The challenge
Our client is a major force in the global climate movement. It works like a venture capital firm for climate action. It raises money from leading philanthropists, then deploys that capital strategically through a portfolio of organisations working to move economies away from fossil fuels. That model puts grant-making at the centre of everything the funder does. Every dollar raised has to be tracked, allocated, reported and accounted for.
When we first met the funder in 2022, the organisation was running on tools from its early days. The core of its grant operations lived in an Airtable application, assembled by a capable team when the organisation was much smaller. It worked, but it was carrying a load it was never designed for. Every new hire added more manual handoffs. Information sat in systems that didn't talk to each other, and simple questions about active grants and reporting took too long to answer.
At the same time, the funder was growing quickly. Headcount was on its way from around 80 people to 300. Growth on that scale exposes every weak point in an organisation's operations. Onboarding, identity and access, HR, finance, CRM and file storage all have to scale together, and patching one tool at a time can't keep up.
The funder needed a technology partner who could keep the existing systems running, set a clear direction for the whole stack and then deliver it, all while the organisation kept doing its real work.
Our approach
Stabilise what was already running
We started by taking over maintenance of the no-code grant application. Keeping that system healthy bought the team breathing room and gave us a detailed understanding of how grants actually flowed through the organisation.
Build the strategy with the people who use it
Working side by side with the Global COO, we interviewed all 160 staff at the time. Those conversations showed where work was getting stuck, which tools duplicated effort and what each team needed. From there we set a technology strategy for the whole organisation.
Implement, integrate and build
We rolled out and connected the SaaS stack, including HiBob for people operations and HubSpot for relationships. We ran an ERP market scan and implementation, set up identity management and migrated files from Box to Google Drive. Where no product on the market fit, we built custom tools, led by a grant tracking platform designed around how the funder funds its partners.
The results
The partnership has now run across roughly 20 projects since 2022. The custom grant tracker we built and maintain has managed more than $150 million in grant transactions. That system sits at the centre of how the funder moves money to the organisations it backs, so its reliability matters to people well beyond the funder's own staff.
The wider transformation gave the funder an operating stack that grew with the organisation. As headcount rose from around 80 to 300, the people, CRM, identity and file systems were already connected, so each new hire joined a working environment instead of a patchwork. Operations tooling built on Make, Zapier, Stacker and Tray.io took repetitive work out of grants and fundraising, leaving the team more time for the strategy and relationships that drive its mission.
The funder also gained a long-term technology partner that understands its model. We know how a grant moves from commitment to payment to reporting, so new requests start from shared context instead of a fresh brief. That depth is why the relationship has continued for years and across so many projects.
The work has travelled, too. People in the funder's network have since brought us into new climate projects, which is the clearest signal we have that the work holds up.
“Lightning Products have been an amazing implementation partner. Our project was implemented on time and on budget. Their attention to detail, flexibility and values aligned approach gave our team confidence in the process and exceeded all our expectations.”
What this means for your business
If your organisation is growing faster than its systems, the problem rarely sits in one tool. It sits in the gaps between them. A piecemeal fix adds another product to manage. A strategy built from conversations with your own people shows which tools to keep, which to replace and where custom software earns its place.
We work best with organisations that move money, people or information at scale and can't afford for those flows to break: foundations, funders, non-profits and fast-growing businesses. Whether you need someone to stabilise what you have, set a direction for the whole stack or build the one system nothing on the market does, we start with a discovery session and a clear view of where your operations are losing time.
