The Feminoteka Foundation is a growing organization, established in 2005 as an institutional form of a feminist activist group. The organization focuses on combating gender discrimination. Since 2009, it has operated an intervention hotline.

Before Feminoteka began its journey with the 2do2 Application, it ran several projects. Each had its own separate budget managed through spreadsheets. Some projects were simple enough that coordinators could monitor them “manually”, without even using a spreadsheet. The Foundation has been using 2do2’s support since 2022, and since then, it has been steadily expanding its operations.

Since 2022, it has supported Ukrainian refugee women by running a shelter, establishing a worker cooperative, a consultation center, and continuously carrying out other projects.

As Joanna Piotrowska, the president of the Foundation, explains:

“I had heard of the 2do2 Application before and thought to myself, 'this isn’t a tool for us; we already know everything here.’ Everything changed with the war in Ukraine. We then received several new projects to manage. At that point, we were coordinating 5–6 projects at the same time. Additionally, these projects had very similar budget items, and certain costs appeared which were funded from multiple projects—like psychological support, for example. I started to feel like I couldn’t manage it all in Excel sheets anymore. I remembered the 2do2 Application and decided to give it a try—I scored a bullseye!

Using the 2do2 Application has changed everything in our organization. Thanks to it, we were able to allocate tasks within the team: one person enters all the documents. Project coordinators assign costs to their projects and regularly reconcile expenses with sponsors. It’s quite a challenge—each project has different funding sources and reporting deadlines (some sponsors require reports even every month!). The accountant also uses 2do2 and has her own account in the application. When she is notified that a report is ready, she can download the necessary summaries from the application.”

Thanks to the task allocation, Joanna, as the president, can focus on her managerial role—she’s the “another pair of eyes” and only checks data and adjustments for accuracy—especially at the end of projects. Previously, Joanna was responsible for all aspects of finances, from A to Z. She monitored accuracy, entered data, and managed inter-project dependencies. Now, she can share these burdensome tasks while still maintaining oversight of the organization’s finances.

Marta Żbikowska, the Foundation’s office coordinator, adds:

“I don’t work with the 2do2 Application on a daily basis, but even for me, it’s a clear and transparent tool, very intuitive. I have an example: our president was on her holidays, and a sponsor requested an additional, urgent report. In the past, such a request would have meant a phone call to Joanna. Now, thanks to the clarity of the 2do2 Application, we can generate all the necessary data ourselves. This wouldn’t have been possible before.”

Joanna: “Recently, we were preparing for an audit of one of last year’s projects. It turned out that we had the ‘classic’ problem again—we couldn’t determine which Excel file of the report for the sponsor was the final one (we had saved successive versions after each round of corrections). I instructed my colleagues to retrieve a summary from 2do2—where we know all the data is up to date. This helped us pass the audit without any issues.”

Marta: “I also have an interesting example of how intuitive the Application is. We recently brought a new person into the team. She’s British and only knows basic Polish. It turned out that the Application is intuitive enough that she can work with it too. She uses the data from the Application to carry out her projects and tasks.”

Currently, Feminoteka manages not only projects but all of its finance through 2do2. This includes tracking revenues and expenses from donations and the 1.5% of taxes allocated to us by taxpayers in their annual tax returns.

Joanna: “Having this financial overview helps us learn. I look at our donation income month by month and ask myself—what happened that we received more donations in July than in other months? We analyze it and discover that one of our posts had an exceptionally large impact. We learn from it and know what to do next.”

How does Joanna briefly describe her experience with the Application?

“The 2do2 Application is a hit in a bullseye! Its strength lies in the fact that it was created by people from NGOs who truly understand the context and needs of this work. They know that some people don’t like spreadsheets or don’t understand formulas. I would recommend this tool to all organizations, but especially those with more than five projects, that are starting to get lost in them. To organizations where one person is responsible for everything, making it difficult to share responsibilities. I also recommend it to larger organizations, where multiple people are involved in the reporting process. Thanks to the Application, everyone has access to the final versions of documents, and there’s no need to constantly go back and ask the coordinators or management for clarification.”