The Art of Software

 

 

Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial

More than a dozen years ago, Thora Jacobson had made a pitch to her colleagues in the arts community that they should collaborate to create a better database for managing their relationships with donors, students and other stakeholders. Jacobson – Director of the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial, the nation’s oldest tuition-free art school – found no takers. She went through several software solutions that never quite captured the complex relationships that the organization has with constituents. “We have multiple relationships with people who are board members, students, donors and faculty, and all the solutions were fragmented. After sniveling and whining and cursing at people for a long time, we decided to do it, and do it right this time.”

 

Jacobson developed a technology plan, and with an Organizational Development Fund grant from PCMI for $55,200, was able to create a customized database that can truly track relationships in-house and on the Internet, and offers insights on where the organization is headed. The grant also allowed Fleisher to make its website dynamic, pulling information directly from the database. This will let prospective students know immediately whether there is space in a given class. Soon, students will be able to enroll online for tuition-bearing classes and donors will be able to make gifts online. Next steps will be to develop a curriculum for art instruction through digital technology.

 

“It has made it possible for us to communicate far more effectively with students,” Jacobson said. “It also improved our financial management, so we can see where we are, make better financial decisions and monitor trends.”
Just as Fleisher, in the words of its founder, has invited “the world to come and learn art,” they now are looking for ways to share their software with the world. Through PCMI and the William Penn Foundation, which offered additional funding for the initiative, Jacobson is exploring ways to share the technology with other cultural organizations with similar needs. “The good thing about having been funded by PCMI to develop the database is that it makes it easier to show it to others,” she said. They are even exploring opportunities to license the technology so it becomes an income producer.
“PCMI is a remarkable mix of proactive and reactive initiatives, responding to well articulated needs of the organization and going into the community to figure out what the community needs,” Jacobson said. “It is precisely the support organizations need, even if they don’t know it.”