Funding Syndicate contributions have reached $3.5 million from 35 community foundations. This represents 88% of the funds needed for the $4 million Technology Initiative.

The Technology Steering Committee (TSC) Executive Committee, with input from the full TSC, has created procedures for closing this round of the FS on August 29. The document details the benefits to contributors of the TSC.  If your foundation is not ranked in the largest 50, this document also explains how you can participate in the Technology Steering Committee Funding Syndicate.

Online discussions to everyone in the loop on the Tech Initiative continue to be popular. A special briefing for CEOs was held July 21 and another will be in the fall.

Seamless Processing (Kit Conroy, NY Community Trust, chair)

The subcommittee has continued to refine proposals from two finalists. Part of this work included holding a market demand (or feedback) meeting in which nearly 15 community foundations provided input on the services they require as well as impressions about the finalists. This information will loop back into the subcommittee's deliberations on final proposals, which were due the last week of July. The subcommittee meets on August 4 for a final review of the proposals.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) (Noah Wasmer, East Bay CF, chair)

The CRM subcommittee will begin exploring three CRM vendors as a demonstration of "what is possible."   The demonstrations will be explicitly for subcommittee members, but will be used to simultaneously educate the contributing community foundations.  

The business requirements document is continuing to be refined and prioritized to maintain focus on the most critical business elements for community foundations.  Completed business requirements document are expected in a month, and at that point the subcommittee will also have a consolidated list of vendors to approach.

API and Development Standards (Greg McMillen, The Central Indiana CF, Tracy Peck, The Arizona CF, co-chairs)

This subcommittee's work has moved forward on a number of fronts in July, making significant headway. The subcommittee is working closely with MicroEdge/NPO on their initial API proposal to narrow the time line and cost estimates. Data coming from other TSC subcommittees is being factored into this process.

Brulant, a Cleveland-based consulting firm hired to define technology platform standards for all subcommittees, has begun its work with the subcommittee. They are providing a valuable second opinion on the MicroEdge/NPO API proposal. The subcommittee has also been gathering as much information as possible on existing business processes in an attempt to synthesis this information into a high level set of "baseline" business processes. Brulant is working on aggregating that data to understand how comprehensive it is.

Research and Education (Bill Solomon, The Dallas Foundation, chair)

Work is progressing on creation of a tech resource center Web site, in co-sponsorship with the Council on Foundations Technology Affinity Group (TAG) and Fiscal and Administrative Officers Group (FAOG). The FAOG Technology Committee, chaired by Carla Pickrell is working hard to develop content for the site in a number of subject areas.

Thanks go to FAOG committee members contributing to this effort: Mary Anne Dresler, Don Flower, Robert Fortgang, Chris Grecsek, Leslie Griffith, David Lindberg, Nicole Lomas, Steven Michalak, Michael Murphy, Craig Nuechterlein, Sharon Reiss, Bill, Solomon, Jackie Werner and Lisa Williams.

Web Presence (Tom Hay, Pittsburgh Foundation, chair)

As scheduled, this subcommittee filled out its roster of members and launched its work on July 21 with its first organizing meeting. Their first course of action is to review results of the CFA survey on Web site use in the field as a way to identify key issues and determine next steps. The subcommittee agreed that two guidelines set out in the original Tech Initiative proposal provide clear focus for their work:  1) help community foundations maximize use of existing technology (and, it is hoped, outline minimum standards for a Web site); 2) promote development and offering of shared Web content and shared Web functionality for the field.  Available survey data will be reviewed using these two lenses and examined at their August meeting.