University System of Georgia Foundation Case Study: MIP Accounting Success Story

The year is 2011. The University System of Georgia (USG) Foundation was hard at work creating a more educated Georgia through providing need-based financial aid and overseeing the facilitation of financing for capital improvement projects for Georgia’s 26 public higher education institutions.

Challenge & Solution

Yet, the USG Foundation had a challenge. It was using QuickBooks to manage its finances and had reached the point where it needed a more robust system. It needed a system that embraced flexibility and one that would grow with the Foundation as it progressed.

USG Foundation Director of Finance and Operations Christina Paloski, CPA, was a consultant for MIP Accounting® back in 2011. She was brought in to showcase how MIP could be that system.

“They didn’t have all the flexibility they needed with QuickBooks,” Paloski said. “They needed a way more robust system.”

Paloski approached the USG Foundation with a mindset to share how MIP would let them look ahead and grow.

“It’s easy to use,” Paloski said. “This system is straightforward…I felt like there were way more opportunities to manage finances the way they needed in MIP. I was able to show that to them and show them the flexibility of MIP.”

Results

The USG Foundation was so impressed they not only partnered with MIP, but they brought Paloski in to serve as a consultant with their team. After a year, they hired her full-time and Paloski now has been with the USG Foundation for over nine years.

When it comes to ease use and the ability to generate quick reports, “I know how to make MIP work, and I knew how to do everything,” Paloski said. “I’m able to slice and dice the data any way that I need it in order to answer reports, answer questions, and provide information for management to make decisions.”

It’s challenging to run a foundation that oversees public scholarships and capital improvement at such an array of universities. From traditional cash donations to creative ways people support specific scholarship programs, Paloski knew MIP could account for the multiple donation sources, and she was confident it could support the foundation 10 years down the road as those assets had aged and grown.

MIP could handle the complexity of USG Foundation’s accounting needs because MIP accounts for every fund individually, and its reporting and budgeting features allow nonprofits to project how those funds will grow and look years down the road. The USG Foundation oversees several types of needs-based scholarships, and accounting for each of those individual funds was where Paloski knew MIP would shine when she introduced it to the foundation, and where it’s made a lasting mark almost a decade later.

“We have new challenges every day with the ways people are giving, and the things people are giving,” She said. “We’ve had to come up with ways to pull the information out, and as we continue, I’m very happy with it. MIP continues to meet our needs, and I know we can grow with it.”

The USG Foundation has grown substantially and seen the first-hand effects of how its scholarships have made a difference. Over the last three years, they awarded more than $1 million in scholarships alone to help advance the educations of more than 330,000 students in Georgia.

And when it comes to accounting, Paloski knows that impact wouldn’t have been possible without MIP.

“I really enjoy MIP,” she said. “It makes my life easier. I’m not having to manipulate data in order to get information to present. I truly can pull financials out of the system and then make pretty charts out of them for my board. It’s always meeting my needs.”

About Momentive Software

Momentive Software amplifies the impact of over 30,000 purpose-driven organizations in over 30 countries. Mission–driven organizations and associations rely on the company’s cloud-based software and services to solve their most critical challenges, engage the people they serve, simplify operations, and grow revenue.

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