October 5, 2000 | Read Time: 1 minute
By NICOLE WALLACE
Health foundations in California are using an extranet to share information about their grant making with one another.
An extranet is a private Web site that staff members from more than one organization use to share information, whereas an intranet is a Web site restricted to users from a single organization.
For the past two years, staff members at 10 large health-care funds in California — including the California HealthCare, California Wellness, and David & Lucile Packard Foundations — have been able to go to the California HealthFunders@Work Web site to learn about one another’s work.
The site, which was built by the Interactive Applications Group, in Washington, includes a searchable database of grants that the foundations have awarded. Each listing includes the award amount, a description of the project, and contact information for both the organization receiving the grant and the program officer associated with the grant.
The site also includes a directory that features profiles of staff members at the participating foundations. Profiles list staff members’ contact information, responsibilities, and the health issues on which they focus. E-mail discussion lists further encourage communication between staff members at different foundations.
Sam Karp, chief information officer at the California HealthCare Foundation and a leader in the effort to create the extranet, is optimistic about the Internet’s potential to improve communication in the nonprofit world. But he emphasizes that tools like the HealthFunders@Work site need to be well-designed and have clear objectives
“The value needs to be obvious to the users,” he says, “or they won’t use it.”
For more information: Contact California HealthFunders, info@healthfunders.org.
