Last month I took my car in for some repairs and the dealer gave me a loaner to drive while the work was being done. Now, I don’t know about you, but I seem to remember that loaners used to be the clunkers they had parked in some grassy spot in the back of the lot. Well that does not seem to be the case anymore! The car they let me drive was practically brand new and loaded with all of the latest features. It took me a little while to get used to all of the buttons and to figure out what everything meant on the dashboard display screen. Though it made for some challenging moments on my part (Help! how do I turn on the windshield wipers!), by the time I had to return it to the dealer I was sorry to have to go back to driving my own plain, vanilla car.
We all know that in our world technology changes very rapidly. At SWIF we’ve been using some of the same software for decades and we are now playing a little catch-up. But unlike driving a loaner vehicle that was a few years newer than my own car, our change in database and accounting software is like going from cruising in a 57 Chevy to hurtling through space in the Starship Enterprise. Our new software system has WAY more buttons to push and is loaded with options. It has an incredible amount of flexibility and will ultimately allow us to do our work much more efficiently. (Though I’m not going to claim it will allow us to “boldly go where no man has gone before”).
Like with any big change, there has been a steep learning curve for our staff and we appreciate your patience. We’ve been transferring and cleaning up old data, creating new processes and procedures, and assembling new reports. All along we’ve been continuing to do our day to day work, hosting the largest event in our organization’s history, and trying to figure out what all of these new buttons do! Because we have all of this newfound flexibility we will continue to tweak things going forward, but here is what I can tell you today:
- In the short term your statements will look a little different. Your endowed fund will show up on the first page, but other funds will be combined on one or more pages and will be shown in columns.
- If you have received any donations or made any grants, these will show up in a separate report on the fund portal website.
- November statements will be available on the fund portal site early during the week of January 30th.
- December statements (and possibly even January statements) will be available by the third Thursday in February.
Adjusting to change can be difficult, and again I appreciate your patience while we “explore strange new worlds”. Though it may not be space travel, it is an exciting time for us at SWIF and we are glad you are along for the ride! Now hold on while I push this button here…
