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The Gorilla Foundation
Gorillas on the Web
She's Koko, the famous lowland gorilla, who communicates with the
world using American Sign Language. Koko's the living symbol of the
Gorilla Foundation's ongoing efforts to preserve her species.
Helping to fund those efforts is KokoMart, an e-commerce website
with customer service and fulfillment built on FileMaker Pro, the
award-winning database software application from FileMaker Inc.
The Gorilla Foundation bases its work on a simple premise: once you
get to know gorillas, you'll want to help them. 'Our mission is to
bring interspecies communication to the public through Koko and
family, in order to save gorillas from extinction and to ensure
that there's a future for all great apes,' explains Gary Stanley,
the Gorilla Foundation's Director of Educational Technology. 'We
are supported primarily by memberships and donations, but our
unique multi-media content -- books, photos and videos of gorillas
using sign language, painting and interacting with people and pet
kittens -- have made it possible to launch a website, Koko.org,
with a significant e-commerce presence.'
KokoMart is a key element of the Koko.org website -- bringing the
Foundation's message into the homes of Koko's fans around the
world. Every item sold helps to fund the organization's research
and outreach efforts. But as originally configured, the KokoMart
had problems. 'Our KokoMart fulfillment company was costing us a
fortune,' recalls Stanley, 'preventing us from making e-commerce a
viable fundraising option.'
The solution was to turn the project over to a full-time marketing
specialist, and bring all order fulfillment in-house. FileMaker Pro
had been in use throughout the organization for years for internal
databases and other miscellaneous functions, and the decision was
made to use the application as the basis for the new KokoMart
system. 'FileMaker has exceeded our expectations, dramatically,'
exults Gary. 'In less than a month, we were able to develop a
customized order-processing database for KokoMart, with automated
web-order imports, interactive phone-order processing, product
inventory relations, and comprehensive reporting capabilities. In
the following month, we were able to make successive enhancements
to the usability and generality of this database, and it is now the
backbone of our e-commerce and fulfillment process. We spend less
time chasing details, analyzing results, and reconciling bank
accounts due to the convenience of using FileMaker.'
FileMaker consultants Hank and Josh Shrier of Think Outside the Box
assisted the Gorilla Foundation team in the initial development,
automation and integration of their system -- made up of four
database files covering orders, order-line items, products, and
monthly reports. All told, these four databases contain hundreds of
thousands of individual records. 'The response time for doing
queries within this database is almost instantaneous,' marvels
Gary. 'We also plan to add several related databases to this
system, including Customers, Purchase Orders, and Vendors—and have
quickly gained the expertise needed to do this.' Additional
FileMaker databases cover membership and foundation gifts.
As a goodwill ambassador for her species, Koko doesn't do
endorsements. But for the Gorilla Foundation itself, there's a big
'thumbs-up' for the power and flexibility of FileMaker Pro.
Contact information
Contact Info for Customer:Gary Stanley
Director of Educational Technology
Gorilla Foundation
650-216-6450
gary@koko.org
http://www.koko.org
Hank Shrier, Josh Shrier
FSA Developers
Think Outside The Box Inc.
408-252-5418
totb@pacbell.net
josh80@pacbell.net
Filemaker Contact:
Kevin Mallon
Public Relations Manager
FileMaker Inc.
408-987-7227
kevin_mallon@filemaker.com
http://www.filemaker.com
- Koko, the famous lowland gorilla, is the living symbol of the Gorilla Foundation''s ongoing efforts to preserve her species. Helping to fund those efforts is KokoMart, an e-commerce website with customer service and fulfillment built on FileMaker.
- Non-Profit
- Scientific Research/Biotech