What Every Nonprofit Needs to Know About Technology

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John Kenyon www.johnkenyon.org
Who is John? 15 years helping non-profits, ex CompuMentor; wrote eNonprofit guide; worked in groundspring.org; teaches Masters of Non-profit course in USF
Show of hands
*Orgs with 30+ people 10%
*10-30 people 50%
*1-10 people 40%
*How many have a technology plan – 1 maybe 4
*90%+ don’t have a plan
What technology should I use? = What house should I buy?
Key question : What do you need?
Nonprofits & technology
Appropriate technology, how to get. Involves:
*Systems analysis – what is my context, my competition, how do they serve
*Planning – you get what you plan for
*Hardware
*Software
*Databases
*The internet
*Online services
*The future
*Keep coming back to what you need
*Don’t ask the vendors
Work systems framework
*Elements / Principles
*Customers - know what the customers need / Please the customer
*Products & services / ditto
*Business process – to produce p&s / Perform the work efficiently – if your inefficient, technology will just speed up your inefficiency
*Participants / Serve the participants
*Information / Create value from information
*Technology – call the vendor’s customer service, see how long it takes to to get served / minimize effort consumed by technology
*Infrastructure – other things like phones, structure etc / deploy infrastructure as a genuine resource 
*Context – who’s your competition – spend 20-30 hours researching who do, how do, what tech they use, history
Balance results, people, process
*Users and audiences
*Board
*Staff
*Major donors
*Members
*Prospects
Systems & Planning
*Roles – identify team – cio function, org perspective; consultant function – outside tech expert; org stakeholder – process/people perspective; end-user perspective
Key elements of a plan
*Organization profile
*Technology vision statement
*Project – description, benefits, tasks, costs
*Budget
*Timeline/critical path
Key steps in planning
*Assess current tech & organization readiness
*Create the team, consider consulting support
*State the vision, develop criteria, set goals
*Create components of the plan
*Establish priorities
*Share/explain the plan, get feedback
*Make decision, develop budget & timeline
*Implement the plan, train staff
*Evaluate: technology, implementation, process, planning
*Revise plan based on evaluation
Security & Privacy
*Data security
*Backups
*Restores
*Privacy policies (see groundspring.org’s)
10 Nonprofit Tech Commandments
*After people, data is your most important resource
*Your results depend on your investment in data (staff time, planning, training, resources, allocated)
*Define and know your data needs and uses
*Seek out data and keep it flowing
*Define your needs in detail before tool selection. Have tools? Regularly review new tools
*Honestly look at your information systems (human, data, and communication elements)
*Maintain commitment of board and staff to technology
*Have an ongoing conversation about data
*Keep in touch with other organizations
*Knowledge eases fear, stay in the know
70/30 rule – support & maintenance account for 70% of your tech cost
Recap
*Business processes are the key
*Appropriate technology : need, culture, resources
*Measure twice, cut once
*Learn about the enonprofit & webification of stakeholders
*Technology can transform organizations
Resources
Books
*ManagingNonprofits.org (management)
*Work for good (planning)
*The accidental techie (hands-on)
*The eNonprofit guide to ASPs, Internet services, and online software
*Online fundraising handbook
Internet
*Techsoup.org – nonprofits + technology
*N-TEN.org – listservs & resources
*Idealware.org – software reviews
*TechFinder.org, techunderground.org – tech consultants
*Craigslist.org/../non-profit – recruitment
*Successful internet strategies
*A decade of online fundraising
category:bootcamp