Inside Foundant – the Blog
Where in the world...???
Thursday, May 17th, 2012
Blog Post by Shelby Nordhagen
Details
Over the past year or so we?ve met many Foundant clients all around the country at various industry conferences, training events and user groups. Since many of you that attended those events now have Foundant logo water bottles, we thought it might be fun to start a blog post here featuring the exotic (and even not so exotic) locations where one might see a Foundant logo water bottle as we all carry them along with us. So, I?ll start this blog with a recent Foundant bottle ?sighting? in the National Parks of Utah where myself, Daren Nordhagen and Kris Thorson vacationed. Your job is to add comments to this blog post and attach your photos with your Foundant water bottles. Don?t have a Foundant water bottle? Come see us at an event! :)
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Deep in the Heart of Texas... Learning and Networking
Thursday, April 05th, 2012
Blog Post by Erin Baird
It?s been a couple weeks now since I returned home from my trip to San Antonio, Texas to attend the Grants Managers Network (GMN) Conference. I?ve been attending these conferences for a couple of years now and always leave motivated to apply some of what I learned back at our foundation. In fact, it was at a GMN conference years ago that I first learned about online grant application products and was introduced to Foundant.
On Tuesday night of the conference, Daren Nordhagen (President) and Kris Thorsen (Client Services) of Foundant hosted a dinner for current and potential clients at Acenar on the Riverwalk. Over margaritas, guacamole and fajitas we shared product stories and had an opportunity to ask Foundant staff questions. It was a fun evening and a nice break from conference events. I left thankful for the opportunity to connect with fellow Foundant users and grant managers and learn more about upcoming Foundant events.
The GMN Conference is geared towards foundation staff who work with day to day grant process and are looking for ways to improve their systems. There is a good mix of theoretical and practical learning that goes on here. Session topics this year included nonprofit lifecycles, storytelling with data, preparing for an audit, cloud computing, building less burdensome applications, outcome reporting, grants management manuals, online board books, and international grantmaking. The conference is also a great opportunity to connect with others who are working in the field. There are usually several planned networking opportunities such an opening night reception, dinearounds, and roundtable discussions. If you work in a grants administration role regardless of the size of your foundation, I would strongly encourage you to look into learning more about Grants Managers Network (www.gmnetwork.org) and consider attending a conference in the future. Next year the conference will be March 18-20, 2012 in sunny St. Petersburg, Florida (my neck of the woods).
Doing good since 1831 - The Union Benevolent Association
Thursday, March 29th, 2012
Blog Post by Tiffany Maierle
Greetings!
I've been with Foundant for 5 months now and if there's one thing I've learned it's that we have amazing clients! Many of you have very interesting and wonderful stories that we don't want to keep to ourselves. So, each month we will choose a client to feature and share their story with the rest of the Foundant Community. This month, we've chosen The Union Benevolent Association which is one of the oldest charities in existence in the United States, dating back to 1831. I hope you enjoy the story of how they began and how they've evolved into the organization they are today.
If your organization has a great story, let me know, I'd love to feature you too! Send me an email at tiffany.maierle@foundant.com.
I can't wait to hear from you!
Tiffany Maierle
Client Communications Manager
877-297-0043 x157
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The Union Benevolent Association, the oldest Philadelphia charity in continuous existence and one of the oldest in the United States, was founded in 1831 and incorporated in 1837. Thus, it was one of the pioneers in the first great age of private charity in human history. Its purpose, as stated in the quaint language of the last century, was "the encouragement of industry, the suppression of pauperism, and the relief of suffering among the worthy poor."
Because of its venerable age - the Association is far older, for example, than the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross - it was available throughout most of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century to assist directly both the native poor and those who had fled Europe and the British Isles with the most meager of resources and who were trying to establish themselves in a large northern city. It was in a position to aid, among many others, some of the survivors of the devastating Irish famines of the eighteen-forties.
The Association was organized as a public trust to which contributions of money, clothing and fuel were solicited and distributions made to the poor through district committees. The distributions were based on the recommendations of agents and committees of volunteer Visitors who determined the specific needs of the poor in those districts. For more than a century, the Union Benevolent Association maintained a staff and provided direct relief to the poor in the form of food, fuel, and clothing. Coal stoves were lent to many families with the name of the Association embossed upon them. Both professional workers and volunteers carried out the mission of the Association.
By the middle of the twentieth century, the government; city, state and federal, had become more and more involved in all aspects of public assistance. It was no longer feasible for so small an organization to provide direct relief in a city of increasing size and complexity, nor was the staff able to investigate the large number of requests for aid from many different sources. As a result, the office of the Association was disbanded, and the Board of Managers began to provide grants only through established non-profit organizations of an educational, cultural, or especially charitable nature. This new approach, which has been in effect since 1957, has enabled the Board to operate efficiently and to identify areas of need largely unmet by government or by larger foundations.
To continue reading Union Benevolent's story, click here.
Clients, Conferences & Fun in Florida
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Blog Post by Daren Nordhagen
Details
What a difference a week makes?
Last Wednesday my wife Shelby and I were enjoying our last couple of hours of our two week Florida road trip on sunny South Beach in Miami. Today, I?m listening to and watching 30 mph hour winds blow rain and snow around our valley here in Bozeman, MT. We certainly pay a high scenery tax to live in this beautiful place!
We had a great time mixing business and pleasure during our time in Florida. The trip started with what?s become a yearly trip to the Florida Philanthropic Network?s annual conference in Orlando. I was able to host a great gathering of current customers (see picture #1 below) Erin Baird, Anne Douglas, Cherie Simmers and Ami Palmer. Also joining us was Sharon Wood from Johnson Scholarship Foundation who was not a customer at the time, but I?m thrilled to report that Sharon officially joined our customer list before I made it home to Montana.
Shelby and I spent most of the week following the FPN conference touring Florida on vacation. Elizabeth Frazier from our customer Tampa Bay Lightning Foundation (see picture #2 below) graciously hosted us in her suite for a game so I was able to satisfy my sports fix as we started the vacation. We were able to get in some hiking and canoeing in Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park before working our way through the Keys over several days. I think there was even one day over the course of the week where I didn?t respond to a single work e-mail!
We ended our trip in Miami for the Council on Foundation?s Family Philanthropy Conference (see picture #3 below) and enjoyed renewing relationships with long-time partners and customers as well as meeting many of our newer clients for the first time. We enjoyed connecting with clients from Ittleson Foundation, Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation, Mead Family Foundation, Merck Family Fund, The Jay & Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Colorado, The George B. Storer Foundation, The Russell Family Foundation, Island Foundation, Family Philanthropy Advisors, Carolyn Foundation and Marie C. & Joseph C. Wilson Foundation. We also enjoyed conecting with our partners from Association of Small Foundations, National Center on Family Philanthropy, Foundation Center, Strategic Philanthropy, GMA Foundations, Arabella Advisors and of course our contacts at Council on Foundations. Meeting our customers and hearing of your experiences with our software is one of the most rewarding things we do, so this was a great trip and it has me even more excited to hit the road again for the many users groups and conferences we have on our schedule over the coming weeks.
-Daren
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Meet Sammie Holzwarth, Marketing Intern
Friday, February 10th, 2012
Blog Post by Sammie Holzwarth
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I am currently a senior at Montana State University studying business finance and economics. It is a very exciting time in my life, and I look forward to the many adventures on the horizon. One of my newest adventures is my first job in the professional field here at Foundant. I look forward to making great relationships with the Foundant team, and their amazing clients while developing my own personal skills.
Being a born and raised Montanan I love the outdoors. I was raised in the prairie area of Southeastern Montana (Colstrip) so the mountains were my biggest draw in getting me to Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley. I enjoy downhill skiing, hiking, golfing, fly fishing, rafting, four wheeling, and have recently started getting into mountain biking. Being outside in the fresh air under the big sky is one of my favorite things. However, during the football season my Saturdays are reserved for MSU Bobcat Football. I?m very excited to start this new phase in my life ? working for Foundant!
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Celebrating Milestones and Planning for Bigger Things
Monday, January 30th, 2012
Blog Post by Daren Nordhagen
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Greetings everyone!
I hope 2012 is off to a great start for you all. We just finished a great celebration and planning meeting so I wanted to share a recap with the friends in our community.
Last weekend our entire team including families met at historic Chico Hot Springs for a dinner to celebrate the many achievements of the past year. It?s great to spend time with the group when we?re not under the pressures of our daily work routines and it?s great to meet or reacquaint ourselves with family members that we don?t see often enough. Things had been so hectic leading up to the meeting that I really hadn?t had a chance to review the attendee list and was shocked to see all of the extra seats in the room in comparison to last year?s event. It was a wild year of growth and achievement at Foundant and it?s easy to lose track of it all when you?re so close to the action. Some of the celebrated 2011 achievements include the launching of the online community where you?re reading this blog, execution of regional trainings and user group meetings all over the country, initial release of our new reporting functionality, transition of our hosting environment to RackSpace and the addition of 106 new customers. Wow, our amazing team accomplishes so much for such a small group!
Following our evening of celebration it was back to the grindstone as we worked through two long days of planning for 2012 and beyond. We tried a new planning method this year and are thankful to our friends at Leadership Outfitters for coaching the Foundant management team on this approach. Historically we have given each functional group in the company (sales/marketing, client services and software development) autonomy in defining their top priorities to align with a few top level goals. This year?s approach was an all-hands-on deck method where the entire team worked together to define specific action plans aligning with five major strategies/themes.
It was rewarding and exciting to see teamwork in action as we made difficult prioritization decisions and defined plans that will help Foundant better serve our customers. Action plans are still being fine-tuned but you?ll soon see execution along these themes and I?m confident you?ll like the results.
I want to thank you all for everything you did to make 2011 a great year at Foundant. We?re excited to work with you to make 2012 even better for us all!
-Daren
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