How Alstom Foundation streamlines global partner selection with Optimy
Alstom Foundation
Created in 2007, the Alstom Foundation was established to improve the quality of life of communities living close to where Alstom operates. The Foundation supports projects worldwide focused on raising living standards across four pillars: economic and social development; environmental protection; access to energy and water; and access to mobility. Each year, the Foundation selects the most original and attractive employee-led project ideas — from improving farm commodity transportation in Vietnam to solar energy development for a children's village in Algeria.
founded: 2007 | scope: Global (communities near Alstom sites)
A global programme with no centralized partner selection process
Managing a worldwide grant programme where NGOs submit requests across different regions — with inconsistent information and no central repository — made it very difficult to select the best partners based on comparable, reliable data. The manual process was also costly, requiring a dedicated intern to manage submissions.
- No centralized repository for NGO requests — inconsistent responses across geographies
- Difficult to extract consistent summaries for comparative evaluation and reporting
- Required a dedicated intern to manage the submission process — adding cost and overhead
- Partner selection not fully data-driven — relied too heavily on incomplete, manual information
A central NGO repository — with consistent data, summaries, and data-driven selection
Adopting Optimy's grant management platform gave the Alstom Foundation a central repository where any NGO submitting a request follows clear guidelines. This consistency enabled the foundation to collect comparable responses, extract summaries for reports, and make data-driven partner decisions — while significantly reducing operational costs.
- Centralized NGO request repository: All organizations submitting requests follow the same structured guidelines — enabling consistent, comparable responses across all global geographies.
- Extractable summaries for reporting: Data submitted by project leaders exported as summaries used directly in further reports — standardizing the Foundation's decision documentation.
- Data-driven partner selection: Choosing the best project partners based on complete, correct, and comparable information — improving decision quality and strategic alignment.
- Eliminated the need for a dedicated intern: Process automation removed the need for a full-time intern to support submissions — delivering direct cost savings alongside efficiency gains.
More submissions, better decisions, and one less full-time role needed
Since adopting Optimy, the Alstom Foundation has seen a notable increase in the number of organizations submitting requests — the digital, accessible process lowered the barrier to entry. Selection quality improved, and operational costs dropped as the intern role was eliminated.
Founded in 2007
Supporting communities near Alstom operations worldwide
4 strategic pillars
Economic, environmental, energy/water, and mobility
More submissions
Digital process increased volume of NGO applications received
Eliminated intern cost
No longer needed — automation handles what staff once did manually
Before, we had to hire an intern to support the process, but now with the Optimy tool there is no need to have someone working on it full time.
Secretary-General — Alstom Foundation
Alstom Foundation centralized global NGO submissions into a single repository with consistent data — improving selection quality, increasing submission volume, and eliminating a full-time intern role.
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