Oklahoma City Community Foundation
 
How to deal with decades worth of: meeting minutes, fund agreements, contribution records, grant files, agendas, newspaper clippings, pictures, etc., etc. etc....
In addition to space needed to store the paper we also had to consider that we had no off site backup of virtually all of the paper documents. And, what off site storage we did have wasn’t protected against fire, flood or other natural disasters. We hadn’t developed a comprehensive record retention policy for the foundation because we’d kept everything and now storage was running out. One option was to determine what needed to be copied, cataloged, and stored in paper form; the other was to implement a document image archive and retrieval system.
After being approached by a local imaging company who provided a generous donation of hardware and software, we decided the time was right to begin the transition to a document imaging system. The concept of imaging is straightforward. All that is needed is a scanner, document archive and retrieval software and a filing plan.
To get started, we first considered what documents we had, how they were being filed, what we wanted to store as images and who would be responsible. Our process consisted of sitting down with 4 or 5 key staff members and big pieces of paper over a series of meetings until we had what we wanted.
We discussed the pros and cons of our current paper filing system and what would happen if we adapted our imaging system to our current paper filing system, and how it would stand the test of time.
When we migrated to our current integrated software system, we were forced to develop some naming conventions that we did apply to the way our images are filed.
Don’t make the filing plan too complicated. Our vendor suggested 10 to 15 document types, e.g. minutes, fund agreements, contribution records, grant reports, agendas, etc. Otherwise, you need a legend in front of you to just decipher all the document coding.
In order to break up the enormous task of imaging decades of records, we focused on current information first and have worked to maintain information according to the plan. We are committed to archiving historical information and work on imaging and filing those documents as time allows.
- The most complicated part of the installation was developing the filing plan. Getting documents into the system is easy. Being able to locate and retrieve the document can be much harder if the filing plan is not well thought out. As a simple example, consider under which of the folders you would want to store meeting minutes:
- Minutes
- Meetings
- The committee name, OR
- The fund name
- Obtain a high-speed scanner that will handle multiple pages automatically. A flat bed scanner will probably not meet your needs.
- We chose to create TIFF formatted images. These provide a good quality image when printed and the file size is acceptable for large numbers of documents.
- Generally, the filing organization will follow your current paper file system, but this might be a good time to re-evaluate the current system.
- Most documents can be converted directly to TIFF format for archiving. However, you must consider how the documents are generated by your current operations.
For example, if you build one spreadsheet, with separate worksheets representing individual funds, you might not be able to go directly to individually named TIFF formatted files without separating the worksheets first.
- In order to get the most benefit from the software and for the staff to be the most efficient, the software needs to be available on all PC’s.
- Getting started is much easier than keeping going. It is at least as difficult, if not more so, to work the imaging process going forward into your operations than to image historical information. The process requires commitment by both management and staff.
- We believe we have reduced our on-site paper storage by approximately 25% and expect this number to continue to increase as we go through our historical information.
- The ability to send an email or fax directly from the imaging application will make providing copies to donors or agencies much easier. For those imaged documents that you want to potentially fax or email, you only want to image what you are willing to send out. For example, you wouldn’t want to include any pages of internal notes or confusing accounting printouts with your financial statements.
We were fortunate to have our system donated to us, but there are plenty of commercial products which can be purchased for reasonable prices. Some are even shareware that have demonstration versions available and cost less than $200.
Make sure you obtain a product that is scalable. This means that the product will be able to handle larger amounts of documents as you become more involved in the imaging process. Many products will allow you to start out with Microsoft Access then move up to Microsoft SQL Server when or if you outgrow Access.
Make sure you backup your document database often and store a copy off site.
For more information on this case study, contact one of the following people:
Carla Pickrell c.pickrell@occf.org Director of Administration
Leslie Griffith l.griffith@occf.org Comptroller
Mike Murphy m.murphy@occf.org M.I.S.
Do you have a technology success story that you'd like to share with other community foundations?
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