2007 Grantmakers Information Technology Survey

Survey Goals

  • To enable grantmaking organizations to make more informed, timely and cost-effective decisions based on information about what peer organizations are doing, trends and future plans;
  • To determine, by grantmaker type and asset and staff size, grantmakers’ information technology capacity and needs;
  • To inform the sector about its technology utilization;
  • To learn how grantmakers access and provide information and
  • To enable TAG to better meet its members needs.

Survey Background

Once again the survey will be conducted using the online survey and benchmarking site. At the completion of the survey period, survey participantswill be able to do their own data analysis and comparisons using the benchmarking tool. The tool will allow you to create custom comparison groups based on survey demographicssuch as the foundation’s asset size, number of staff, number of technology staff and geographic region. Then, you can compare your foundation’s data to the responses of your peer group.

You will not be able to see the individual responses of any other foundation, with the following exception: GMN and TAG members who participate in the survey can view the names of the application software used by other foundations. Security and confidentiality is protected by requiring a minimum of eight foundations in any peer comparison group you create.

We will continue to provide a summary report of the survey for non-participants. However, the report will not include snapshots by foundation type and size, since this information will be available to participants through the benchmarking tool.

Directions

  • Please use 2011 data to complete the survey. (If your fiscal year is not a calendar year, enter data for the fiscal year ending in 2011.)
  • We anticipate your survey will take approximately 20 to 30 minutes to complete the survey.

Demographic Questions

  1. How manyemployees(full time equivalents) does your organization have? (Please include full-time, part-time and unpaid staff. If you are a corporate grantmaker, please indicate the number of employees in the corporate giving unit/department.)
  1. How many full timeequivalentsdoes your organization have in its information technology department? (You can include fractions, such as 1.25). Do not include consultants. If you are a corporate grantmaker, please indicate the number of such full time equivalent professionals in your company that are dedicated to serving you.)
  1. How many additional full timeequivalents have some responsibility for technology within your organizationt? (You can include fractions, such as 1.25). Do not include consultants. If you are a corporate grantmaker, please indicate the number of such full time equivalent professionals in your company that are dedicated to serving you.)
  1. How many consultants have some responsibility for technology within your organization? (You can include fractions).
    Note to Peerfocus: We would like to calculate the ratio of total staff to IT staff. When doing this, include the outsourced technology professionals & departmental technologists as part of the IT staff.
  2. What is your grantmaking organization’s type?

(1)Community Foundation

(2)Corporate Grantmaker

(3)Family Foundation

(4)Independent (Private) Foundation (does not include family foundations)
(5) Public Foundation

(5)Private Operating Only Foundation

  1. What were your organization’s assets as of 12/31/2009 (or your most recent fiscal year end)?
  2. How would you describe your organization’s technology adoption?

(1)Leading Edge/Early Adopter (makes decisions based on initial availability and vendor information, participates in beta trials or purchases within days of initial release, high risk tolerance and has resources to invest)

(2)Fast Follower (make decisions based on initial reviews, purchases when a first wave of positive reviews are available, tolerates risk)

(3)Lags Behind (makes decisions based on maturity of product offerings and looks at market share of products, purchases based on retaining a supportable/stable environment, risk adverse)

(4)In Trouble! (avoids decisions and delays until after support is no longer readily available, may be technology adverse)

  1. How many offices does your foundation have? (Incude domestic offices, international offices and home offices for employees working exclusively from home).
  1. Does your organization make grants outside the United States? Y/N
  1. How would you describe your foundation executives’ comfort and understanding of technology?
  2. Totally gets it
  3. Supportive but not very knowledgeable
  4. Indifferent
  5. Does not see the value/not a priority

Staffing Section

  1. How would you describe theprimaryrole of ITwith respect to the organization?

(1)Utility Provider – maintain minimal, low cost service

(2)Service Provider – deliver reliable, cost-effective and largely static set of IT services to the organization

(3)Strategic Partner – ability to respond quickly to changing user requirements and develop solutions and plans in close collaboration with business units

(4)Strategic Leader/Enabler – joint business-IT research and development initiatives lead to new and innovative technology solutions for implementing organization strategies.

  1. What are the roles and responsibilities of the IT function with the organization? (Check all that apply.)

(1)Network administration

(2)Network and information security

(3)Voice communications

(4)Research new technologies

(5)Participate in organizational strategic planning (1,3,5 yr)

(6)Assess non-IT staff needs and translate into technology recommendations

(7)Provide strategic technical assistance and advice to grantees

(8)Provide technical support to grantees and/or partner organizations

(9)Recommend solutions to grantees

(10)Review technology grant applications

(11)Share and disseminate knowledge with IT staff in other organizations

(12)Participate in nonprofit boards, committees and institutions

(13)Manage other office equipment (copiers, mail machine, etc)

(14)Ownership of internal web technology

(15)Ownership of external web sites

(16)Update website content

(17)Manage video conferencing

(18)Manage audio-visual equipment

(19)Mobile device support

(20)Social media support

  1. new question For each IT position in your organization, please indicate the average salary and tenure for the position. If you don’t have dedicated IT staff, indicate the information for the person responsible for managing the IT function.

(1)Chief Technology/Information Officer

(2)IT/Technology Director

(3)Webmaster/Web Administrator

(4)System/Network Administrator

(5)Database Administrator

(6)Programmer

(7)Web Developer

(8)PC Tech/IT Support Staff

(9)Person responsible for managing IT function

Note to David –Need to explain confidentiality. for tenure, can we use ranges:

Less than 1 year

1-3 years

3-5 years

5-10 years

More than 10 years

  1. What motivates technology professionals in your organization to stay at the foundation? (Check all that apply)

(1)Strong social network

(2)Passionate about the mission

(3)Challenging work

(4)Salary and benefits

(5)Work/life balance

(6)Strong manager

(7)Good learning environment

  1. Who is the primary person responsible for your organization’s technology systems and support?

(1)In-house technical staff (full or part time)

(2)Finance/administrative staff

(3)Executive director/CEO

(4)Consultant

(5)Volunteer

(6)Other, please specify

  1. Who does the primary person responsible for the technology function report to in your organization?

(1)Executive director/CEO/President

(2)Finance

(3)Operations (Administration/Human Resources)

(4)Program

(5)Other, please specify

  1. new question How would you describe your current IT staffing condition?
  2. Inadequately staffed
  3. Adequately staffed
  4. Overstaffed
  1. What is the standard process for makingtechnology decisions within your organization?

(1)Technology staff, with manager’s approval

(2)Technology staff, with Executive or Board approval

(3)By a steering committee comprised of operations staff

(4)By a steering committee comprised of program and operations staff

(5)Based on a pre-approved Technology Plan

(6)Other

  1. How do your in-house information technology professionals receive technical training each year? (Check all that apply.)

(1)No IT staff

(2)No training for IT staff

(3)Off-site classes

(4)Certification classes (e.g., MCSE)

(5)Self-paced e-learning (web or computer-based)

(6)Webinars

(7)Attend a conference

  1. How do you provide foundation staff with technical training each year? (Check all that apply.)

(1)No training for foundation staff

(2)On-site/Off-site classes via outside trainer

(3)On-site classes via internal IT department

(4)Self-paced e-learning (web or computer-based)

(5)Webinars

(6)Attend a conference

Technology Management and Spending Section

  1. To what extent are new technologies (i.e.consumer devices, social media, cloud computing, mobile devices and applications, etc.) causing a paradigm shift in your organization with respect to the following: (rank by 0 = no change, 1 = some change, 2 = transforming)

(1)Leadership and vision

(2)Communicating and working externally with grantees and constituents

(3)Internal operations and management

  1. re-worded What are the current barriers (if any) that prevent your organization from using or making effective use of new technology(i.e. consumer devices, social media, cloud computing, mobile devices and applications, etc.) (Check all that apply.)

(1)No current barriers

(2)Cost

(3)Lack of in-house support

(4)Lack of training

(5)Lack of leadership

(6)Unreliable external support

(7)Inadequate equipment

(8)Lack of organizational commitment

(9)Systems that are either proprietary and/or don’t adhere to industry standards

(10)Difficulty in making informed decisions

(11)Security

(12)Not considered by management as appropriate for foundation business purposes

(13)Lack of organizational policy

(14)Lack of Management’s understanding of benefits/risks of new technology

(15)Other

  1. To what extent is your foundation’s technology operation still impacted by the economic downturn
  2. More than recovered
  3. Fully recovered
  4. Somewhat recovered
  5. Mostly recovered
  6. Not recovered
  7. Please enter your total annual technology budget. If you capitalize hardware and software, please enter the actual amount spent for each line item (versus the amount depreciated each year).

Salaries & benefits
Staff training
Staff travel & meeting expenses
Hardware purchases
Software purchases
Hosted software or cloud services
Project consulting fees & expenses
Consulting fees for maintenance & support
Maintenance/Support fees & contracts
Warranty and license fees
Telecommunications Internet hosting fees
Telecommunications/mobile device equipment purchases
AV/Videoconferencing equipment purchases
Supplies
Miscellaneous
Total / (calculated)
  1. What is your organization’s total annual non-program budget? For private foundations, enter column d line 24 on your 2011 990PF. For community foundations, use part 9 column b line 25 from your 2011 990.Note to Peerfocus: Calculate percentage of IT budget to annual non-program budget.
  1. Which of the following policies has your organization published and disseminated to all staff? (Check all that apply).

(1)No expectation of privacy – all data can be viewed by management and disclosed to law enforcement or other third parties

(2)Information protection (e.g., personal information, ids, passwords, credit card and account numbers)

(3)Public representation of the foundation on the Internet (e.g. social media, discussion groups, chat groups, blogs)

(4)Installing and/or using unapproved, unlicensed and/or unsupported software

(5)Protection and security of hardware

(6)Reporting security breaches and suspected problems

(7)Personal use of computers (e.g. e-mail, Web browsing, political activism, business)

(8)Personal use of telephones for long distance calls

(9)Requirement for all data to be stored and backed up to network drives

(10)Limits on the size of e-mail and personal network folders

(11)Prohibition on downloading specified file types (e.g. EXE files)

(12)Non-business related use of streaming audio and video

(13)File deletion and archiving

(14)No outside equipment on foundation network

(15)Distribution and service cost policy for Smartphones

(16)Distribution policy for laptops

(17). Distribution and service cost policy for tablet devices

(18)

(19)Social Media

  1. How do you currently staffand what are your plans for the next 18 months for the following technical services? Check all that apply.

With In-House Employees / Partially Outsourced / Fully Outsourced / N/A / Planning to Outsource in the next 18 months
Desktop support
LAN administration
WAN administration
Web hosting
E-mail
Application software hosting
Database administration
Server administration
Security
Back office/check processing operations
Intranet hosting
Voice/telecommunication systems
Videoconferencing
Audio-Visual equipment
Mobile device administration
Business continuity/disaster recovery administration
Virtual descktop administration

David - Move the above question to the staffing section.

  1. How do you measure the success of your technology projects? (Check all that apply).

(1)In-house staff surveys

(2)Routinely analyze web and/or email statistics

(3)Calculate return on investment

(4)Compare project budgets to actual costs

(5)Survey grantees and/or constituents

(6)Assess relationship between strategic plan progress and technology projects

(7)Other

(8)We haven’t done this so far

(9)Post-project implementation review

  1. What are the top three technology challengesthat you see coming but are not currently prepared to address?
  1. Respondents to the 2010 IT survey identified the following issues as priority challenges. Has your organization addressed any of these issues in the last two years? (Check all that apply)

(1)Online grantmaking/online donor services

(2)Social media/social networking

(3)Cloud computing

(4)Document/records management

(5)Security

(6)

(7)

  1. Do you have a written strategic plan for technology?

(1)Yes – our plan has been updated within the last year

(2)Yes – but our plan has not been updated within the last year

(3)No

  1. How frequently does your organization have independent technology audits by outside auditors?

(1)Never

(2)Annually

(3)Every other year

(4)No set Schedule

(5)We would like to conduct one but don’t know where and how to arrange for one

  1. What plans do you have for business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR)? (Check all that apply)

(1)Nothing

(2)Documented but not up-to-date disaster recovery plan

(3)Documented up-to-date disaster recovery plan

(4)Documented and tested disaster recovery plan as part of organization’s business continuity plan

(5)Contract with a hot or cold site

(6)Contract for email continuity service

(7)Real time off-site replication

(8)Informal agreement with another organization/location

(9)Remote access to BC/DR site

Application Software (Enterprise)

  1. Which office application suite(s) are currently being used regularly? (Check all that apply)
    (1) Microsoft Office 2010

(2)Microsoft Office 2007
(3) Microsoft Office 2003

(4) Google Applications (e.g. Gmail, Google Doc, Google Spreadsheet, Google Calendar)

(5) Microsoft 365 (online)

6OpenOffice
(7) Sun StarOffice
(8) Other

  1. What is the primary accounting software or service that your organization uses?

(1)Blackbaud Financial Edge

(2)Blackbaud FundWare

(3)MicroEdge FIMS

(4)MicroEdge FoundationPower

(5)Microsoft Dynamics GP(Great Plains)

(6)Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Navision)

(7)Sage MIP Fund Accounting

(8)Oracle Financials

(9)Peachtree by Sage

(10)Intuit Quickbooks

(11)Quicken

(12)Sage Accpac ERP

(13)SAP

(14)Serenic Navigator

(15)Stellar Technology Solutions iPhi Core Enterprise

(16)Financial Force

(17)NetSuite

(18)Intuit Quickbooks Online

(19)Lawson Accounting

(20)Other

(21)None at this time

  1. What is the primary grants management software or service that your organization uses?

(1)Altum EasyGrants

(2)Altum proposalCENTRAL

(3)Bromelkamp Akoya

(4)Bromelkamp Akoya

(5)ChesterCAP Dotche

(6)CloserWare Grantmaker

(7)CyberGrants

(8)Dulles Technology Partners WebGrants

(9)Foundant Technologies Grant Lifecycle Manager (GLM)

(10)Foundation Source

(11)Fusion Labs GrantedGE

(12)Good Done Great Grant Management System

(13)Grantium G3

(14)GrantStream GrantRight

(15)JK Group Grants Management

(16)MicroEdge GIFTS

(17)MicroEdge GIFTS Online

(18)MicroEdgeFIMS

(19)MicroEdge FoundationPower

(20)Oceanpeak Common Grant Application

(21)NPower Foundation Connect

(22)PhilanTech PhilanTrack

(23)SmartSimple GMS

(24)Solpath Fluxx

(25)Stellar Technology Solutions iPhi

(26)WESTAF GrantsOnline

(27)WizeHive Grant Manager

(28)Zoomgrants

(29)Other commercial

(30)Custom developed in-house

(31)None at this time

(32)Planned within the next 18 months

  1. What is the primary online grant application software or service that your organization uses?

(1)Altum EasyGrants

(2)Altum proposalCENTRAL

(3)Bromelkamp eGrant.net

(4)OceanPeak Common Grant Application

(5)CyberGrantsDulles Technology Partners WebGrants

(6)Foundant Technologies Grant Lifecycle Manager (GLM)

(7)Good Done Great Grant Management System

(8)Fusion Labs GrantedGEJK Group eGrant

(9)MicroEdge Internet Grant Application Module (IGAM)

(10)NPower Foundation Connect

(11)PhilanTech PhilanTrack

(12)SmartSimple GMS 365

(13)Solpath Fluxx

(14)Other Commercial

(15)Custom developed in-house

(16)None at this time

(17)Planned within the next 18 months

  1. Has your foundation’s grantmaking software changed since 2010 or are you planning to change your grantmaking software vendor within the next 18 months?
  2. No change since last survey
  3. Yes, changed since last survey
  4. Plan to change within 18 months
  5. What are yourthreehighest priority improvements or enhancements to your grants/gifts management system?
  6. Access to the system via iPads
  7. Online grant application
  8. Online donor portal
  9. Move to the cloud
  10. ACH or EFT payments
  11. CRM
  12. Data export to free mapping services
  13. Electronic signatures
  14. Online grantee reporting
  15. Branching grant eligibility quiz
  16. Electronic workflow
  17. Document/records management
  18. Integration to other software
  19. Reporting
  20. Dashboards
  21. Measuring grant outcomes
  22. Automated OFAC checking
  23. Automated charity checking
  24. Other, please specify
  25. What is the primary document/records management software that your organization uses?

(1)CA Record Manager

(2)EMC Documentum

(3)IBM FileNet

(4)HP TRIM

(5)IronMountain Accutrac

(6)Autonomy Interwoven

(7)Laserfiche

(8)Microsoft SharePoint

(9)OnBase

(10)Oracle Universal Content Management

(11)Open Text Vignette

(12)PaperSave

(13)Stellant

(14)XeroxDocuShare

(15)Other Commercial

(16)None at this time

(17)Planned within the next 18 months

  1. What is the primary Patriot Act/OFAC verification software that your organization uses?

(1)Attus OFAC Watchdog