History
1995
January 20, 1995
OmniPeacock (a full service design agency) is incorporated in Washington DC, to focus on the nascent web identities of non-profit organizations. These were the early years of the internet still. There were no content management systems – even a simple editor was unheard of. Everything was built in hand-typed HTML. THOSE were the days!
1998
June 20, 1998
OmniPeacock (design) and Novejan Resources (administrative services) merge to form RenneDevelopment – a full service consultancy to aid non-profits and associations with their technical infrastructure, process and presence. It’s still early days, non-profits are still just beginning to find their place on the web. They still find it challenging to justify website budgets to their boards. Organizations are just beginning to expect some advanced capabilities like take donations or allowing people to sign up for newsletters.
2003
March 10, 2003
Incorporated as Orchid Suites, Inc in 2003, our first focus was progressive political parties and labor organizations. Our custom software was built to address multi-level, de-centralized organizations that needed collaboration, fundraising and content tools at every level of their network. Our distributed infrastructure was eventually in use by 310 interconnected organizations, big and small; representing several million constituents, hundreds of users and millions of annual fundraising.
2004
April 17, 2004
In 2004 Orchid purchased E-Angel, a boutique web development firm in Washington, thus doubling the size of it’s development and executive staff and positioning the company to grow dramatically among associations and distributed advocacy organizations.
2005
January 20, 2005
In 2005 a core team of Orchid staff retreated to the mountains of West Virginia for a staff retreat. We were grappling with focus and strategy just like many of our clients. We didn’t solve the problem over those three critical days but we crystalized a desire “visualize the data” … we were articulating what would become an enormous trend and an undying passion 10 years later: data visualization. We are always before our time!
2006
June 21, 2006
Orchid grows to a staff of 32, with two remote offices and a head quarters in Washington, DC
2008
January 20, 2008
We’ve made every mistake and enjoyed a great deal of success in a market that has remade itself many times over. We’re excited to have survived the 2008 finanicial crisis and the many lean years that followed.
2008
June 21, 2008
In the months leading up to the 2008 economic collapse we built an astounding 45 member partner team. Through that network we backstopped the development needs of marketing and communications teams all over the country and grew our involvement in back and front end web development efforts 5 fold. Unfortunately these mid-sized partners were particularly vulnerable to the economic vulnerability, by the end of 2008 90% of those partners had themselves folded. It was gruesome.
2009
June 21, 2009
After the shock of late 2008 we were faced with difficult decisions that lead to the lay off 90% of our own staff; leaving a small crew to continue servicing existing clients and deliver consulting and technical services to associations and non-profits.
2010
January 20, 2010
We’re also excited to have done a lot of work in data visualization in recent years. This has been a great confluence of our best skills and interests – data, geo location and dashboards.
2010
June 21, 2010
In 2010 Orchid goes completely virtual and started to build staff again, primarily as remote teams building products, dashboards, and visualizations for internal back-office applications.
2013
June 21, 2013
In 2013 Orchid develops a comprehensive rubric designed to assist organizations in re-developing and commercializing internal products and systems, together with systems that leverage data from internal sources. This rubric is currently in use in some 20 organizations and businesses.
2015
June 21, 2015
IN 2015 Orchid develops several prototypical data portals in the education space, designed to surface trends, indicators and performance indicators in the pursuit of reform. These data portals became the basis for the development of Orchid Analytics as a separate division of Orchid Suites.
2016
June 21, 2016
Orchid Analytics becomes a key partner to Human Capital Labs in building municipal dashboards for community leaders and service providers to manage the needs of returning citizens and their receiving communities to better facilitate re-entry and reduce recidivism.