Fund Investment Tool (FIT)
Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Since 2007, Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) has centered its philanthropic efforts on building equity and transforming systems to create a Silicon Valley where everyone can thrive. Tapping into Silicon Valley’s unique reach and power to innovate, the SVFC team is able to deliver on its mission with a sense of shared purpose, inclusive solutions, and positive impact that changes lives for the better—locally, nationally, and globally.
“It caused me a lot of anxiety to not be where we needed to be at that 11th hour because it is such a critical part of our work. We have over 1,500 funds and allocating support fees, which is our main source of operating revenue. It’s very critical, and I was losing sleep with the thought of not being able to do that.”
Sarah Valencia
Senior Vice President, Finance, Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Technology Upgrades
SVCF engaged a vendor to lead them through a digital transformation, with the hopes of modernizing their technology and operations to reduce risk and create efficiency. This multi-year project included a new CRM, donor portal, gift management system, and finance system, as well as developing a custom accounting application that would layer on top of NetSuite for completing its complex investment administrative fee, income allocation, spending policy, and investment rebalancing calculations.
The project hit a major snag when the team's implementation partner cautioned against SVCF against building a custom finance application on top of NetSuite. This was mission-critical functionality that would prevent SVCF from going live. SVCF manages more than 1,500 funds, and these allocations were vital to SVCF’s finance function. Nearing the 11th hour, SVCF reached out to NPact for a tool that would fit their needs, hoping that other large complex foundations with similar investment accounting needs could utilize the same tool.
NPact had precisely the solution—its Fund Investment Tool (FIT), a powerful and flexible investment accounting tool that’s designed specifically to integrate with leading fund accounting solutions like NetSuite. There was just one hurdle - while FIT could be configured to meet and even exceed SVCF’s needs, it wasn’t yet built as a standalone application and instead was a component of NPact’s Foundation Cloud application suite. It required additional development to bring it to market as its own product. With time running out until launch and aware that others in the non-profit community would also benefit from the product, SVCF partnered with NPact to co-develop FIT and release it to the broader non-profit community.
“Having gone through that experience with our previous partners and then working with the NPact team was like opposite ends of the spectrum. In the new system, things are a lot faster, which is a treat for the team because we have been conditioned to work with a very slow system that wasn't as fast or as integrated.”
Sarah Valencia
Senior Vice President, Finance, Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Digital Transformation Success
The NPact team, led by experts with decades of experience with foundations and fund accounting, redeveloped FIT to be its own standalone application. They quickly built detailed calculations to configure the solution to help SVCF manage its more than 1,500 funds and support those critical to SVCF’s work.
Now, with increased speed and accuracy—and no spinning wheels wasting valuable time—these core fund and investment accounting calculations can be performed quickly and with greater frequency. With FIT, grants that were once processed on a weekly cadence can now be delivered daily; allocating investment returns with pooled investments can be done easily on a monthly basis; and rebalancing can be done daily to ensure that all of the SVCF teams can operate more effectively.
In the end, NPact, with SVCF’s input, optimized FIT to add additional value to its finance users. While their need for FIT may have stemmed from a last-minute, business-critical challenge, SVCF’s investment in the application means that FIT can be utilized in integrations across a variety of systems. Known for being first in their field when it comes to adopting new technology, SVCF is thrilled that FIT can now be utilized by other foundations for their own digital transformations, resulting in faster close times and providing donors with a more accurate financial understanding of their funds.
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