Human-centered design turns trust-based philanthropy from a values statement into a grantee experience. Here’s how it works in practice, in part 3 of our Trust-Based Philanthropy blog series.
In previous entries in our trust-based philanthropy blog series, we have outlined how Agentforce Nonprofit for Grantmaking is an ideal grants management system to support trust-based grantmakers. We also described how our experts at Fíonta are using Salesforce to innovate within the space. While Agentforce Nonprofit for Grantmaking is a powerful and flexible grantmaking system, trust-based philanthropy is ultimately rooted in the user experience of the grantee. It means focusing on removing barriers that impede nonprofits’ ability to do their work and reducing the administrative burden for grantees. In this blog, our in-house UX experts describe our approach to ensuring the grantees’ user experience is front and center of our Agentforce Nonprofit for Grantmaking implementations.
UX and Human-Centered Design for Trust-Based Philanthropists
Trust-based philanthropy is a model focused on centering the needs of nonprofit grantees in the grantmaking process, rather than the needs of grantmakers. According to the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, “Trust-based philanthropy advances a just and equitable society by alleviating the inherent power imbalances between funders, nonprofits, and communities. With a commitment to shifting power, advancing equity, and building mutually accountable relationships, trust-based philanthropy positions funders as collaborators working alongside nonprofits to meet the needs and dreams of communities who are most removed from conventional power structures.”
At Fíonta, we believe that one of the most effective ways to implement trust-based philanthropy practices is through the framework of human-centered design. Human-centered design centers on end-users’ needs and feedback in the problem-solving process so that the finished product or service meets their requirements, not just the requirements of the business. In Salesforce implementations, our team is continuously incorporating feedback from staff who will be the end-users of the platform and external audiences who will engage with the system, such as through a donor or grantee portal built in Experience Cloud.
Trust-based philanthropy and human-centered design both focus on improving the experience for end-users, in this case, nonprofit grantees, so that they can spend less time struggling with grants management systems and more time doing their important work.
Designing Grantmaking Systems for End Users
At Fíonta, human-centered design is in our DNA, and we implement grantmaking systems with the user experience of both foundation staff and nonprofit grantees front and center.
To read the first two articles from this series, click below:
Part 1: Leveraging Salesforce for Trust-Based Philanthropy
Part 2: Trust-Based Philanthropists Use Salesforce to Innovate
UX Activities in Grantmaking Software Implementations
Some examples of human-centered design and user experience activities that we build into our grantmaking implementations:
Goals and Visions Survey
Before a single requirement is written, we ask everyone with a stake in the outcome to weigh in. Our goals and visions survey gathers feedback from all relevant stakeholders on the pain points of their current grants management system, what a successful new experience looks like, and how they’ll know the project is a success. It’s one of the fastest ways to surface both friction and consensus, and the accompanying workshop turns those insights into a shared roadmap that guides the rest of the grantmaking implementation project.
Usability Audits
Also known as a heuristic evaluation or expert review, a usability audit is a structured evaluation of an existing grants management system or grantee portal to identify what’s working against your users. We evaluate the experience against established usability principles, document issues with severity ratings, and translate findings into a prioritized backlog that developers can act on immediately.
Wireframes and prototypes
Clickable wireframes let us put a working version of an experience in front of stakeholders long before any visual design is finalized. These box-and-line sketches communicate page layout, task flows, and content organization in a format that’s easy to critique and fast to iterate. We use them for internal Agentforce Nonprofit for Grantmaking builds and for external-facing grantee portals.
Grantee feedback in trust-based philanthropy projects
One of the six practices of trust-based philanthropy is “solicit and act on feedback”. Here are ways we gather grantee feedback and incorporate it into our grantmaking implementations:
Include grantees in your team of stakeholders during grantmaking software implementations
We work closely with a core team of foundation stakeholders, including a project sponsor, project manager, and subject matter experts such as grants managers, program officers, or finance team members. Including current and prospective grantees in your group of project stakeholders is an impactful way to employ trust-based philanthropy principles in grantmaking projects.
We also recommend bringing the perspectives of grantees into your project vision by inviting organizations with whom you have strong relationships to participate in user experience activities throughout the implementation. Gathering the experiences of nonprofit grantees with whom you have worked for a long time, as well as the perspectives of organizations that are newer to working with your foundation, is especially helpful. This invaluable feedback includes grantees in every step of the implementation and makes trust-based philanthropy part of the system’s DNA.
Usability Testing
In a usability test, one of our user experience experts observes your users performing tasks in the grantmaking system to identify pain points and opportunities for design improvement. Participants are asked to interact with prototypes of Salesforce user interfaces and look for ways to reduce friction in their experience completing tasks, such as limiting the number of clicks or amount of scrolling they have to do.
Usability testing is a practical way to use the trust-based philanthropy model to solicit grantee feedback and act on it to simplify and streamline their experience with your grantmaking system.
Fíonta implements usability testing with foundation staff who will be using Agentforce Nonprofit for Grantmaking to help ensure post-implementation adoption of the platform, and we encourage trust-based philanthropists to conduct usability testing with their grantee end-users, as well. We work directly with our foundation clients’ grantees who interact with grantee portal prototypes and provide feedback on the experience of identifying open grant opportunities, submitting applications, receiving award notifications, and completing post-award reports.
Accessibility audit
Accessibility should be the baseline for every grants management system. Unfortunately, it is often overlooked in implementation projects. Our focus on human-centered design and user experience means that accessibility is at the heart of our work. We work with our grantmaking clients to design grant application forms and grantee portal experiences that adhere to the highest Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) so that their grantmaking platforms are accessible to all grantees. Our team ensures accessibility by auditing grant applications for plain language, page/stage indicators, clear instructions and help text, proper color contrast, mobile accessibility, and other UX best practices. Trust-based philanthropy means that funders partner with grantees to create a more just and equitable society, and accessible grantmaking experiences are foundational to that goal.
Ongoing Opportunities for Feedback
Continuous gathering and incorporating end-user feedback is essential to achieving the desired outcomes in both trust-based philanthropy and human-centered design. At Fíonta, we know that it is not enough to only solicit feedback when designing a grants management system; it must be an ongoing part of a trust-based philanthropy model.
When we implement Agentforce Nonprofit for Grantmaking, we create opportunities for grantees to regularly provide ongoing feedback to grantmakers, from grantee portal support pages where nonprofits can request help with their applications to automated survey processes to collect feedback from their grantee partners. We use our expertise with Salesforce, user experience, and human-centered design to find new ways to collect feedback from grantees and incorporate it into grantmaking platforms, so that our clients can continue to build on their trust-based philanthropy model.
Fíonta’s expertise with grantmaking software implementations, user experience, and human-centered design makes us the right partner to implement Agentforce Nonprofit Grantmaking for foundations prioritizing a trust-based philanthropy approach. We incorporate proven UX exercises into our grantmaking implementations for both foundation staff and grantee end-users, leading to increased adoption and higher satisfaction. If you’d like to learn more about how our UX and Salesforce experts can help you incorporate trust-based philanthropy and human-centered design practices into your grantmaking, reach out here.