Sports 4 All Foundation's Mission Optimization

Sports 4 All Foundation (S4AF) optimizes mission delivery and effectiveness of the organization through the use of Microsoft Technologies. S4AF’s mission: to improve the quality of life of individuals with disabilities by providing funding, equipment, programming and education to enable full participation in sports and recreational activities. S4AF is a very small nonprofit organization. It is important for us to maximize our resources. Microsoft technology allows us to make our time in the office more efficient so that we have more time face to face with the people we serve. We are able to keep our client, donor and volunteer databases organized in a more productive manor, and we are able to reach out to our community through our Web site, through electronic communications and through presentations.

Sports 4 All is founded on community collaboration and therefore it is very important to maintain organization with contacts. S4AF uses a dependable volunteer base to run programs. Outlook keeps all volunteers organized and up to date with contact information, projects, and hours. The journal entries also make it easy to track communication. Fundraising can be one of the most stressful projects of a nonprofit. However, Outlook helps to keep funders organized with detailed descriptions, including requirements and deadlines. All letters of intent and grant proposals are written in Microsoft Word and can be easily attached to each funder’s contact card. All community contacts are kept up-to-date with specific detail, such as their preferred form of communication, the best time to contact them and how they have contributed to the organization. Outlook has provided us the opportunity to impact our community on a more personal and professional basis. This has increased our outreach to media contacts, supporters, funders, donors, collaborators and partnering agencies. Outlook’s calendar option keeps the foundation’s staff on time for meetings and appointments. We are able to set appointments and share them with other staff members, so that way we are in constant communication with each other and not “double booking” meetings and appointments.

S4AF tries to be as economical as possible. Microsoft Publisher and Word allow staff to create flyers, brochures, newsletters and labels within the office. This saves us money without having to sacrifice quality. Sports 4 All generates funds through an e-commerce store. When we ship out the items that have been purchased we include a “Thank You” flyer, which was created in Publisher. This flyer helps with the e-commerce store’s customer service and directs traffic to the foundation’s Web site. We have also created mini-flyers, which we call “bookmarks” in Publisher to distribute to people when we sponsor equipment drives. Large flyers are created to announce events such as our annual equipment sale. Most recently, S4AF updated the brochure, which can be viewed online at http://www.s4af.org/WebsiteBrochure.pdf. The program Project HEALTH has been added under Programs portion of the brochure and the photo under the Programs portion has also been updated. These are just some of the ways Publisher has assisted the delivery of our mission.

The staff at S4AF is constantly revising the Web site but has very limited training on web design if any at all. We use Microsoft FrontPage because it is very professional and easy to use. We use FrontPage to keep our site current with what is happening with the foundation, volunteer opportunities, photos of events and links to our favorite Web sites. Recently, we added a link to a new page for Project HEALTH, which was completely designed in FrontPage. We have created links to our downloadable brochure and to an electronic form of our grant application. Microsoft FrontPage allows S4AF to creatively meet the needs of this evolving technological world as well as be able to reach a broader market of people. It also allows us to increase awareness about our mission and encourage others to get involved in community service.

Microsoft Excel keeps all of Sports 4 All’s quantitative data organized. For example, budget updates, volunteer databases and partner agency spreadsheets are all kept in Excel for easy accessibility for staff members and can be emailed to anyone inquiring about the information. Excel’s books allow us to monitor our donor’s gifts by year. We are able to organize the spreadsheet by name, address, email address and type of donation. We are able to group volunteers by the type of volunteer work they prefer to do. Excel enables us to keep our budget current and correct. We also conduct data collection on all participating individuals for our organization and grant applications. It is often hard for the public to understand the sever need of physical activity for adults with disabilities until they read the statistics and see the health progression through our programs. Excel makes it easy to analyze the data and present it in a way all parties can understand.

S4AF uses Microsoft Word for a multitude of things, such as writing this grant request, creating news releases, letter writing, creating meeting notes and agendas, and creating S4AF’s grant application. One of the most significant ways Microsoft Word has impacted the foundation is through our grant application. We have updated our grant application so that it is more user friendly. We have added word fields and check boxes. This allows the grantee to fill it out electronically, rather than printing it out and faxing it back to us. Now the grantee can just save it for their records and email it to our grant committee. We also uploaded the electronic grant application to our Web site, which can be viewed at http://www.s4af.org/electronic%20grant%20application.doc. The grant applications are required for us to be able to supply equipment and funding to individuals in need. Therefore, Microsoft Word has improved S4AF’s effectiveness in the community and to our clients because we are better able to serve them.

Microsoft Technologies improves the effectiveness and quality of Sports 4 All Foundation’s mission. Microsoft broadens the market for Sports 4 All and magnifies the resources of our small organization. Even the templates on-line have saved hours of time for the staff and enhances the professional presentation. Thank you for what Microsoft has already contributed to our organization. Also, we appreciate the opportunity to apply for this grant and your service to the community so that we can better serve the community.