When Kaley Greene stepped into her role as CFO at Spartanburg County Community Foundation, she quickly realized akoyaGO was being underutilized. Many internal processes were still manual, time-consuming, and heavily dependent on Excel. As a small team with no dedicated IT staff, time and capacity were constant constraints. Rather than hiring more people, Spartanburg took a different approach: go deeper with the tools they already had.
The Challenge
Before leaning into akoyaGO, Spartanburg’s team was working around the platform rather than with it. Grant letters were created through manual mail merges, checks and letters had to be matched and stuffed by hand, and financial files were too large to email to auditors. Dashboards and automation tools existed inside akoyaGO — they just weren’t being used.
For a small team with no dedicated IT staff, every manual step was time the organization couldn’t afford to spend.
The Turning Point
Rather than adding staff, Spartanburg began strategically using more of akoyaGO’s built-in capabilities. Over time six tools made the biggest difference: GOfund for grant request intake, Generate Letters to eliminate mail merges, ACH processing to reduce check handling, Dashboards and Views to centralize workflows, Campaign tracking to measure ROI, and Auditor Reports to transform financial reporting.
Eliminating Manual Mail Merges
Moving to 40–50% Electronic Payments
After implementing ACH processing, Spartanburg now processes 40–50% of grants electronically. That shift reduced envelope stuffing, postage costs, mailing delays, and check misrouting risk.
When Hurricane Helene hit, this capability proved critical. Funds reached grantees within days, not weeks.
Real-Time Leadership Visibility
Kaley built role-specific dashboards for grants staff, accounting, and leadership. Her president can now log in and see real-time gift totals without waiting for a report. Dashboards replaced email updates and manual tracking entirely.
Replacing Massive Excel Files With Auditor Reports
Measuring Campaign ROI
Using akoyaGO’s Campaign tracking, Spartanburg logged mailer costs, tagged incoming gifts, and calculated actual return on investment. Instead of guessing whether fundraising efforts worked, they now have data-backed answers.
The Bigger Picture
Spartanburg has been live on akoyaGO since 2019. They are not using every feature. They are a lean team with limited IT resources. And yet, without adding a single staff member:
