With the help of a nonprofit organization, a community can mobilize around a cause and make a powerful impact by delivering services to those who need them.
Some Nonprofits are leading, but some are still struggling because they do not have an impactful strategic plan in place that can work as a roadmap for their success. Any Nonprofit organization will need number of resources to flourish their business, but lack of proper IT Support for Nonprofits is a very big problem and it is one of the biggest reason for their failure.
Even though a nonprofit organization has an IT department in place, it still fails to meet the objectives of the organization. When IT fails in a non profit, donors may not be satisfied because what is being accomplished and what they are expecting may not be in sync. If donors feel that what they are contributing is being wasted, a nonprofit may lose on a donor.
Let’s look at some of the reasons that why does IT fails for Nonprofits:
1. A strategic plan by an expert matters:
IT fails for the nonprofit because there is no strategic planning done by experts. Without the help of an expert, it is not easy to streamline the IT department.
2. Reviewing of the strategic plan is important:
Strategic plan is the backbone for any nonprofit organization to excel. A written strategic plan holds everybody accountable for performance as they help in implementing a formal process to measure the efficacy of the leadership in the organization which can be analyzed perfectly with it. The annual performance report will speak about all the loopholes and how it is being handled to meet the needs of an organization. However, the organization fails to write the plan and review it from time to time which hits IT adversely.
3. IT infrastructure is not properly streamlined:
A nonprofit organization has to execute innumerable operations in a day where technology plays a big role and if that is not as per the trend, IT will fail for nonprofits. You can disappoint the donors, lose on important and sensitive data, and may have to halt unnecessarily on communication and work because of IT failure and a lot more. Everything needs to be in budget too.
4. Inappropriate IT solutions:
A nonprofit organization will fail to operate effectively when IT solutions are inappropriate. For example, low quality VoIP services and internet services can cause many hindrances. If there are no cloud services then securing the data is another trouble. Speaking with the clients will become difficult and no backup plan in place can ruin the business. Password management, email hosting and data safety is not given priority due to which IT fails for Nonprofits.
5. No smart IT investments:
Smart technology is the need of today. Identifying software and hardware for your business is one of the toughest challenge as well. To create a smart IT environment, you probably need CIO consultant who can guide and take over the complete IT management. They suggest you spend smartly for IT so you can get smart IT environment.
So what can be done?
Embracing new technological solutions is the key to smoothen the IT infrastructure. For this, a sound strategic plan is required which an IT Strategy Consulting firm advises about. The consultant will advise about the best technology solutions which will be reviewed and checked from time to time to make real time changes and meet the objectives of Nonprofit. They will manage the IT services in the following ways that can benefit nonprofits enormously because IT is indispensable for a nonprofit.
Ways in which managed IT services is a boon for nonprofits and how a CIO consultant can help:
For a nonprofit organization to sustain in the market, they need to perform high and that too in budget. Streamlining IT costs with no compromise on service quality is a must. They need to deliver technology investments in a strong way. For this, a CIO consultant will develop an overall IT strategy using his extensive knowledge and experience to optimize the IT infrastructure or applications. They can help to manage the IT services in following ways:
- Confidentiality: A CIO consulting professional will help in building appropriate softwares and offer right technological solutions which can making fundraising easy and secure for the donor. All the confidential information of the donor will be safeguarded using high end IT systems.
- Compliance regulations: A strategic plan will be built keeping in mind the regulatory compliance requirements
- Reasonable VoIP and Internet solutions: A nonprofit will be able to invest in right type of VoIP services and internet solutions that are cost effective and in sync with the organization objectives. Speaking with the clients on a clear line is extremely important for the organization to communicate and convince efficiently.
- Cost effective technological investments: Easy ways to procure hardware and software on discounted prices.
- Backup Plan: Data will be backed up easily and sharing of files on a secured remote access will also be possible without any hurdle. No need to worry about the data being lost. Everything will be backed up properly.
- Management of assets and other things: It will be easier to tag the assets and manage the inventory of hardware and software on ideal IT applications.
- Safety of data: Appropriate encryption will be incorporated to keep the data safe of the organization and proper management of passwords will be there to keep the sensitive information intact. Management of spam control and email hosting will not be a trouble anymore.
It is certain that most of the IT services can be well managed with the guidance of a strategic consultant. This will help a nonprofit to improve the operations and focus on the mission of the organization.
Is your organization vulnerable to economic downturns because it lacks appropriate support? So, now is the time to get proper strategic plan in place from the experts and IT won’t fail again for your nonprofit.