You are evaluating new technology for your foundation. Maybe you have already made the decision. Either way, you are thinking carefully about what it will take to get this right — for your team, your board, and the communities you serve.
That kind of thinking puts you ahead of most.
At akoyaGO, we have spent more than 40 years helping foundations make technology work for them. And the single biggest difference we see between implementations that deliver real results and those that fall short has less to do with the software itself.
It comes down to process.
The Missing Piece in Most Software Rollouts
Process improvement consultant Lee Kuntz makes this case directly in her research: when organizations upgrade software without rethinking their underlying workflows, staff fall back on familiar habits, manual workarounds creep back in, and the automation you paid for goes unused. The new system gets layered on top of the old way of working instead of replacing it.
Kuntz’s research shows that organizations pairing a new system with deliberate process redesign see dramatically higher adoption rates, faster time-to-value, and stronger staff confidence.
What Process Reimagining Actually Looks Like
This is not a massive consulting engagement. Kuntz documents exactly how one foundation did this in a compelling case study. A one-time process investment before their system integration allowed that foundation to deliver the results they had promised to leadership and their board.
How akoyaGO Is Built for This
akoyaGO is designed to streamline day-to-day operations through automation and minimize touchpoints across the entire grantmaking lifecycle. But our implementation approach goes further than software setup. Our dedicated project management team includes a process review and signoff phase built directly into the implementation timeline. We do not hand you a system and walk away. We help your team get ready to work in a genuinely new way.
Built on Microsoft 365, akoyaGO uses tools your staff already knows — including Excel, SharePoint, and Outlook. That familiarity lowers the learning curve and shortens the path to confident, lasting adoption.
The Best Time to Think About Process Is Before You Go Live
A technology transition is not just a software project. It is an opportunity to reimagine how your foundation operates — with a team that is ready for change and leadership that has its attention on the future. That window does not stay open forever, and the foundations that use it well are the ones that get the full return on what they invested.
If your foundation is ready to implement technology that delivers on its promise from day one, we would love to talk. Let us show you how akoyaGO helps foundations not just go live, but truly go forward.
