A few years ago, Paul fell on hard times. A business deal fell through. His semi broke down and needed a complete overhaul. At the same time, a competitor moved into the area and underbid his loads. Times got tight for him.
His church supported him as best they could. He and his wife wanted their daughter Sarah to be part of their church school. He couldn’t see how it was possible. When they broke the news to her, she took it as bravely as she could. But her eyes betrayed her disappointment.
A few towns over, Samuel experienced several record-breaking years in his business. He’d been working at it for a while. At long last, the pieces were falling into place. He was grateful, but he knew he’d start losing a lot to taxes if he didn’t do something. He had seen that coming, though, so he knew he would be okay.
That year, Samuel wrote a check from his business to support schools like Sarah’s. That check cut his tax bill by 70%.
When Paul heard that someone had covered most of his daughter’s tuition, he breathed a deep sigh of relief. And when Sarah heard it, she wept tears of joy.
Neither Samuel nor Paul knew each other. Yet they both benefited because each was connected to a bridge builder.
| Bridging the gap between needs and resources. |
The Bridge Builder
The state of Pennsylvania offers up to 90% tax credits to businesses that contribute to private schools. Those contributions go through a special organization called a “Scholarship Organization.” The “Scholarship Organization” gets a percentage for overseeing these funds, but they funnel nearly all of the money directly to schools in need.
Faith Builders Scholarship Services, based in Guys Mills, PA, is a bridge builder. They’ve checked all the legal and administrative boxes to be a “Scholarship Organization.” Neither Samuel, Paul, nor Sarah are real people. Yet their story is real. It’s rooted in the stories of hundreds of businesses and thousands of students.
A few years ago, a very small team ran the scholarship program. Vivian Mast, the Scholarship Services Coordinator, put her heart and soul into it. Both she and the leadership team worried about her role. They knew the annual deadlines could end up holding her hostage. They wanted to make sure the program could continue without it being an undue burden.
Like other successful nonprofits, Faith Builders took on a unique identity. Even though they were a nonprofit, they recognized they were in the “business” of doing good. They could have looked for more volunteer labor. Instead, they looked at the challenges through the lens of any businessman. “How can we solve this problem to make it easier, more scalable, more accurate, less costly, and more robust?”
They had already built an Access database. Yet it didn’t have the flexibility and features they needed to scale.
That’s when Faith Builders reached out to CodeCrafters.
The Conversations Start
Faith Builders reached out to CodeCrafters to see what they could do. In the first conversation, CodeCrafters dug deep into the legal and administrative requirements. This included detailed, step-by-step descriptions of every process and every deadline.
They dug into Faith Builders’ proprietary calculator. This calculator helps schools know how to share scholarships with individual families. It considers income, tuition, scholarship limits, and program-based priority. The detail and nuance required almost 2 pages to explain. Faith Builders had an ambitious goal. They wanted to calculate these scholarships with a single click of a button.
Further, Faith Builders needed to balance with QuickBooks. They compared the funds received, distributed, and withheld for administrative fees. Every year, they’d pore overExcel spreadsheets and compare them with QuickBooks statements. Everything had to match.
As the conversations progressed, the design of the software continued to emerge. And it wasn’t long before the development team began to build it.
Then came the true test.
The Real Test Begins
Faith Builders logged into the new software and began putting it to use. They were immediately impressed with the level of quality. Vivian shared with the team, “I am really enjoying the competent software and the mathematical way it is set up. A lot of the mystery has been cleared up for me, enabling me to feel confident about the numbers.”
Armed with this confidence, Vivian rolled up her sleeves. She kept enlisting more businesses and schools into the program.
Then came the unpleasant end-of-year process. She had always dreaded needing to reconcile the numbers with QuickBooks. It had always been a lengthy process, and the timing couldn’t have been worse. It was always near the holidays. She had to do it near the end of the fiscal year. She also had to leave herself enough time to collect missing payments.
This year, everything was different. Vivian sent an overjoyed email to the CodeCrafters team once again. “I am finding a lot of joy in the way things come together and the simplicity in the midst of complexity the software offers. I am delighted with the way the data is being stored and the usability of the software. What used to take me a solid day of deep concentration, I did today in an hour with multiple disruptions.”
This software was a big win for Faith Builders. Yet it wasn’t enough. Even though Faith Builders experienced growth, they faced significant constraints. Business owners benefited from the program, but many other individuals wished to contribute and could not because of state policy.
That’s when they set their eyes on another goal.
Opening the Door for Hundreds More Contributors
The state of Pennsylvania had a solution for this problem. Individuals and businesses can become part of a special LLC called a “special purpose entity” (SPE). This lets people join forces, and, once they do, they can get the same benefit as a large business.
To form the LLC, the Faith Builders team would list all interested individuals and businesses. Then, they’d calculate how much each wanted to contribute and how much they hoped for as a tax credit. Finally, Faith Builders would divide the shares based on the correct ownership percentage.
Once again, Faith Builders followed the wise pattern of CodeCrafters’ most successful clients: they figured out their business process before they looked for software.
What did that look like? They launched their program with just a few SPEs, doing much of the work by hand. They created a dizzying array of spreadsheets and formulas. This forced them to nail down and fine-tune their process.
And it worked! However, there were a few big problems.
First, they couldn’t keep up with the amount of scholarship applications coming in. Second, they spent too much time figuring out how much members should pay. Third, they struggled to be fast and accurate with their calculations. Finally, handling all the K-1 tax forms took a lot of time and effort.
When they were ready, they reached back out to CodeCrafters to streamline the process. This time, they dropped a hefty 7-page document that detailed their processes.
Over the next few weeks, they worked with the CodeCrafters team. Once again, they dove deep into their business processes. Things were easier the second time around. As soon as CodeCrafters got clear on what to build, they got to work.
Creating Efficient, Multiplied Growth
The new software went live, and Faith Builders immediately began to experience the benefits of its innovative features.
First, the app had an easy-to-use portal which saved a lot of work. Individuals and businesses could apply to join the program. They could even pick the schools they wanted to help. Behind the scenes, the administrative team could process and accept these applications. They no longer needed to copy information from emails or handwritten forms.
Second, the software made it easy to add the right person to the right SPE. This allowed Faith Builders to fund each SPE. It made sure each person got the tax credit they needed. They no longer had to do math by hand or use complex Excel spreadsheets. It showed them exactly how close they were to their funding goals.
Finally, the system automated all the calculations required for K-1 tax forms. The accountant could generate these forms and link them to the members. Then, he could email them out with a single click. Tools like this helped FaithBuilders make sure they stayed compliant with tax rules.
This allowed Faith Builders to manage as many contributors or SPEs as they wanted. As a result, they have gone from helping 2,713 students in the 2018-19 school year to 4,551 as of the time of this writing (April 2024). In addition, since introducing SPEs in 2019, contributions have more than tripled.
An old adage says, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” And as it happened, one wintry Thursday morning put the software to the test.
“The Software Is Not Working!”
At 11:43 AM, CodeCrafters got an urgent message. “We did a fairly major promotional push for applications, and now the software is not working.”
A senior team member dropped everything and dove headfirst into troubleshooting. After chasing the trail, he found the problem and made a temporary fix. An hour after the emergency message, the software was running again.
The team even recovered a list of all applicants affected by the outage.
Later that evening, the team rolled out a permanent fix for the problem. Ellis Miller, CEO of CodeCrafters, wrote an in-depth summary to Faith Builders. He explained what had happened and listed the steps they had taken to resolve it. Most importantly, he shared what they had done to make sure it wouldn’t happen again.
Faith Builders had stumbled into a rare situation that had kept the software from working. And as chance would have it, it coincided with Faith Builders’ big promotional push.
For some, this mistake might have destroyed trust. Instead, Lucy, the Faith Builders SPE Coordinator, wrote a grateful note to the team. “I sensed the care throughout and am so grateful for CodeCrafters’ prompt and diligent response. Rather than causing me to question our affiliation withCodeCrafters, it has made me more grateful for the personal customer service we sometimes take for granted.”
For CodeCrafters, the decades of developing mission-critical software paid off. Yes, the CodeCrafters engineers are excellent at their work. And they are also human. They showed their commitment to excellence. They demonstrated their instincts in responding to a crisis. And their desire to serve their clients had come through again.
Looking to the Future
After that Thursday morning, some might say the software became almost boring. It worked and just kept working. It did exactly what Faith Builders had wanted it to do. Best of all, it freed their team to do what they do best.
Today, they focus on facilitating tax benefits for all the Samuels of the world. They focus on relieving the Pauls of the world from sleepless nights. They focus on helping the Sarahs of the world get the quality education that they need.
And, like the best of nonprofits, they are in the business of doing good. They’ve streamlined their processes. They’ve accelerated it with software. And they’ve removed the bottlenecks that were keeping them from scaling.
Indeed, this is the power of customized software.
Through Faith Builders, Pennsylvania residents can donate toward a school of their choice (minimum donation of $3,000) and receive 90% of the contribution amount in state tax credits. If you’re interested in learning more, contact Faith Builders Scholarship Services by emailing spe@fbep.org or calling 814.789.4518 ext. 243.