Case Study

The Client's Needs:

Applying for the Helen Putnam Award, a grant awarded to California cities that have served their communities exceptionally, was a logistical nightmare. The application system was manual and completed by emailing PDF documents and mailing in burned CDs with community images. Not only was this a pain for competitors, but it was difficult for the organization to deal with all these materials and keep all the applicants straight. Another manual process on the back end was necessary to judge all of the applications in order to determine the yearly winners.

Our Solution:

We designed a brand new web site for the Helen Putnam application process. Users can log in, store their applications, upload images to each application and take care of the process online. On the back end, the site now has a judging system in which judges create accounts and log in to score the applications. Once the judges tallies are in, the new site determines the winners automatically.

The Results:

The web site has been running for 3 years and saved the League of California Cities countless hours and money. Users also benefit from having applications and images stored from previous years. With this greener process, users no longer have to submit pages of paperwork and burn CDs to complete their applications.