Access 2000

Capital Area Food Bank

Strategic Technology Solutions recently designed a Grants Management system for the Capital Area Food Bank Development staff.

  • Organization Size — 40
  • Development Staff Size — 5
  • Background/Purpose — streamline grants planning, track program budgets and expenditures, direct mail campaigns, donor payments, matching funds, and gifts in kind
  • Current use of databases — prior to the design of the database system, the development staffed used a combination of Donor Quest, Excel and MS Word to store and produce reports on funders, activities, payments, programs and expenditures
  • Implementation and Design - 1 month was spent on requirement analysis, 3 months on database design, programming and development and 1 month on report design which was a very critical part of project.
  • Training — the Food Bank designated on key person (Grants Manager) who was trained on the operation and use of the database; in addition, we also provided technical training on Access 2000 and maintenance of the database system.
  • The Success of the Project — initial group meetings were helpful to understand the entire picture and as the project went on, designating one key person worked beautifully! The key contact quickly grasped the database concepts and clearly stated needs and requirements of the database. As a result of the new database system, the development staff now have more time to raise funds.
  • Challenges — move from a paper system to an automated system, convince staff this was the best way to go, and utilization of a database system to reduce a lot of the time spent putting together reports.
  • Long Range Plans — link other program areas to the Grants Management system by designing databases in Access; the different program areas would link program information, and expenditures to the Grants Management System.


 

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