Great Lakes Protection Fund Board of Directors Access Area

www.glpf.org

“Palantir took our concept for a secure site for our Board of Directors and turned it into an increasingly valuable business tool.”
— Amy Elledge, Communications Administrator, GLPF

The Great Lakes Protection Fund is a permanent environmental endowment created by the governors of the Great Lakes states to support projects that improve the health of the Great Lakes ecosystem. The fund’s 14-member board, made up of two governor-appointed representatives from each of the seven member states, meets quarterly to review grant proposals and keep up-to-date on the progress of ongoing projects. To support these meetings, GLPF staff prepare large board books containing agendas, minutes, and the reports under discussion.

With its members spread across more than 1,000 miles, the board needed a central place where members could access these important documents around the clock. In a password-protected corner of the Web site Palantir created a repository to aid in the distribution and organization of these meeting materials.

The GLPF staff quickly and painlessly uploads PDFs, organizing them by date and agenda. With little or no guidance, board members, logging in with their e-mail addresses and passwords, can review materials for upcoming meetings, read the minutes of past meetings, download expense reimbursement forms, access other board members’ contact information, review archived meeting materials, and track meeting attendance. This added convenience is a big plus to board members, all frequent travelers with busy schedules. The site is a big plus to GLPF staff as well. It has taken the stress out of last-minute changes by making the distribution of updates electronic instead of paper-based.

The Palantir-designed system is easy to maintain and a snap to keep current. GLPF staff can monitor system statistics, such as how many times the meeting page has been accessed and which agenda documents have been downloaded most often, as well as flag important documents for board members’ attention when they log in. “As our ideas evolved, so did our site,” explains GLPF Communications Administrator Amy Elledge.

The GLPF site is an example of how the Web can not only duplicate the contents of our briefcases but in some cases supplant printouts altogether. Web solutions such as this can greatly benefit even a relatively small user base like the GLPF staff and board, making life easier for the folks trying to help the planet, while saving a few trees in the process.

www.glpf.org

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