How Paso del Norte Community Foundation saves 1,900+ staff hours a year with FundMiner

The Challenge

Paso del Norte Community Foundation’s team needed a better way to manage hundreds of charitable funds while meeting rising expectations for transparency, timely updates, and clear reporting across their donor and fund holder base.

Key obstacles:

• Manual and decentralized reporting workflows:
  Fund information, balances, transactions, and narratives lived in different places, requiring staff to manually collect and assemble data for fund holders.

• Growing volume of funds and disbursements:
  With more than 300+ active funds and 1,398 disbursement forms to track, staff were spending significant time processing requests and organizing documentation.

• Limited staff capacity:
  A small team was responsible for producing updates, gathering impact narratives, and fielding fund holder questions, leaving little time for deeper stewardship or strategic work.

• Inconsistent narrative collection:
  Impact stories were difficult to gather and package at scale, making it challenging to deliver polished, consistent updates to fund holders and donors.

• Rising expectations for transparency:
  Donors and fund holders increasingly expected real-time visibility into fund activity, but PdNCF’s manual processes made it hard to provide the level of access and clarity they wanted. 

The Solution

Paso del Norte Community Foundation partnered with FundMiner to centralize fund information, streamline steward­ship workflows, and deliver clearer, more timely updates to fund holders and donors.

Implemented solutions:

• Centralized fund information:
  Integrated balances, transactions, narratives, and documentation into a single platform, giving staff and fund holders a unified view of more than 340 active funds.

• Automated reporting and narrative workflows:
  Streamlined impact narrative collection, reminders, and status tracking, reducing manual back-and-forth and improving the quality and consistency of fund holder updates.

• Self-service access for fund holders:
  Introduced secure, real-time access to fund activity, reducing routine inquiries and allowing fund holders to view balances, transactions, and documentation on demand.

• Operational efficiency and time savings:
  Replaced manual processes with automated tools that now save the organization more than 1,900 staff hours per year, freeing the team to focus on stewardship and mission-driven work.

The Results

Immediate impact:

• Saved more than 1,900 staff hours annually by automating reporting, narrative collection, and fund activity tracking, reducing the manual workload across the foundation.

• Improved fund holder experience through real-time access to fund balances, transactions, and documentation, allowing inquiries to be resolved more quickly and transparently.

• Streamlined disbursement processing for 1,398+ forms, reducing turnaround times and improving consistency in approvals and documentation.

• Centralized data improved accuracy by eliminating errors caused by fragmented spreadsheets and manual reconciliation.

• Enhanced storytelling and stewardship, as automated narrative workflows made it easier to collect and package consistent impact updates for fund holders.

Looking Ahead:

• With centralized fund information and ongoing time savings, PdNCF’s team is now positioned to focus more deeply on donor stewardship, strategic initiatives, and expanding the quality and frequency of fund holder communications.