Nonprofit Programs Need Technology That Drives The Mission

Most of my career has been in marketing where I had the opportunity to play with all sorts of online technologies from CRM’s, to websites, to autoresponders and more. Then I picked up my marketing skills and decided to put them to use for good in the nonprofit world. I had several jobs in Volunteer and Program Coordination, doing field work that was focused on tracking, reporting, and communications. Coming from my digital marketing world where everyone is constantly shifting to the latest technology, I was surprised to find nonprofit organizations were a good 3-4 years behind.

Most people in these roles just want to be with the communities they serve, support their teams, and achieve their goals, but that can be difficult to do without the appropriate technology tools.

I remember the first time I went into a position that didn’t have a CRM. I had to create spreadsheet trackers. All I wanted to do was work with our constituents and volunteers, but every 2-3 months we had to take a week where we spent hours each day pulling information together for a grant report. I knew there were systems that could do all this automatically (I had even used them in the past!), but I didn’t have access to such tools in this role. How much faster could we grow if I could spend less time on this reporting and more time on the program? How many more community members could we serve?

I was once in an organization with a constant stream of events where a lot of donors volunteered and volunteers donated. Appropriately segmenting and personalizing communications was a nightmare. We had a donor database, a volunteer database, and a separate email program. Eliminating duplicates and figuring out who was to receive which email became a tedious effort of combing through spreadsheets. It was extra frustrating because I knew there were systems that could hold both our volunteers and donors where one report would’ve eliminated errors. Alas, I didn’t have access to such a system. How many donor asks were missed? How many volunteers never received communications encouraging them to donate? How many nonprofits would give up because it’s such an arduous process?

I have many more stories I could tell including volunteer positions I’ve held. There are common themes I find over and over again in nonprofits where the staff could be more efficient in their positions if they had the right technology. It doesn’t have to be the latest and greatest, just the best fit for the organization, their skills and budget.

When nonprofits have the right tools, here’s what I have seen:

• Development Directors and Executive Directors get a picture of trends at any time, without having to wait for staff or volunteers to pull from multiple data sets.
• Reports are reliable instead of hoping Excel formulas were calculated correctly.
• Multiple reports can be pulled from the same data sets automatically instead of calculating them by hand individually.
• Program survey data can be collected and saved in the same place as donations and volunteers. No more wondering if this year it was a Google Form, the website form, or by hand.
• Automation and integration allows for checks to be easily processed then entered into the donor database with a much lower error rate.
• Program and Volunteer Professionals can easily customize communications based on accurately segmented lists (attended events, volunteered, donated etc…).

When your staff is losing time, don’t have the tools to effectively gather data, and/or are going between multiple systems, it’s time to consider updating your technology. Your staff is there because they believe in the organization and want to help. Give them the tools to drive effective and efficient processes so they can focus on the mission and enjoy their work more.

Do you want to know what technology would be best for your organization? Contact us about a Technology Assessment.