akoyaGO Power Users: How Idaho Community Foundation Configures and Automates Foundation Operations

Zach Mars, IT Manager

Andrew Morgan, Support & Data Specialist

About Idaho Community Foundation

The Idaho Community Foundation (ICF) is a statewide nonprofit dedicated to strengthening communities across all 44 counties in Idaho. Founded in 1988, ICF connects people who care with causes that matter—turning generosity into lasting impact. Through prudent fund management, strategic grantmaking, and nonprofit capacity building, ICF has invested more than $200 million into Idaho communities. Following a recent merger with the Idaho Nonprofit Center, the organization continues to champion collaboration and philanthropy so every community can flourish.

The Challenge: Too Many Systems, Not Enough Flexibility

Before adopting akoyaGO, Idaho Community Foundation was managing operations across multiple disconnected software platforms. Critical data lived in different systems; workflows were manual, and reporting required significant staff effort.

ICF needed:

A single source of truth

A flexible platform

to match their unique foundation workflows

Automation

The ability to automate complex processes without sacrificing data integrity

They ultimately chose akoyaGO because it is built on Microsoft Dynamics 365, offering both a strong out-of-the-box foundation and the extensibility needed to support advanced, real-world foundation operations.

Choosing akoyaGO

From day one, Idaho Community Foundation (ICF) took a thoughtful, phased approach to adopting akoyaGO—starting with core functionality that would immediately improve visibility and consistency across teams.

By implementing role-based dashboards for Development and Impact staff, ICF gained clearer insight into day-to-day activity and outcomes. Customized forms allowed the foundation to preserve legacy data while modernizing internal processes, ensuring continuity without sacrificing flexibility.

ICF also prioritized early integration with Microsoft tools, including Outlook, to strengthen constituent and contact tracking. This enabled more complete relationship histories and richer storytelling, while Microsoft-based reporting and automated email notifications supported increasingly complex data presentation needs.

Together, these foundational capabilities created greater confidence in the data and established a strong platform for deeper automation and long-term scalability.

Becoming Power Users: Customization at Scale

ICF didn’t stop at configuration. They became true power users, reshaping akoyaGO to reflect how their foundation actually works.

Contact records and forms

to capture rich storytelling data across all activity types.
Fund profiles

with tiers, regions, counties, advisor logic, connected funds, and historical fund codes.
Requests and grant records

with lookup fields, business rules, and auto-populated geographic data.
Scheduled distributions and fees

aligning financial workflows with internal controls.

Business rules drive conditional logic throughout the system—pre-populating regions based on address, showing or hiding fields dynamically, and enforcing clean data entry standards.

Automation in Action: Where Efficiency Multiplies

Automation quickly became central to ICF’s operations. What began as basic automation evolved into a sophisticated ecosystem of workflows that touch nearly every department.

Grant approval workflows

including secure, multi-step approvals using column security and dashboards to move items from person to person.
Gift notifications and receipting

automatically triggered after donations.
Grant award and decline letters

generated and delivered with consistent formatting.
Duplicate detection and prevention

improving long-term data hygiene.
Monthly storytelling and impact reporting

including consolidation and PDF generation.
Fund management workflows, calculations, reminders, and scheduled updates.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 also supports integrations with:

Encodian

for document formatting, Word-to-PDF conversion, and QR/barcode generation.
Stripe

for GOdonate online gifts and payment links.
Microsoft Forms

for new record requests, deceased notifications, surveys, and event registrations.
Teams and Outlook

for alerts, collaboration, and real-time visibility into constituent interactions.

The Impact: Less Manual Work, Better Data, Faster Turnaround

By leveraging Automation alongside akoyaGO, Idaho Community Foundation has:

Reduced manual work across departments, allowing staff to focus on making an impact.
Accelerated turnaround times for grant processes and reporting.
Improved data hygiene through proactive prevention and standardized workflows.
Smoother constituent and applicant interactions due to consistent workflows.

Grant applicants and constituents experience the benefits firsthand through smoother, more responsive, and more consistent interactions.

Why it Matters

ICF’s transformation shows how a flexible, modern platform not only centralizes data but reshapes how a foundation operates. From process automation to data governance, akoyaGO helped ICF build a future-ready foundation platform across all 44 counties in Idaho.