Speak Up: Your Tech Success Depends on It

Any nonprofit implementing a new system or technology tool knows there will be a learning curve to get it up and running. While you may need to learn a new process, all too often there are times when things aren’t working right or don’t make sense and the tendency is to fight through it. This is exactly the time to speak up for nonprofit tech success and advocate for what you were really hoping to accomplish by implementing something new.

When your building’s HVAC gets repaired, you expect it to work right in the end. Let’s say a tech comes, replaces the system and leaves. The next day, your staff notices it’s still really warm in a couple offices while freezing in others. Would you accept it, bite the bullet, get heaters for some offices and put fans in the others? I think most of us would call the tech back and ask them to fix it! After all, the board wants to know the money you spent actually fixed the problem.

So, why settle for a website, CRM, case management system, or fundraising database that has some kinks in it? The joy of getting new technology is you get something that works better. However, if you and the rest of your users don’t speak up when something isn’t working well, you could end up frustrated with your system. Wouldn’t you rather have technology that does what you need it to do?

When should you speak up?

Well, ideally you’re participating from the very beginning – we hope you’re working with an implementation partner that’s collaborating with you all along the way. But even after setup is complete, once you have access to your new tool, it’s time to get in and make sure everything does what you want it to do, the way you expected. If something is amiss, contact your consultant, Admin or your Account Manager. For example:

• When you’ve repeated a process a few times and you know it would be easier if you could just save certain settings and reuse them each time.
• You’re looking at your website analytics and see visits to the “Donate” page have drastically decreased, but you aren’t sure if it can be fixed.
• Your staff members keep missing the same important step in a new process.
• Your old system used to provide a particularly useful report and you miss getting that data from the new system.

Here’s a little secret for those of you who feel like you’ll be a pest or you’ll be seen as a “complainer:” anyone here at BackOffice Thinking can tell you that we love this kind of feedback. The Admins we train up do as well. It makes the job of building and managing technology so much easier when we have all the information. You are not complaining. You are providing valuable feedback that will inform the future use and success of your system. Speak up for nonprofit tech success: it’s a crucial part of the learning curve for everyone.

Contact your support email for help or contact us to think through improvements needed in your new technology.