About Us
The Story of DownHome Loan Manager » the Software
DownHome Loan Manager (DLM) was first developed for a not-for-profit community lender in Washington state. As an agency that operated several loan programs in a multi-county region of the state, the Snohomish County Private Industry Council (PIC) needed a reliable system to track its loan accounts and maintain critical information about the clients it served. Beginning in 1995, an in-house database system was designed and developed by Erik Wogstad, a member of the PIC’s staff.Building on this well-tested in-house platform, the developer then undertook an effort to re-design the software so that it could be adapted for general use by other non-profit lending organizations. Instrumental in the development process was the Tri-Cities Enterprise Association (TEA), another community lender in Washington state, which agreed to be a beta-test site for this first version of DownHome Loan Manager©. This beta system was installed in 1997, and included multi-user network capabilities. After a successful testing phase, DownHome Loan Manager© was introduced to the non-profit lending community at large.
Once introduced to the general market, DownHome Loan Manager© proved to be an immediate success. Since it was designed expressly for the needs of community lending environment, the software was greeted with enthusiasm by microlenders and other alternative lending agencies around the U.S. In addition to appreciating its power as a relational database, organizational users preferred DownHome Loan Manager's Windows-based design to that of more expensive, DOS-based systems available on the market at that time.
The successful introduction of DownHome Loan Manager© to the broader non-traditional lending community brought with it new challenges and opportunities. It soon became clear that the software would require a substantial business commitment -- both to support a growing base of institutional users and to provide on-going product development and enhancements. To meet these challenges, an independent company was formed, DownHome Solutions.
The Story of DownHome Solutions » the Company
DownHome Solutions was founded in early 1998, building upon the success of DownHome Loan Manager©, its established core product. The mission of DownHome Solutions is to provide effective software tools and technical support for organizations engaged in community lending and development.DownHome Solutions is owned by Erik Wogstad, its President, and Marjorie Skotheim, its Vice President. Erik Wogstad has an extensive background in community organizing, non-profit management, fundraising, microlending, and database design and development. His experience includes five years working for a community lending agency that operated loan programs through the SBA, USDA, EDA, and private funding sources. Prior to DownHome Solutions, Marjorie Skotheim worked in the fields of public relations, political organizing and non-profit management.
In addition to its own staff, DownHome Solutions has forged relationships with independent developers with whom it contracts for additional database design, software programming, and web development.
We Keep Growing
Since its original release, DownHome Loan Manager© has been constantly enhanced through program updates and new features. Since introducing version 1.0 in 1997, DownHome Loan Manager has gone through two full version releases, version 2.0 in 2000, and version 3.0 in the fall of 2002. Along the way, we've provided incremental updates and patches to our customers as well.Separate add-on components have also been introduced, such as the Client Manager module, an Escrow module, Capital Manager module, etc. (For a detailed list, click on Add-On Modules.)
Our Commitment to You » The Customer
DownHome Solutions is dedicated to providing the best possible software solutions at a reasonable cost for our not-for-profit customers. In very large measure, our success today in reaching new customers has come from the enthusiastic endorsement of some of our earliest clients. To you, we owe a special debt of gratitude. We thank you for being willing to support a young company in the first place, and then to tell others about your experience with us. We will do our utmost to keep your loyalty and trust -- by continuing to give you the attention and service you have come to expect from us.DownHome Solutions offers full support for its software through a standard technical support contract that covers technical support on demand and automatic software upgrades as they are released. To meet the special needs of our customers, DownHome Solutions also offers custom program design services to augment or modify DownHome Loan Manager© components. Custom work is quoted on a project-by-project basis.