.
• Improved data and reporting — automated custom reports now save the Foundation team dozens of hours each year, enabling better storytelling and data-driven decision-making, which is critical for a Foundation committed to impact.

By leveraging Benevity’s expertise, Motorola Solutions Foundation didn’t just migrate systems — they evolved to Benevity’s Enterprise Impact Platform, which offers a comprehensive, integrated solution for corporate social responsibility by unifying giving, volunteering, grants management and employee mobilization into a secure management and disbursement platform.

As a program administrator at the Foundation put it, “It was the patience, thoughtful and methodical approach of our Benevity Sales and Implementation teams that helped us realize that a successful transition was not only possible – it was necessary for us to continue to grow and drive the impact that we wanted.”