Fistula Foundation Revolutionizes Women's Health with the Idealist Grant
Several times each year, our team has the unique honor of reviewing application for the Idealist Grant. This is our way of giving a portion of our profits from working with the corporate sector back to nonprofits, to fuel more innovation on the Salesforce platform.
We dedicate an afternoon to reviewing finalist applications. Then all members of our staff and consulting team are invited to vote on who will receive the grant. This is one of the most concrete ways year we live out our core values in a world that is often consumed by technical conversations.
Our first Idealist Grant recipient
Last December was our inaugural cycle of awarding the Idealist Grant and we selected Oregon Humanities as our first recipient. Oregon Humanities creates conversations around difficult topics like racism and talking about dying.
Eight months later, we are thrilled to report that Oregon Humanities has used their Idealist Grant hours to add web calendar and a Conversation Project application form, both are integrated with Salesforce.
As Maggie Starr, Grants and Development Associate at Oregon Humanities, puts it, “Thanks to those innovations, the program continues to grow in 2018-19, staff will be able to spend less time on data entry and more time working with facilitators and program hosts to create high-quality dialogues.”
The latest round of the Idealist Grant
We had a high bar to reach when reviewing applications this time around. In addition to having compelling missions, we look for nonprofits who also have strong advocates on our Idealist Consulting team. This is because it is our goal to use the Idealist Grant to support great partnerships. Additionally, we look for nonprofits who can articulate a specific progressive action their organization took recently, and where they hope to grow on the Salesforce platform.
We are always inspired and energized by the vision that our nonprofit applicants have.
A glimpse at the Idealist Grant finalist applicants this round
Human Rights Data Analysis Group is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that applies rigorous science to the analysis of human rights violations.
The Bail Project combats mass incarceration at the front end by paying bail for tens of thousands of low-income Americans at risk of pretrial detention.
Second City Canine Rescue rescues homeless animals in the Chicago area and responsibly places them into permanent, loving homes.
Friendship Circle provides assistance and support to 3,000 individuals with special needs and their families by providing recreational, social, educational and vocational programming. They also provide support to individuals and families struggling with isolation, addiction and other family-related crises.
Friends of Trees inspires people in the Portland area to improve the world around them through a simple solution: planting trees together.
And the winner is…
Drumroll please…
Their mission is to end suffering related to fistulas, a common injury in childbirth or tramatic intercourse. As stated on their website, “We do one thing, and we do it well: treat obstetric fistula with cost-effective, restorative surgery.”
As nominator Franklin Joyce of Idealist Consulting put it, “Fistula Foundation is the most focused organizations I've ever worked with.”
This is coming from someone who has worked on the Salesforce form with nonprofits for over eight years!
Why we chose Fistula Foundation for the Idealist Grant
Our judges were impressed by Fistula Foundation’s commitment to radical transparency and tracking.
As Chief of Strategy Ahana Gunderson puts it: “Our proven strategy and deep commitment to accountability and transparency has been recognized by every industry watchdog group. Our supporters love to share stories about how we’ve touched their lives, as seen in the 600+ stories on GreatNonprofits.org, making us the top international charity on their site.”
But what really stood out was that this commitment to transparency trickles down into how Fistula Foundation approaches technology projects. They requested funding from the Idealist Grant in order to facilitate a unique project that will gather raw community outreach and patient data, and move it into Salesforce, then analyze and publish these learnings to other women’s health organizations.
Donors will benefit as well. As Gunderson said: “Our objective is to strengthen the donor’s sense of connection to the field, and to the impact of their gift.”
We will begin work with them soon on bringing this vision to light and are proud to support their impact.
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