The funding landscape for non-profits, continuums of care, charities and affordable housing organizations is challenging. There are an incredible number of organizations whose aims and strategies align and all of them are competing for the same buckets of money. The shared missions of many of these organizations along with their overarching societal goal - to help those in need - makes the competitiveness of grants and donations all the more gut wrenching. Efficiency with grant funds and donations yields two very important benefits for an affordable housing organization. The first benefit is the increased effectiveness of the organization. In short, the more efficient and effective a non-profit organization is with its available resources, the more people they will help.

Secondly, efficiency along with the success that is likely to accompany it will serve to attract additional support for a non-profit organization. Potential donors and funding sources are already bought into the mission of affordable housing. Their challenge is in finding the organization they believe will make the best use of the resources they are gifting. An affordable housing organization that has a proven track record of producing results and has made big waves with even limited resources is an attractive place to invest resources. So, the question then becomes, how does an affordable housing organization become more efficient? This is where Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) become critical in the groups methods.