Talk:Jason Ricci

From Silicon Valley Commons

Contents 1 References 2 Interview notes 3 Quotes from Solpath/blog 4 Follow-up Q&A

[edit] References

• Referred by Allen Gunn
• Solpath site, About Jason
• Solpath blog

[edit] Interview notes

• worked both sides, grants seekers and grant makers
• Solpath, open source alternative, grants management solution
• Solpath makes it easy to
  • collect proposals
  • administer the grants approval process
  • manage grants after approval
• Next steps
  • build software to help nonprofits manage the grants process
  • let both sides of the software talk to each other
• saw that lots of money gets lost from the nonprofit side
  • spend too much time tracking down grants
  • can tailor their proposal for each foundation – each foundation has different report requirements, although the data are essentially the same
  • foundations have different times due for reporting; nonprofits lose track, forget to follow-up, get late
  • free them up to do what they're really supposed to do
• competition
  • microedge
    • owns 85% of the market
    • windows based
    • expensive - program costs $200-400k
    • clunky old software, hard to modify
    • makes it hard for foundations to manage their grants
  • Arlington group
• Solpath will be free
  • Need $500k to build it
  • looking for 10 funding sponsors
  • will be test cases, so need a mix – community foundations, family foundations
  • analyze process, compare to others
  • make available to others, flexible enough for others
• open source benefits
  • free (“software should be free”)
  • they own the software, the data, can install wherever
• how make money afterwards? We don't
• started January 2007, after two years of thinking
• motive, long-term
  • get funding for other open source software for nonprofits; raise money for other good projects
  • get other software developers to open up their APIs
  • other good open source ideas? #1: usable content management system, better than drupal, joomla. Really easy for anybody to use. A different approach, treating it like a product. Designed, mapped, planned - not just a free for all

[edit] Quotes from Solpath/blog

• from Why is most open source software hard to use?: Regardless of “why” designers haven’t been involved in OSS development, it’s time for that to change. And I’m not talking about designing icons and buttons. I’m talking about user experience design - the way the software flows, the way information is displayed to the user, the way the user interacts with the software. This is where a lot of open source projects fall down. For a lot of these projects (the ones that target users outside the core “geek” demographic), it’s absolutely essential to make the user experience easy, pleasant, and above all intuitive. Projects like Drupal (and pretty much all open source CMS tools) are a perfect example of the problem. They have tons of great features, the code is beautiful, and they’re all almost impossible for the everyday person to use. If these projects are meant to make editing website content easy for folks with no html knowledge, why are they so complicated!
• from Project page
  • Our Mission: We believe software that is central to the mission of charitable organizations should be open-source solutions, developed by the community for the community. Our mission is to create, as a community, the non-profit sector's first open-source grants management software for tracking grant applications from initial request to fully funded and beyond. We're committed to providing an easy-to-use, open application framework that supports all major hardware platforms and operating systems, and effectively and intuitively serves grant giving and seeking organizations.
  • Who Benefits
    • Foundations and Grant Giving Organizations - Proprietary grants management software systems can cost upwards of $200,000 - a substantial investment, even for the largest organization. And because these software systems are proprietary, they're extremely difficult and expensive to customize to fit an organization's changing needs. Currently none of the leading software providers in the grants management software market deliver "open" systems - except for Solpath. By providing full and open access to our source code, organizations will be free to install and modify the software as they see fit.
    • Non-profit Technology Consultants - The non-profit sector already has an extremely dedicated network of tech-savvy consultants. By using open standards to build our software, this network of consultants will already have the prerequisite knowledge to install, customize, and provide ongoing support for our grants management system.
    • Grantees - By keeping costs low and simplifying management processes, grant making organizations will be able to direct more time and money to the people who need it most - grantees.
    • Funders - Whether funds come from an endowment, corporate giving department, or public donations, funders are always happiest when administrative costs are kept to a minimum and the maximum amount of their contribution goes directly to the cause.
  • What Will It Look Like
    • Online grantee services streamline communications between funders and grantees - apply for grants, track grant applications, and provide status reports
    • Powerful reporting features simplify creating donor statements, board review dockets, etc.
    • Intuitive fund management allows organizations to easily track funds coming in and going out
    • Automated grantee communications reduce repetitive tasks by generating letters and emails at key steps in the grants management process
    • Mobile access and synchronization with Palm, Windows Mobile, Blackberry devices
    • Runs on all major operating systems (Unix, Mac, Windows)
    • Open source, standards-based architecture allows large percentage of technology consultants to participate in system development, as well as perform client installations, customizations and support
    • Web-based architecture allows instant access to grantee data from anywhere
    • Plug-in technology and open APIs allows other developers and nonprofit technology consultants to add functionality and share it with the community
  • The "Hub" Concept: Whether you're a grant seeker or grant maker, managing the entire proposal process from end to end becomes a lot easier if everyone is on the same page, so to speak. Think of the Solpath Hub as an automated information exchange - a secure environment from which grant seekers can submit proposals in exactly the format grant makers require, without having to cut-and-paste proposal information from a variety of existing documents, and from which grant makers can automatically generate report reminders and letters without having to manually track these tasks and create personalized emails and other documents.
• from Philosophy page
  • Our Philosophy
    • Make it easy - Collaborative software only works when everybody uses it. And the only way to get everyone to use it is to make it intuitive and freely available.
    • Keep it simple - We very much believe in a "less is more" approach to user interface design. All screens should be uncluttered with the ability to get to any feature within three clicks.
    • Stay focused - We're building tools to make the grant making process easier for everybody involved. This one simple goal should always drive our features and functionality.
    • Play well with others - Our software should always be open for integration with other software.
  • Here's why we started this project.
    • Lack of options - Foundations have little choice when it comes to commercial software products. There are only a few major players in the grants management software space, with one company in particular dominating the market. This means less incentive to innovate, higher support costs, and expensive, proprietary systems that keep organizations locked into a single vendor.
    • Cost - The existing grants management solutions are very expensive - most likely because there's little competition, and because software providers know that the largest foundations have tons of money. But this leads to two major problems: First, only the richest foundations can afford these grants management software packages, leaving the smaller organizations with little to no options. Second, the more money foundations spend on administrative costs and overpriced software, the less money they have to give to the organizations that need it most.
    • Closed systems - For those foundations that do cough up the cash for a commercial solution, their options are limited when it comes to customizing the software to fit their specific needs. Since none of these products provide access to the source code, any customization must be performed by the vendor (often at exorbitant prices).

[edit] Follow-up Q&A

Jason, I need to deepen the background on your story, so when you get back from your vacation-addled state, please answer this one question: what brought you to this point (ie what was it in your family, childhood, education, work that's driven you to be who you are and do what you do today)? Easy, no?

Hmmmm....that's a tough question! I'll start with what led me to start Solpath, then you can let me know where you need more detail. You'll probably have to be relatively specific because I hate talking about myself.

Growing up I was always interested in "causes", but my first real introduction to the nonprofit world was when I moved to San Francisco with my wife (then girlfriend) about 10 years ago. I was interested in design and technology, she was interested in saving the world. I got a job as a design director, she got a job at a nonprofit. While working for several nonprofits, I saw what it took to get the funding they needed to pay their tiny salaries. It was crazy - the amount of time they spent begging for change from multi-billion dollar foundations was staggering. Then, once they received their funding, the amount of time they spent writing reports and conforming to each foundation's different criteria was equally ridiculous. It was so inefficient - I just couldn't believe how much time and money was wasted (on both sides of the fence). Then, Penny (my wife) made the switch from the nonprofit world to the foundation world and I got to see things from the other side. I actually began doing some consulting work with that foundation, and before long I was knee-deep in designing a system that would allow them to manage their grants. It was a mess - they had a system that was kludged together with multiple Filemaker databases, print-outs, email, checklists, clipboards, etc. The inefficiency was actually way worse on the Foundation side then on the nonprofit side - they didn't have to be efficient, they had a ton of money. While designing their grants system I did a bit of research to see what the options were for off-the-shelf grants management software. And, to my surprise, the options were limited, and the software was bad and expensive. I knew there had to be a better option, but I had no interest in starting a company to compete with these guys. So, after brainstorming on ways to inject some competition into the field of grants management software I decided not to pursue it. Fast forward four years, and here I am. After speaking with a friend of mine who's an IT director at a local Foundation, I came up with the concept of designing and building an open source system that would be paid for by the people who wold actually benefit from it. Since these people also had a ton of money, I figured it was a perfect fit to test this concept. And here I am today.....