Case study · Custom software
From paper forms to a grant system the board loves
Asked for a form. Delivered a grant system. The Hazel Miller Foundation wanted its paper application online. In one month I delivered that application, plus a verified database of its grant history, a giving dashboard, and a view for the board to review and vote.
Project details
- Client
- Hazel Miller Foundation, Edmonds, WA
- My role
- Product and visual design, AI-assisted build, data migration
- Length
- One month
- Year
- 2026
- Status
- Launching October 3, 2026
About the foundation
The Hazel Miller Foundation was established in 2009 to fund programs and projects serving Edmonds and South Snohomish County. Nonprofits and public agencies apply, and the foundation’s board decides grants in cycles through the year.
The problem
After four months of trying, the application was online, and everything still ended up in Excel
The foundation spent four months trying to move its paper application online. The form it ended up with had usability problems, and its answers still exported to a spreadsheet. The form was only the most visible of three gaps.
Applying
An application that was hard to finish
One blanket checkbox covered eligibility, and the rules confused even board members. Applicants couldn’t tell which board meeting would decide their request, or when they would hear back.
Records
A grant history scattered across files
Every grant since 2010 lived in Excel spreadsheets on the director’s desktop, alongside scanned PDFs and an accounting export. Each new application added to the pile.
Deciding
Decisions made from stacks of paper
Board members reviewed applications as printed documents, and staff assembled each board packet by hand.
What they asked for vs. what they needed.
Asked for
Their paper application, online: a form that works.
Needed
An application people can finish, one reliable record of every grant, and a way for the board to decide without reading rows in an Excel spreadsheet.
Changing the mental model
Old
An application is a form that ends up in a spreadsheet saved to the desktop of the director’s laptop.
New
An application is a record that flows from the applicant, to the database, to the board’s vote.
How I addressed it
Five decisions that closed the three gaps
Applying
Decision 1. Start from the foundation’s own look.
Before designing a screen, I built a small design system from the styles already on the foundation’s website: its Alice and Lato type, and its plum and teal. Applicants see the foundation they know, and every screen stays consistent. One change was needed: the brand teal fails contrast on white, so text uses a darker teal.
Applying
Decision 2. Make the application easy to finish.
The application runs in seven steps, from eligibility to signature. Choosing a service area shows the due date and the board meeting that will decide the request, before the applicant writes a word. The blanket checkbox became four plain confirmations, and questions ask for plain words instead of form-speak.
Long answers are treated as normal, and an applicant can stop on any step and email themselves a link back to their answers.
Records
Decision 3. Build one source of truth, correct to the dollar.
I connected the application to an Airtable database, then compiled the foundation’s history into it from spreadsheets, scanned PDFs and accounting exports. I normalized and cleaned the data, corrected the mistakes I found, and reconciled organization names so each grantee’s history sits in one place.
The result holds every grant since 2010. At migration, every total matched the original spreadsheets to the dollar: 823 awards, $15,548,384, to 197 organizations. The May 2026 awards have been added since.
Records
Decision 4. Let the foundation question its own history.
With clean data in one place, I built a giving dashboard on top of it. The foundation can compare its giving across years, categories and organizations, narrow any chart to a category or a span of years, and open any grantee’s full history. At this point the system already went beyond what the foundation had asked for.
Deciding
Decision 5. Design for the people who decide.
Looking at the system through a board member’s eyes, I saw they were about to trade stacks of paper for rows in a database. Neither is a good way to decide who gets a grant, so I built the board a view of its own.
Every application in the cycle opens with a two-paragraph summary drafted with AI, and expands to the full application, laid out just as the applicant saw it. Board members vote Yes, No or Maybe, suggest an amount and add a comment. One button sends all of their votes to the foundation.
Behind it, the packet that staff used to assemble by hand now fills itself: they name the meeting and choose its categories, and the matching applications come in. Staff track which summaries are written, and download a decisions sheet once the board has voted.
The Board loved the online application but even more so the Board Packet and review portal—the online voting was a huge hit! Thank you for everything.
Outcomes
Results
Asked for a form, delivered a system
In one month: the application, a design system, a verified grant database, a giving dashboard and a board view.
One record, correct to the dollar
Every grant since 2010 in one place. At migration: 823 awards and $15,548,384, matching the original spreadsheets.
The part nobody asked for
The board view and packet portal weren’t in the original request. They became the part the board liked best.
Launching October 3, 2026
The application and the new hazelmillerfoundation.org go live together. Beyond the board’s response, nothing is measured yet; completion rates and time saved come with the first real applications.