Deborah Elizabeth Finn has come to a lot of the same conclusions that I have about technology in NGOs, which she’s summarised in a list of Ten Things that Every Nonprofit Executive needs to know about Information Technology. Two points in particular are particularly important:
1. Very little technical knowledge is required in order for nonprofit CEOs to participate actively in strategic IT planning.
Claro. Too often senior management avoid technology issues, partly because they’re busy with higher-priority issues, partly because they’re concerned that they might be embarrassed by their lack of knowledge, partly because there are serious organisational challenges involved.
5. Information technology, no matter how strategically you apply it, will probably never save your nonprofit organization any money.
I like this one, although I’m not 100% sure about it. However it’s completely true that you’re more likely to be more effective than more efficient because of technology; implementing IT soaks up a lot of resources, which leads me to the bonus point from Deborah’s post:
8. In the long run, IT training and support (and other operating expenses) will make up about 70% of your IT budget.
Go read the whole post, then print it out and take it to your manager.
Related posts:
I like point number 10!
“10. In a nonprofit organization, most strategic IT problems are actually organizational development problems.
Is it a CEO who is resistant to technical innovations? A board of directors that hesitates to make the commitment to raise the money need for the IT infrastructure? Line staff who are already stressed and overworked, and can’t stop to learn and implement new technologies? An inability to make outsourced IT consultants or in-house IT staff understand organizational processes? All the information technology in the world won’t resolve these issues, if you don’t address them at the organizational level.”
I’ve been to a number of conferences over the past year speaking with numerous people in the NGO / NPO sector and I generally find myself talking to people about the organization itself. They seem confused that such a g33k would be asking about what their staff does and how they do it. We generally come around to the understanding that technology is just another toolbox, and to figure out what you need to use is determining whether to you have a nail, screw, nut, bolt, or …
So once the organization understands what they are – they are then able to procede with the research to determine the tool they need to use.
posting this comment at Deborah’s site also.
Thanks for your kind words about my blog article!
No problem Elizabeth. There was an interesting comment on the NOSI mailing list, that “non-profit” just describes a type of organisation and not the capacity or requirements of that organisation. So for example a small local environmental group has completely different needs to a large international disaster response NGO. I think most of the issues you identified apply across the board though!
I would add that to Deborah’s points 1 and 10 that a little knowledge can also be a dangerous thing. Just as I’ve seen opportunities to adapt to new/diffferent tech lost, I’ve also seen worlds of pain caused by directors succombing to the newest tech fad without listening to their staff’s view. I’d also suggest it’s not *just* the technical knowledge of the nonprofit CEO that matters, but their ability to persuade line staff that any change is systems is actually positive.
We’ve been discussing organisational change at our meeting today; it’s clear that CEOs are not the only agents of change, and in some cases, they’re not agents of change at all. You need to have that type of agent at different levels of the organisation to lead the charge, and maybe senior management’s role is sometimes simply to create the space for change…