By Akilah Massey, ASF
Most small foundations are very familiar with the concept of collaboration. It’s often the only way the work gets done. Without a large staff, communicating and working effectively with staff, board members, and advisors is vital.
Even if the need to work collaboratively is not new, there are many forms of technology – some new, some more established – that can allow you to use the power of the Web to work more collaboratively both with board members across the country and colleagues right in your office.
Imagine that you have a grantee who faxes a document to your office where it is copied and later sent to board members for review. Perhaps you can do away with the fax machine and use a fax-to-email service. These services provide your organization with a unique fax number you can use to receive faxes, convert them to PDF documents, and send them directly to your inbox. Then you can store the documents digitally and email them to interested parties within minutes – all while eliminating the need for additional paper. Some grants management software systems have this feature built right in.
Board portals are another tool that can make collaboration simpler. These were recently a popular topic on the ASF Discussion List, and it’s not hard to see why. They’re extremely secure and were created with geographically-dispersed boards in mind. Most board portals allow for central organization of important documents and enable individual board members to review board packets and even take notes online as they prepare for board meetings. Check the ASF Discussion List Archives to learn about ASF member experiences with board portals.
These are just a few ideas, and they may not be the right ones for your foundation. Maybe you’ve started using Skype to hold occasional virtual board meetings. Maybe you’re a little more technologically savvy and have jumped into using collaborative documents or a shared online workspace.
I’d love to hear your stories about how you’re using technology – big and small, simple and more complex – to move the work of your foundation online. What tools have worked well for you? What would you recommend to other small foundations?
Program Manager Akilah Massey works with ASF members and other partners on ASF local programs, small hosted gatherings around the country. She joined the staff of ASF in 2005 and enjoys talking to ASF members about the personal nature of small foundation philanthropy. Akilah is preparing a session on Technology Planning for small foundations, to be held at the 2012 National Conference.
Over the years our Foundation has tried to use several different web based grant application and tracking systems. Our first attempt was back in the late 1990s when we started using the now defunct Digital Footbridge. What we have found is that all of these web based grants programs (aimed at small foundations) suffer from one common problem: lack of an easy to use, intuitive user interface (UI). The program we currently use also suffers from this problem. If board members, staff, and even grantees use these web based grants programs on a regular basis and can learn the user interface by rote memorization, then there is little problem. Back in the day most people learned DOS this way. But being a small foundation that makes maybe 20 grants per year, board members, staff, and grantees do not interact with our grants program regularly enough to learn it by trial and error.
The web (especially web 2.0) has adopted many standard user interface conventions, those that can be found at web sites like Amazon.com or even Yahoo. Users expect these user interface conventions: they’re the ones web users encounter most often. When they don’t find them in other web based programs (like a grants program), they become frustrated and move on. We’re finding this to be true with the program we are currently using. Grantees will email us and ask, “Can’t we just email you our final report as an attachment?” I hate to force them to use our grants program. Even board members have asked, “I can’t remember the online review process, so can’t we just use printouts from the grants program and review grants at our meetings?” As a result, we have gone back to printed board meeting packets and reviewing grant requests at meetings as opposed to online. So, we do use a web based grants program but very little of it. When it works it does save time. Printing board meeting packets is fairly easy. But without an easy to use intuitive user interface, web based grant application and tracking systems are tough for a small foundation like ours. There’s no better time saver than a great UI or user interface. That’s why I use a Mac
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Frederick Leonhardt
President
FHL Foundation, Inc.
Albuquerque, NM
So true, Rick! Technology is only useful if everyone knows how to use it.
By the way, I use a Mac as my personal computer and a PC at work so I’m pretty familiar with how easy it is to get used to a certain user interface. I’ve often tried to use my hot corners on a PC.