Regarding Her · Ahmanson Capital Project
How the plan delivers on the grant
A post-discovery read of the Ahmanson Foundation proposal against what we've mapped and planned — where the plan delivers each commitment, the scope of each, and what's V1 versus later. Built from the proposal (5/18) and follow-up (6/22).
- Funder
- The Ahmanson Foundation
- Request
- $125,000
- Partner
- Firefly Partners (12-mo)
- Phase 1 · Discovery
- Jun–Jul 2026
- Phase 2 · Implementation
- Aug 2026–May 2027
Phase 1 deliverables are in hand. The grant's Phase 1 promises — a MarTech audit, data-flow mapping, user-journey diagramming, and a prioritized roadmap (the "Constituent Experience & Systems Requirements Brief") — are exactly the current-state map, future-state map, and Wants & Needs list we've produced.
Grant commitments, scope & plan
Every grant commitment mapped to the plan, with its scope boundary in the same row. Grant language = what the grant says; How the plan delivers = the plan (in scope); Out of scope = where the boundary sits — anything past it is a change request. The V column reflects the Wants & Needs ranking. Below the grant commitments sit a few discovery-surfaced extras the grant didn't name.
| Grant commitment | Grant language | How the plan delivers | Out of scope | V |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unified, integrated ecosystem | “Six data streams across 20+ tools for 1,415+ members with a three-person team; none of our systems talk to each other, so basic reporting takes days instead of minutes.”follow-up · “The Scale Mismatch” | One central data hub consolidating the Google Sheets masters and Airtable, so systems stay in sync.Platform TBD — evaluating options next phase. | Not a custom enterprise CRM or unlimited data sources. | — |
| Centralized CRM — members, donors + board | “A centralized CRM for member and donor management.”proposal · anticipated results | Member, donor + board records in the hub (Niki asked board be added); the donor/partner side gets smarter — triggers, dedupe, a board-facing view. | Not a custom-built enterprise CRM. | — |
| Automated onboarding + segmentation | “Automated member onboarding and segmentation.” Onboarding one member “touches four separate systems.”proposal + follow-up | Join Now rebuilt in Tally with conditional tier routing; Circle members auto-created on join — replacing the manual invite + re-key.Tier logic confirmed; content due Sep 11. | Not redesigning Circle or standing up a new community platform. | — |
| Improved data flow across platforms | “Improved data flow across platforms.”proposal · anticipated results | The hub is the source of truth and syncs out to the member map, Circle, and communications — no double entry. | — | — |
| Reduced manual staff time | “Reduced staff time spent on manual processes.”proposal · anticipated results | The through-line of the whole build — onboarding, event promotion, donor logging, board updates and reporting all get automated or consolidated, not just the Airtable→Trello hand-copy. The time-per-task tracker quantifies the manual hours we're cutting. | — | — |
| Modernized, searchable member directory | “A modernized and searchable member directory.”proposal · anticipated results | DB-driven map/directory (replacing the current map tool); searchable by industry/certification/capacity — directly answering the FIFA/NFL/LA28 procurement-matching problem.Member-facing web lift can embed on the current site; full rebuild is a later version (confirmed S6). ~30 members lack a storefront → also a non-map view. | Not a full website rebuild — no marketing-site redesign, platform rebuild or content migration. | — |
| Donor & partner relationship management | “No trigger emails, no system that flags a new donor, and no alerts when a gift crosses a stewardship threshold.”follow-up | Trigger emails, a new-donor flag, stewardship-threshold alerts, and a board-facing view — so relationship history isn't lost in one person's Gmail.Platform TBD — evolve the current tool vs. a fit-for-purpose CRM. Niki plans to reuse this setup for grant tracking too. | Not a custom-built enterprise CRM. | — |
| Event promotion & follow-up | “39 events in FY26 … promoting each requires manually posting and updating across eight separate platforms.”follow-up | This is Leah's social-posting workflow — Niki flagged it as central to winning the grant. Scope it around the event lifecycle (pre-event promo, day-of, post-event recap/impact) and consolidate the one-change-across-eight-platforms posting so it stops falling on one person. Prioritized into V1. | Not a bespoke, custom-built comms platform. SMS tool TBD. | — |
| Community-engagement visibility | “We cannot easily see which members are actively engaging and which have gone quiet.”follow-up | Connect Circle activity to membership status so quiet/at-risk members surface before they disengage. | — | — |
| Impact & financial reporting | “The annual impact report starts from scratch every time.” Financials “gathered by hand from Square POS exports, sign-in sheets, and member records.”follow-up | Direct accounting access + API push with correct categorization; a reporting surface so the annual impact report isn't rebuilt from scratch. A simpler version — reformatting the monthly reports and pulling the right data — can be covered by the Claude skills training, improving the process now; a fuller reporting workflow can follow in V2 if wanted.Accounting platform TBD; RH secures the access. | Not a bespoke, custom-built reporting system. | — |
| Staff adoption & sustainability | “Firefly has built MarTech training and workflow documentation directly into the implementation scope, ensuring the team can maintain all new systems independently.”proposal · obstacles | Training and workflow documentation built into the engagement, so the team maintains it independently. | Not open-ended support beyond the post-launch phase. | — |
| Infrastructure for national expansion | “The digital infrastructure needed to support national expansion.”proposal · anticipated results | The central-hub architecture scales as membership grows, and the time saved across processes prepares the team for growth. Though a V2 goal, the groundwork is already underway. | — | V2 |
| Beyond the grant — discovery surfaced these. Not named in the grant, but they support the same goals and save team time. | ||||
| Board dashboard & reporting | Not named in the grant | The auto-assembled dashboard (cash, runway, member count) is TBD — may be partly covered by Claude self-serve reporting. | — | — |
| Grant follow-up automation | Not named in the grant | Trigger a follow-up if a submission gets no response by a set date — less manual chasing. Niki plans to reuse the donor CRM for this. | — | — |
| Referral handling at scale | Not named in the grant | Route the growing inbound-referral volume so it doesn't all land on one person; may be partly handled by the intake form. | — | — |
| Project-management consolidation | Not named in the grant | The same items are tracked across Airtable, Trello, a Google Sheet, and a Word doc — consolidating saves time and supports scale. | Not in V1 scope. | V2 |
V1.0 in scope — build first
V1 TBD in scope, time/budget allowing
V2 out of scope / next version