ASIFA-Hollywood × ထCHPTRS

It's high time for a change.

Let's drop the costs
and fix the problems.

A proposal to safely stabilize and improve ASIFA-Hollywood's entire digital ecosystem — while greatly reducing annual costs.

The platform ASIFA depends on has grown complicated, expensive, and fragile. It doesn't have to be. And we must change that in the interests of ASIFA's long-term organizational health.

ASIFA is currently completely dependent on a structure that is more complex and expensive than it needs to be.

Two people.
Fourteen combined years of technical leadership.
And a whopping twenty-two years contributing value to ASIFA-Hollywood.

Annette Lyn O'Neil

Annette Lyn O'Neil

ထCHPTRS CEO & Annie Awards Producer

Annette first walked into ASIFA-Hollywood as a USC student volunteer in 2003. She never really left.

Over the following two decades, she spearheaded the Annie Awards' complete digital transformation — moving the process from a manual collation of bankers' boxes full of DVDs and foamcore to a 100%-online submission system. She brought in the only developer she knew: her boyfriend at the time (who still technically owns the current vendor, though he has abdicated operational leadership to Bosnian subcontractors). Annette sat next to him and painstakingly created the entire digital submissions system from scratch, most of which is still in place more-or-less as she designed it.

By 2017, submissions had grown from 580 to 1,475 entries: a compound annual growth rate of 26.75%, outpacing industry growth by more than five times. (The 53rd Awards, despite the enormous economic pressures on the industry, sat at a total of 1,650.)

Vitally, Annette didn't just build the system. She made it capture large amounts of uncultured revenue — implementing the payment reconciliation and late fee tracking that captured tens of thousands of dollars in fees that had previously gone uncollected.

In her current role as Producer of the ceremony itself, Annette is on a six-month retainer to orchestrate all the show's production details from the technical execution of the show to volunteer recruitment to streaming.

Annette knows this organisation, this event, and this platform better than anyone alive. And she cares about it enormously.

Alex Price

Alex Price

ထCHPTRS CTO

Alex is an elite technologist. As Chief Technical Officer and co-founder of Ecologi, he grew the company from three people to more than eighty, serving 18,000 B2B customers and earning a place in LinkedIn's Top 10 UK Startups 2022 before a successful exit.

He subsequently took Just from pre-alpha concept to production, again as CTO. Today, at ထCHPTRS, he specializes in executive partnerships with founders in Sheffield University's spinout program and consults on artificial intelligence for Venture Community.

At Torchbox — the UK agency of choice for socially progressive organisations — Alex served first as a lead contract technologist, then returned as an AI consultant helping nonprofit organisations prepare for a safer, more secure transition to AI-augmented workflows.

Alex specialises in exactly the kind of challenge ASIFA faces: inheriting complex systems, eliminating technical debt, and building foundations that last.

Together, we don't just understand your platform. We understand what it's for.

A careful transition.
Zero disruption.
Built around the Annie Awards cycle.

Phase 1

Stabilize Month 1

During this phase we:

  • establish robust monitoring and error tracking
  • remove the black box by documenting how each component of the system works
  • ensure ASIFA has visibility into the platform's infrastructure and operational services

Nothing changes visibly during this phase.
The Annie Awards process continues uninterrupted.

ASIFA simply gains clarity and stability.

Phase 2

Modernise Months 2–4

Once the system is fully understood and documented, we begin modernising the platform in ways that reduce long-term complexity and maintenance cost.

This includes:

  • replacing unsupported technology components
  • consolidating multiple services into a simpler, more cost-effective architecture

All changes are made gradually and safely in the context of the Annie Awards calendar cycle.

Phase 3

Improve Month 5 onward

With the platform stabilized and simplified, we begin optimising what the system can do, and how it does those things: building new capabilities together with ASIFA.

This may include:

  • automating manual administrative processes
  • improving reporting and operational visibility
  • adding features that improve the experience for members and submitters

At this stage, the platform becomes a tool ASIFA can actively evolve rather than simply maintain. We'll be deeply invested stakeholders, proactively suggesting these evolutions as we watch users interact with the ecosystem.

The person leading this transition built the original system and is intimately familiar with the organisation the system supports.
There is no smoother handover possible.

Let's do this properly.
And let's charge what is fair and healthy for ASIFA.

According to the 2024 Form 990, ASIFA currently pays ±$91,500 annually, across two separate contracts: ±$70,000 to the current vendor and ±$21,500 to Annette O'Neil as Producer.

This proposal consolidates everything — ASIFA site development, full platform development for the Annie Awards, maintenance for all of the above, and Annette's current Producer retainer — for $60,000 flat.

This contract is designed to include
everything the current vendor is doing for ASIFA,
including accessory work (such as helping to frame and operationalise the Annie Awards rules and address ZenDesk inquiries in a timely manner),
as well as all the work Annette currently does for the Annie Awards
in a single annual retainer.

Current annual cost

$91,500

Proposed — everything included

$60,000

Save $31,500 per year — a 35% reduction

That is a saving of $31,500 per year, or 35%, delivered by a team that already understands the organisation and the platform it depends on.

We are comfortable offering this because:

1

We know exactly what this work will entail, because we know ASIFA and this platform in a detailed, nuanced way — no guesswork required

2

We are deeply committed to ASIFA's thriving (and have proven so for actual decades)

We're ready to begin immediately upon approval.

Questions? We're here for them.

ops@chptrs.tech