Company Overview
Private donations have always been important to the University of Oregon beginning in the 1870’s with a gift of $27,500 which was used to construct the University’s oldest building, Deady Hall. In 1922, the U of O Alumni Holding Company was created to specifically manage donations to the University.
Currently the University of Oregon Foundation, successor to the U of O Alumni Holding Company, is an independent, non-profit corporation managing over $500 million in assets. Its primary mission is to provide stable financial support for the University while preserving the purchasing power of endowment and trust funds in the future. Responsibilities include: receiving, investing, and distributing private gifts; funding student scholarships, faculty support, academic programs and financing building improvements.
Opportunity
The Foundation, including both a 20+ member staff and the Board of Trustees, requires frequent communication and collaboration between individuals and committees. Increasingly, communication needs have focused on how best to consolidate various functions and provide efficient delivery of essential documents. In addition, multiple levels of security are needed.
Solution
Partnering with ConcreteCMS, Swipht members worked with the Foundation to research, develop and design a customized solution. The solution was a flexible, centralized extranet that managed to incorporate the foundation’s existing processes without reinventing the wheel and incurring higher costs.
Results
Using Concrete’s development process, the Foundation received a standardized extranet that provided basic tools which all departments could use to document their existing processes. The bulk of the functionality revolves around a Windows Explorer-like “folder” manager. Folders contain summary information, but also an activity section where members can post comments, files, and even attach actions such as voting or acknowledging receipt of a document. This generalized solution lets any manager create a folder for a unique problem and then use the tools to document exactly what is needed.
The entire application sits behind a secure socket layer, and detailed statistics on actions gives Foundation staff the information they need to run a tight ship. A trustee directory provides instant access to important contacts, based on permission levels. An AJAX interface allows busy board members to choose their current address without leaving the page they’re on. Complete version control and a detailed user/group permission structure round out the basic functionality the Foundation needed to make the site dependable and successful.
Members can subscribe to folders using an “in-the-loop” function where any activity posts to the folder are forwarded to the member via email. When the member then replies to a message from their mail client, their reply is automatically archived on the folder, including any files they may have attached to the email.
Technologies
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