Custom Software & Websites for Nonprofit Organizations

2017–2020 · WordPress, Chrome extension, MySQL dashboard

Thurgood Marshall College Fund

National nonprofit supporting historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs); has awarded over $250 million in scholarships.

Site modernization & custom tooling

TMCF’s public website (tmcf.org) was running a badly outdated, unstable version of WordPress that could not support a needed online-giving plugin. eXcelisys handled the upgrade on a development server first (given how fragile the live hosting environment was), untangled a series of theme and plugin conflicts left behind by the original developer, and migrated the site to the new version — including recovering content that was lost during the cutover.

Separately, eXcelisys built a custom Chrome browser extension to add functionality (reviewer action buttons, quick profile links, streamlined submission-page workflows) to TMCF’s third-party scholarship application review platform, after the vendor was unwilling to add custom JavaScript to the hosted product directly. The extension injected the needed functionality client-side, giving TMCF staff a better reviewer workflow without depending on the vendor’s roadmap.

Workforce diversity benchmarking dashboard

In support of a USDA-sponsored diversity initiative, eXcelisys designed and built a custom MySQL database and web dashboard that let TMCF’s partner organizations report workforce demographic data (race/ethnicity categories, disability status, veteran status, aggregated by role and sex) and then view both their own company’s numbers and the aggregated cross-company benchmark, with sorting and filtering. All data was collected and reported at the organizational/aggregate level, not tied to individuals. Data visualization was built using the Highcharts JavaScript library.

Full-stack nonprofit technology partner

Since 2012 · FileMaker, Lasso website, e-commerce, hosting migrations

Sitka Center for Art & Ecology

501(c)(3) arts and ecology nonprofit in Otis, Oregon; runs artist residencies, workshops, and community events.

eXcelisys was brought in when the Center’s sole technical staffer — who had single-handedly built their FileMaker databases and Lasso-based website — departed, leaving the organization fully dependent on an outside firm for the first time. The incoming program manager described being “very frightened by this change,” since no one else on staff understood how any of it worked.

Since 2012, eXcelisys has supported and steadily evolved a genuinely complex, multi-system stack: FileMaker backend, online residency and workshop applications, membership management, e-commerce (FoxyCart), a dedicated art invitational entry system, and donor communications — carrying the organization through several hosting migrations and a proposed multi-year modernization roadmap.

Long-term trusted technical partner

2008–2012 · Custom FileMaker, eTapestry CRM integration

Blood:Water Mission

International nonprofit funding clean water and health projects across Africa (Rwanda, Zambia, and other countries).

eXcelisys built a custom FileMaker donor-matching system to automate one of Blood:Water Mission’s most labor-intensive internal processes: reconciling incoming donations against the specific water and health projects they fund. Before the system existed, staff manually exported donor data from their CRM (eTapestry) and project data from FileMaker into spreadsheets, cross-referenced them by hand on a quarterly basis, and manually re-entered the results back into both systems — described internally as “extremely labor intensive.”

The new system supported multiple real-world matching scenarios: a single recurring donor matched to one project each year, several donors’ gifts pooled to fund one project, and a single large gift (e.g., $50,000 from one foundation) split across dozens of projects (in one documented case, 35 separate community projects in Rwanda). Matched results synced back into their CRM.

Workflow automation for mission-driven organizations

2008–2010 · FileMaker/PHP performance consulting

The Pacific Whale Foundation

Maui-based marine conservation nonprofit; self-funded through memberships, merchandise, and adoption programs (Adopt-a-Whale, Adopt-a-Dolphin).

The Foundation’s website and FileMaker database were connected via ODBC, with queries taking up to two minutes to return a single record — functionally broken at any real transaction volume. Staff were manually re-typing web orders (memberships, adoptions, donations) back into FileMaker by hand to work around it.

eXcelisys diagnosed the root cause (unindexed fields and unstored calculations in the FileMaker schema) and guided the client’s in-house developer onto FileMaker’s PHP Custom Web Publishing API instead of ODBC, cutting query times dramatically and enabling automatic data flow between the website and the database. The client’s IT manager confirmed the fix worked well and returned for additional consulting hours afterward.

Performance troubleshooting & legacy modernization

2015–2020 · WordPress support, redesign, forms & payments

Phoenix Youth Symphony

Scottsdale, AZ youth music education nonprofit; website run entirely by a volunteer webmaster with no in-house technical staff.

The engagement began as an emergency stabilization: an aging WordPress site (running a badly outdated core version) that had already crashed once after a well-meaning volunteer attempted a DIY upgrade. eXcelisys handled the update safely, then over the following years supported a full site redesign — a new theme, restructured navigation and menus, and integration of Gravity Forms for audition and registration workflows with PayPal-based payment collection.

The relationship continued as ongoing maintenance and support for five years, serving as the org’s de facto technical department.

Ongoing support for volunteer-run nonprofits