IT Planning and Assessment For Your Nonprofit

How IT Planning and Assessments can help your organization meet its mission goals and bring you peace of mind

Nonprofits build strong communities. They are core to our economic stability and facilitate healthy forward momentum for those who use their services.

Technology is a nonprofit’s greatest ally. The tools provided by healthy and secure technology environment are essential in achieving important mission goals. Not only does technology ensure fast, secure and transparent operations in your organization, but it also helps to reach wider audiences of donors, volunteers and constituents.

Having an IT Plan and Assessment is important for several reasons:

  • It allows you to approach IT in a strategic and proactive way
  • It allows you to become a smart and savvy IT decision maker
  • Give you the understanding to save cases and invest in beneficial IT
  • Ensure your organization is using its existing technology in smarter ways
  • Implements a roadmap for building on your technology foundation in a direction that benefits your organization in the most cost-effective way
  • Provides security in case of emergencies or unexpected failures

These are a lot of things to consider for the person who gets assigned the task of managing IT in your organization.

A typical business might have roles such as Chief Information Officers, Chief Technical Officers and so on. There might be rolls for people who specifically deal with data governance and data security.

Most nonprofits do not have budgets to include this fantastic array of specialists to manage all the things.

A typical nonprofit might have people assigned to certain rolls, “IT Manager” or “System Administrator” but may not have the adequate skills or support to perform these roles simply due to time and resources.

Without the necessary support, technology can be accumulated with extra cost and little benefit. Quick fixes sometimes come in the way of 3rd party services and technology, cloud applications and subscriptions-based apps which may solve the problem temporarily but are rarely kept track of and can lead to needless spending. Further to that, with only one or two people at the helm of this great big technology machine, it is very difficult to ensure policies, procedures and maintain communication that is integral for security.

JIG's IT Planning and Assessment Strategy

1

Getting to Know You

We learn everything there is to know about how your organization works. We want to know how you work, when you work and who you work for.

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2

Getting to Know Your Community

The more we know about who you are working for, who you are helping and what their needs are, the more we can start to envision and structure solutions and plans for you.

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3

What are Your Constraints?

A successful plan hinges on realistic and consistent estimates for allowable resources.

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4

What Do You Already Have?

A thorough audit of your software, hardware, servers, and the state of the devices that are attached to your network or system will ensure you get the most bang for your buck. It establishes how information (sensitive and otherwise) is being shared and protected. Security in nonprofit industries is an area of major concern.

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5

What Are Your Options?

Researching affordable technology that has the greatest reach within your organization. Finding the tools and equipment that are scalable and secure. Whether that’s CRMs, donation portals or data storage, there is something out there that fits everyone.

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6

Who Will Use This Technology?

Training is important and removes technology barriers that would otherwise create inequality in your organization. Whether it’s volunteers, staff, stakeholders, constituents, everyone requires accessible interaction with your services and technology.

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7

How Will This All Fall Into Place?

Depending on your unique needs and the urgency required, a timeline and schedule will be developed to implement all these phases in comfortable roll-out that makes sure nobody is left behind. The lifecycle is designed to move your organization in an upward direction at your own pace and within budget.

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8

Are We Ready?

Things are finalized, prepared. Policy and procedure documents have the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed.

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9

Off We Go!

We put the plan into action.

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A firm IT plan will remove the confusion and uncertainty about the technology goals of your organization. It will reduce stress, uncontrolled costs, provide transparency and most importantly in many cases, security.

Technology is your greatest ally in this mission to build a better world and we want to make sure we can help provide you with that peace of mind.