The Open Society Foundations runs numerous programmes around the world.  One of them, the Education Support Program (ESP), approached Aptivate for a way to make their budget planning process work more smoothly.  The previous solution involved complex spreadsheets.  While the globe-spanning network of programme managers generally did a good job of entering data, it was hard for other staff to see what was happening, what other people were planning, or to effectively manage the budget approval process. 

Aptivate developed a robust budget setting tool that tracks hundreds of planned and current transactions, different stages in the budgeting and expenditure cycle, and connects the budget to intended programme outcomes in a way that simplifies planning and personal and team learning within ESP.

The Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly Open Society International, are working to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens.

We worked with a range of ESP staff, from people implementing specific programmes and managing grants in the field, to the coordinators and adminstrative staff, to the Director and Deputy, to understand how those people used their previous systems, how they used early versions of POINT, and what design inspirations they had for the new system. We combined high level participatory design with an iterative implementation process, in which ongoing user feedback from the international team steered the development of the system over time.