Data sovereignty / Community accountability / Governance
FIRST NATIONSORGANISATIONS.
Funding decisions made for community have to be accountable to community, not only to a funder upstream. Backed keeps the governance record to the standard a board, a regulator and a members’ meeting each need, and holds the data in Australia under rules the organisation sets.
The status quo
HOW THIS RUNSTODAY
None of this is anyone’s fault. Each of these is a sensible response to a real constraint, and together they produce a record that cannot answer the question it will eventually be asked.
01
Registers kept apart
Member and beneficiary registers live apart from the funding record, so eligibility is checked by hand.
02
Two reports, one set of files
Reporting upward to the funder and outward to members are two separate exercises built from the same files.
03
Interests left in the minutes
Directors declare interests at the meeting, and the declaration lives in the minutes rather than in the system that grants the money.
04
Data on unseen infrastructure
Data about community sits on infrastructure nobody in the organisation chose or can see.
05
Knowledge that leaves with staff
A change of staff takes the working knowledge of the process with it.
06
One acquittal, two audiences
The acquittal a funder demands does not resemble the account a community meeting wants.
With Backed
WHAT CHANGESAND WHY
The same six pressure points, answered by the system rather than by somebody remembering. Each of these is a control, not a convention.
01
Registers beside the funding
Beneficiary and member registers sit alongside the funding record, so eligibility is a check the system makes.
02
One record, both reports
One record produces both accounts: the funder’s acquittal and the report that goes to the membership.
03
Interests enforced, not minuted
Director and assessor interests are declared in-system, per round, and enforced rather than minuted.
04
Data held in Australia
Data is held on Australian infrastructure, with the subprocessor list and retention rules stated plainly.
05
A handover is a login
The process is configuration, not knowledge in one person’s head. A handover is a login, not an apprenticeship.
06
The organisation’s own words
Terminology is substitutable throughout, so the system uses the organisation’s words rather than a vendor’s.
How it works
ONE AUDITABLEWORKFLOW
From round configuration through to the final accountability report.
Set the terms the organisation uses
Terminology substitution runs through every screen and every letter. If the organisation funds “projects” and reports to “members”, the system says that, including in the applicant portal and the generated documents.
Connect the register
Beneficiary and member registers are part of the record, so an eligibility rule can be “is a registered member” without a manual cross-check.
Take the declarations properly
Directors and assessors declare per round. In a community organisation, relationships are the norm rather than the exception, so the point is not to pretend there are none. It is to make each one declared, recorded and acted on the same way every time.
Decide with the board’s authority
Delegation limits and approval routes reflect the rule book and the board’s standing resolutions, and the reasoning is recorded against the application.
Account in both directions
Acquittal evidence collected once produces the funder’s report and the members’ report from the same source, in each audience’s own format.
Capabilities
What you get
- Beneficiary and member registers linked to the funding record
- Terminology substitution across screens, notifications and generated documents
- Interest declarations per round, enforced rather than noted
- Governance-grade audit trail: every action attributed and immutable
- Records held in Australia (AWS Sydney), aws-ap-southeast-2; some processing and mail delivery happen outside Australia, with the subprocessor list published
- Configurable retention and deletion, set by the organisation
- Role-based access so community data is visible only where it should be
- Reporting that produces the funder’s acquittal and the members’ account from one record
- Multi-programme administration where the organisation distributes several funding streams
- A localisation catalogue that is typed and complete, ready for a second language
Common questions
Before you ask
Who controls the data?
The organisation does. Data is held in Australia, retention and deletion rules are set by you rather than by us, the subprocessor list is published, and an export of your own data is available at any time in a format you can actually use.
Can the system use our own words?
Yes, and not only on the screens your staff see. Terminology substitution reaches the applicant portal, the email notifications and the merge fields in generated letters, so an applicant never sees a vendor’s vocabulary either.
Our directors are related to applicants. Is that a problem?
It is the normal case in a community organisation, and the system is built for it rather than against it. What matters is that the relationship is declared before assignment, that the declaration does something (removal of access) and that the record shows it happened the same way every round.
Does it support reporting to ORIC and to funders at once?
The record holds the fields both need. Build the extract once as a saved report and run it against any date range, rather than rebuilding it each reporting season.
What happens when our grants officer leaves?
The process is configuration held in the system, not knowledge held by a person. The new officer inherits the forms, the rules, the templates and the full history of every round already run.