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Telephone Interview with:
Roxanne Ford
Program Director for medical research
The W.M. Keck Foundation
http://www.wmkeck.org/
Ms. Ford has been with the W.M. Keck Foundation for 12 and one-half years, working in various positions before assuming her current role. As a senior staff member who has experience with the foundation's in-house computer systems, Ms. Ford was the logical person to become the chief architect of the Foundation's Web site.
Her candid responses offer a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse of how this respected foundation established itself on the World Wide Web.
IP: Why did the W.M. Keck Foundation decide to establish itself on the World Wide Web?
RF: We felt that the Web is a very efficient way to disseminate information about the Keck Foundation to the largest audience possible.
IP: Basically, who initiated the discussion?
RF: It originally came from our program staff.
IP: Were you the leader of the pack?
RF: I was one of the leaders, but I was not the only person who thought it was a good idea. We became serious about setting up the site about a year ago, after the idea had been kicked around for two or three years.
IP: What was the staff and board's initial reaction to the proposal?
RF: I found that it was very positive. Everyone was quite happy about the idea. Two or three years ago, I would have had to tell you a different answer. That's why it didn't happen back then. But in the past year, the Foundation's become a lot more technologically savvy, and I think that our directors welcomed the idea to launch a Web site.
IP: What do you think the watershed was for that? Do you think the media was an influencing factor in getting them to be more receptive?
RF: It's probably partly the media, partly a change in leadership. Robert Day, Chairman of the TCW Group, is now Chairman of the Foundation, and I think it's a new generation of leadership that's making the difference.
IP: When people get on to the whole concept of starting a Web site, they generally either get on a bandwagon or have very, very focused goals for establishing a Web site. Could you recall your own goal for establishing a Web site?
RF: Other than what I told you about it being a good way to disseminate information about the Foundation, I also think that it's a good way to target the type of applicant that we're looking for because our grants tend to be highly technical. We support many individuals and organizations that are involved in state-of-the-art science and medical research. It seems logical to find that our potential grant recipients are the kind of people who already use the Web.
IP: I am thinking of factors like cost reduction. Some people see a Web site as an efficient way of conserving resources, for instance, such as paper or postage. Other people want to communicate more efficiently with their constituents, and still others may want to be examples for nonprofits or even for other foundations. In that particular litany, were there any priorities that come to mind?
RF: We never considered cost reduction. It may be years before we're actually able to limit the number of annual reports we send out because of what's on the Web site.
The Web seemed like a really good way to get information about the Foundation out to appropriate audiences. That really was the guiding goal behind it. We didn't have too many other ideas or goals that we were hoping to accomplish.
IP: When did you start the project and how long did it take?
RF: I'd say we started just about a year ago, and it took us just about a year to finally get through all the design processes and decide what should be included in the site, and proof the text.
IP: Did it go as smoothly as you anticipated?
RF: No. I'd like to say it was as easy as pie, but we knew very little about going online. Even though we used eries Jeffries Association, the same designers we used for our annual report to help us--because they have a Web site service--it still took a long time. The project required a many revisions, and there were questions to be answered that we didn't know had to be answered. It wasn't horrible, but there was a lot more detail involved than we had ever considered.
IP: Who was involved in the decision-making process about the site's content?
RF: Senior program staff, the Chairman of the Foundation, the Chief Administrative Officer--Johnathan Jaffery, and a number of other staff members were also asked for their input based on the work that they do--what they needed in the site to get their work done. It was a very big group effort.
IP: That must have been quite a chore, achieving a consensus.
RF: Surprisingly, it wasn't as bad as it sounds because the base of our Web site is really our annual report.
IP: The design itself--that would be more within the artistic realm. Did that involve a different decision process? Was it a similar consensual approach?
RF: That was limited much more, primarily to our Chief Administrative Officer, the Chairman, myself and maybe one or two other people who were asked to take a look and give some comments on the design . We had the designers working on it, and we had such faith in them because they do such a nice job on our annual reports--it was pretty much left up to them, except for final approval.
IP: I can almost guess your answer to the next question. Did you confer with colleagues at other foundations with Web sites before you started?
RF: We looked at a couple of Web sites but did not confer with anyone directly.
IP: Did you encounter any significant or unexpected obstacles in going online?
RF: Not really. There were small glitches when we tried to convert the annual report, but for some reason our grants listing wouldn't translate properly, and we finally had to put it in manually.
We had some trouble with some of the links within the site itself. Up until the very last minute, we were finding small glitches where it wouldn't go forward or backward the way we wanted it to go.
We're still working on getting some of the links to outside sites we would like to have, but that's partly the responsibility of the people at the other end. We can only wait until they can get that job done.
IP: Was it a costly enterprise?
RF: Because of the use of the designer, it was fairly costly but not horrendous. We have a good relationship with the designer so he was kind to us on cost.
IP: What did you like best about this project?
RF: What any author likes, seeing it finished and up on the screen. It was also exciting to see the staff so interested in what was going on, providing their own ideas and really helping to make a better Web site. This is one project that everyone is behind and really interested in.
IP: What did you like the least?
RF: Proofreading.
IP: Now that the site is up, what kind of feedback has filtered back from the board, the staff and the grantees or other visitors?
RF: Not a lot, unfortunately. We've only been up a couple of months. We do average three or four emails a week right now from people who've found us on the Web and want more information.
The directors are delighted to know we're online, but I haven't heard from any of them directly if they've actually looked at the site. I assume that some of them have. They're usually pretty active about following up on things that happen in the Foundation.
So there's a certain amount of `wait and see' going on here. We figured that the site would make very little difference or we would be inundated with requests. It seems to be making very little difference in the amount of correspondence we're receiving so far, but that may change in the future.
IP: It's possible people just don't know about your site.
RF: We had thought about sending out a mailing list announcing that we're online, but we haven't done it yet. I think that would be an important thing to do in the near future.
IP: Do you have any plans to put your annual reports on the Web in a downloadable Acrobat format?
RF: Essentially, our annual report is on the Web site except for the financials and some other things we left out. That does not mean we will quit printing our annual reports though. We're still old fashioned enough to want something we can hold in our hands.
IP: Do you have any plans for online application forms or proposals?
RF: No, we do not.
IP: Any particular reason?
RF: It is staff's long-held opinion that, because not everyone has access equally to computers and the Internet, it would give certain applicants unfair advantage.
IP: What do you think contributed most to the success of this project?
RF: The staff input.
IP: How regularly did you meet with them?
RF: We probably met as a committee maybe three or four times and, before then, a lot of legwork was simply done walking desk to desk and talking to people. This is such a small office. There are only 14 of us. You can hold a meeting simply by walking down the hallway.
IP: Why do you think staff input made such a big difference?
RF: Because we have a really good, experienced staff who knows what's on the Internet and thinks about what could be helpful to them in getting their own jobs done. For instance, we only publish on the Web site that our medical research interests concentrate in three main areas: neurosciences, immunology and molecular genetics. It's not in our printed guidelines, but because the Web site's immediately changeable, we can go ahead and put it there. If our goal or concentration ever changes, we can edit the site. Our staff likes that we now have someplace to refer people where they can learn more about what we do in specific areas. There were a lot of items we were able to add based on people's suggestions.
IP: In your talks with foundation colleagues, those with and without Web sites, have you gained some sense of why more foundations haven't gone online?
RF: I've had vague conversations with a couple
of people. I think it's just a matter of not understanding what technology
is necessary in some cases and, in some, it's just not a big priority for
them.
By: Charles Lowe
Project Coordinator
Foundation/Grants Editor
Internet Prospector
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