Giving Data: From Spreadsheet to SaaS
Valuable business intelligence is often locked away in static files, scattered in different silos, or even in legacy paper documents inaccessible to users and impossible to scale. Our client possessed a rich database of donor records hand-extracted into Excel spreadsheets but had no way to leverage it as a dynamic tool for their prospect research platform. Our task was to liberate this data and build a complete software product around it.
Building a Product from a File
The Problem: The client's data was trapped. Manual lookups were slow, there was no way to handle growth, and the data couldn't be integrated with other services or sold as a product. They had the asset, but no way to monetize it.
The Solution: We designed a pragmatic, full-stack solution with three core components: a normalized PostgreSQL database for scalability, a secure REST API to allow for flexible data access, and a fast, user-friendly web application for searching and analysis. We created a living product from a dead file.
// A mockup API response, turning spreadsheet rows into clean, usable data.
{
"donor": {
"id": "don_1A2b3C4d5E",
"name": "The Circle Foundation",
"estimated_capacity": "1M+",
"location": "North Bethesda, MD"
},
"latest_gifts": [
{
"recipient": "Riverside Food Bank",
"amount": "$50,000 - $100,000",
"year": 2024
}
]
}