Franklin Hall, in Philadelphia’s famed Franklin Institute, could not have been a more fitting place for Your Part-Time Controller to unveil the Wizards of I.D.D.™ (Information Design & Delivery), our newest strategy to help nonprofits build a better world one accounting department at a time. After all, Ben Franklin could count a lot of I.D.D. wizardry among his many achievements:
- owning a print shop to put information on paper
- creating the U.S. postal system to deliver that information
- starting the first lending library so people could access that information
- inventing bifocals so people could read that information
The announcement of YPTC’s Wizards of I.D.D.™ came at the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance’s 2014 Annual Meeting whose theme, appropriately enough, was “Investing in Knowledge.” Even this was a tribute to Franklin who said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
More than 500 community arts leaders heard YPTC Partner Jennifer Alleva – assisted by a life-sized (6’5”) cutout statue of President and Founder Eric Fraint (who could only be there in spirit, as he was in San Francisco learning more about I.D.D. at a LinkedIn conference).
The GPCA Annual Meeting repeatedly described the power of the arts to transform us as individuals and as a society, to serve as the heart of a community’s creative economy, and to improve education, community revitalization and social equity. Alleva described how The Wizards of I.D.D. can help arts organizations achieve their missions: (click here to see the video of her presentation)
“Like all of you, at YPTC our departments are dedicated to making the world a better place. Although some of our staff members can sing and dance, we are much more talented as accountants. It may not sound that exciting, but we at YPTC get jazzed by using our accounting skills to help nonprofit organizations succeed.
“This year we have some exciting news to share about a new innovation. Does anybody remember the Wizard of Id comic strip? Well, we are announcing today the Wizards of I.D.D.™ which stands for Information Design and Delivery. What is Information Design and Delivery? Think dashboards – on steroids!
“More than dashboards, though, I.D.D. refers to superior ways for you to be able to tell your stories and show your impact to your board, your funders, your donors, and your staff. Our Wizards can help you do this on an iPad, other tablets, smartphones, computers, and, of course, good old-fashioned paper.
“Charts, graphs and dashboards are just a part of what we can do. Converting your numbers and data into easy ways to understand them – that’s our goal.”
The message that a commitment to the arts is also a smart investment to the business community came through loud and clear. “Forget the cheesesteaks and the tricorner hat: Philadelphia is becoming an arts capital,” Lonely Planet wrote recently about the City of Brotherly Love. The nonprofit arts sector was described as emblematic of a city that’s smart, creative, knows how to find solutions, and encourages people to learn. YPTC is proud to have been a sponsor of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance’s annual meeting.