# Outcome tracking and funder reports for small charities

Outcome tracking and funder reports for small charities is a SaaS idea for managers of small charities running regular sessions, funded by several grants, priced to test at $39 a month per charity. Each funder wants different numbers, so staff dig through sign-in sheets and spreadsheets at every report deadline. With it, staff and volunteers record sessions, attendance and before-and-after answers, and each funder’s report comes from the same records.

_Published 19 Oct 2026. A starting point we wrote, not market research: run the 7-day test before you build._

## What problem does it solve?

Each funder wants different numbers, so staff dig through sign-in sheets and spreadsheets at every report deadline. Outcomes are guessed or missing, which puts the next grant at risk.

**Why now:** Funders ask for evidence of change, not just headcounts, and case management systems are too big and costly for small teams.

## What do they use today?

Most small charities tick names on paper registers, keep a separate spreadsheet for each project, and copy figures from last year’s report into the new one. Outcomes are mostly remembered or written up as stories.

## How does it work?

At each session a volunteer records who attended, using participant records that show whether consent has been noted. Staff record a few short before-and-after answers for each participant at the start and end of a programme. When a funder’s deadline arrives, the manager picks the funder and a date range and gets a report ready to paste, plus an export for the annual report.

## What goes in the first version?

- Sessions and attendance recorded on the day
- Participant records with consent noted
- Short before-and-after questions for each programme
- Reports per funder and date range, ready to paste
- An export for the annual report

## Who pays, and how much?

- **Who pays:** Managers of small charities running regular sessions, funded by several grants
- **Price to test:** $39 a month per charity

A charity buys tools for the whole team, so a flat monthly price per charity avoids the question of who needs a seat. Volunteers change often, and the price stays the same when they do.

## How to test it in 7 days

1. Ask five small charity managers what their last funder report asked for and how long it took.
2. Collect three funders’ monitoring forms and list the figures each one asks for.
3. Offer one charity a free report for its next deadline, built from its own sheets.

## Where to find the first customers

- Charity manager groups on LinkedIn and Facebook
- Funders that run training for the charities they fund
- Bid writers and impact consultants who work with charities

## What are the risks?

- Participant data can be sensitive, so consent and access rules matter from day one.
- Every funder asks different questions, so reports must be flexible without becoming complex.

## How to build it on shipanysaas

4 of the parts it needs are already in the kit. Get the kit, open it in Claude Code, Codex or Cursor, and paste the starting prompt.

**Already in the kit:** Sign-in, Teams and roles, Billing, Emails

**You build:**

- Session and attendance records
- Before-and-after questions per programme
- Report builder per funder

[Get the kit](https://www.shipanysaas.com/pricing)

### The starting prompt

```text
You are in a fresh copy of the shipanysaas starter kit, a pnpm and Turborepo monorepo: the Next.js web app is in apps/web and the Supabase database, with its migrations, in apps/web/supabase. Help me build the first version of Outcome tracking and funder reports for small charities.

Read AGENTS.md first, then the AGENTS.md in every folder you work in: the kit's rules there win over your defaults. When a skill in .agents/skills (also in .claude/skills and .cursor/skills) matches a task, use it.

## The product
- What it does: Staff and volunteers record sessions, attendance and before-and-after answers, and each funder’s report comes from the same records.
- Who pays: Managers of small charities running regular sessions, funded by several grants
- Their problem: Each funder wants different numbers, so staff dig through sign-in sheets and spreadsheets at every report deadline. Outcomes are guessed or missing, which puts the next grant at risk.
- Price to test: $39 a month per charity (a plan in apps/web/config/billing.config.ts)

## Build only this first version
1. Sessions and attendance recorded on the day
2. Participant records with consent noted
3. Short before-and-after questions for each programme
4. Reports per funder and date range, ready to paste
5. An export for the annual report

## Already in the kit: reuse it, never rebuild it
- Sign-in: email and password or Google, plus magic links and passkeys you can switch on
- Teams and roles: team accounts with members, roles and invitations
- Billing: Stripe or Lemon Squeezy subscriptions, per seat or usage-based, and one-off payments
- Emails: transactional email through Resend or Nodemailer

## New code it needs
- Session and attendance records
- Before-and-after questions per programme
- Report builder per funder

## How to work
1. Plan first: list the database tables (with row-level security, so each team only sees its own rows), the pages and the server actions for the first feature. Then stop and wait for my OK.
2. Build one feature at a time with the kit's own UI and form components, with a migration for every schema change and user-facing text in the translation files.
3. After each feature, run the verification steps in AGENTS.md, fix what they find, and tell me what you built and what comes next.

## Rules
- Ask me before you add a dependency, delete a file, or change sign-in, billing or the admin panel.
- Leave the parts of the kit this product doesn't use as they are.

Done when every first-version feature works for a signed-in team and the AGENTS.md checks pass.
```

### Guides for the parts it uses

- [How to add Stripe embedded checkout to a Next.js + Supabase app](https://www.shipanysaas.com/blog/nextjs-supabase-stripe-embedded-checkout)
- [Multi-tenant SaaS architecture: teams, roles and invitations done right](https://www.shipanysaas.com/blog/multi-tenant-saas-teams-roles-invitations)
- [How to add Resend email to a Next.js + Supabase app](https://www.shipanysaas.com/blog/nextjs-supabase-resend-email)

## More ideas: Nonprofits

- [Grant applications and trustee scoring for small foundations](https://www.shipanysaas.com/saas-ideas/foundation-grant-applications): Small foundations take applications through one online form, and trustees read, score and decide in one place.
- [Member votes and committee elections for associations](https://www.shipanysaas.com/saas-ideas/association-member-votes): Associations and clubs run annual meeting votes and committee elections online, with one vote per member and a trusted count.
- [CPD records and audits for professional bodies](https://www.shipanysaas.com/saas-ideas/professional-body-cpd-records): Members log their continuing professional development (CPD) with evidence, and the body checks a sample each year without chasing spreadsheets.

- [All SaaS ideas](https://www.shipanysaas.com/saas-ideas)
- [Try the free generator](https://www.shipanysaas.com/saas-ideas#generator)