About
A grants database, built by the people using it.
Humane System is the parent organization. SDG Grants is one of its programs. The thread between them is software the social sector actually owns.
Mission
We're building the tools the social sector should have already had.
SDG Grants is one of the programs inside Humane System, a parent organization that builds member-supported software for the people working on the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The premise is simple. Foundations publish funding opportunities. Grant writers spend weeks finding them. Africa-based NGOs get priced out of the tools that should make this easier. We thought a curated database, priced for the organizations using it, would do more good than another search engine subscription.
We're self-hosted, self-funded, and we own our code and our data. No ads, no investor exit, no quarterly growth pressure pushing us to gate the database behind a sales call.
Who it's for
Three audiences. One database.
NGO leaders
Executive directors and program managers running thinly-resourced teams. They need to know what funding exists without burning a week of staff time per cycle.
Grant writers
Independent writers and in-house specialists who live in the search. They want filters that match how they actually think about a brief: SDG, region, language, purpose.
Global South organizations
NGOs across Africa, Latin America, and South-East Asia priced out of $100-a-month Western grant tools. The $6 tier exists because $5 was already a stretch.
How we work
Curation first, automation second.
We'd rather ship a database you can trust than one that grows fast and silently drifts.
A curated database, not a crawl
[NEEDS COPY: how-we-work curation card. Ana / Marc to describe the actual pre-publication review. Prior draft claimed 'reviewed by a human' + 'we do not surface dead links' — the second half is aspirational until Favour's cleanser ships.]
[NEEDS COPY: refresh cadence card title. 'Quarterly' is not the actual planned cadence — Favour's port targets a weekly cron. Ana / Marc to confirm final wording.]
[NEEDS COPY: refresh cadence card body. Ana / Marc to describe the real cadence once decided (weekly ARQ cron is planned but not shipped). Prior 'every three months' is not accurate.]
AI-assisted discovery is coming
Phase two adds AI for categorization and for pointing the system at a source: a foundation page, a LinkedIn post, an article. Drafts go in, a human approves, the grant lands in the database.
Manifesto
Software for the social sector should be owned by the people using it.
We're building on Postgres, open formats, and code we ship ourselves. If we ever go away, the data goes with you.