Trish Perkins is a nonprofit systems analyst and affordable technology consultant who trains nonprofits on tools like Google, Salesforce, Office, video, social networks, and WordPress websites. According to a survey of over 400 social change groups, 59% report being frustrated with technology, having enough tech staff is the most important factor in satisfaction, and 47% do not have online donations from their websites despite seeing communications, fundraising, and data management tools as needs. The document discusses trends in cloud computing, social media, mobility, collaboration, and big data and how nonprofits can lead change by embracing these technologies. Contact information is provided for Trish Perkins and additional nonprofit technology resources.
Gen AI in Business - Global Trends Report 2024.pdf
Foundations and Futures - Technology and Nonprofits
1. Foundations and Futures
Technology and Nonprofits
With
Trish Perkins, Tech Consultant
HandyCapable Network
2. Who’s Trish?
• Nonprofit systems
analyst and designer
• Affordable nonprofit
technology consultant
• Trainer—Google,
Salesforce, Office,
Video, Social Networks,
WordPress web sites
3.
4. The Nonprofit Tech Picture
In more than 400 social change groups:
• 59% report are frustrated or really struggling with
technology.
• More funding is not the most important factor in
satisfaction with technology.
• Having enough tech staff is the most important
factor.
5. • What do we need? Communications and fund
raising tools, we said.
• 47% do not have online donations from their
web sites.
• Over 50% have inadequate data management–
slips of paper, Excel spreadsheets, personal
address books to manage contacts/donors/
content yet 70% consider it important.
10. What is Cloud Computing?
RESPONSIVE
VENDORS
LEVELS THE
PLAYING
CREATES FIELD
EFFICIENCIES
http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelmarlatt/3151591960/
GOOD FOR
THE EARTH
Flickr Photo by MichaelMarriatt: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelmarlatt/3151591960/In every way, cloud computing helps you align your interests toward the top of that pyramid.
Credit – Ed Granger-Happ, Save the ChildrenIn short, the cloud helps you spend more time meeting your mission.
Hug Flickr Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/clover_1/4861811309/sizes/l/in/photostream/Dandelion Flickr Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/courosa/3708151311/sizes/l/in/photostream/Almost everything we do as human beings is driven by the need to be social, to make emotional connections. That’s certainly what our work is about. That has been the constant. We do this work because we care about the people in our communities. People support our work because they care about their communities. Doing and supporting the work is a way for us to communicate that emotion, share it with others, and get them engaged.
How many of you are engaged in collaboration right now? How many of you got grant money that required a collaboration?Funders love it, this economy almost demands it, and it’s actually good for us! You can’t end hunger by feeding people. You end hunger by making sure that people a) are fed b) can feed themselves. This requires that organizations with particular specialties work together to deliver services across their client bases in a cohesive way. That requires collaboration.And increasingly, we’re seeing departments WITHIN organizations feeling the collaborative vibe. The introduction of social media to the marketing mix has really started to blur the line between marketing, program and fundraising. Several large organizations are rethinking their org chart and placing marketing people within different departments. And we see hundreds more holding many more cross-departmental meetings.
Flickr photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/manzabar/161450241/sizes/z/in/photostream/There are a lot of stumbling blocks to sharing and collaboration. Most of them require a psychologist to discuss properly, right? Because the hardest part about collaborating Is finding the will and the trust to do it. However, just a few short years ago, you could want collaboration like crazy and it still wouldn’t have been very possible in many ways. That’s because just a few short years ago, the actual act of collaborating was much harder.You had to get people in a room with flip charts and markers. You had to get your IT guy to write the query to get the data that you had to burn on to a CD. You had to wade through 10,000 track changes on a word doc and never really know what the latest draft ACTUALLY looked like.Technology has made that part of collaborating MUCH easier. Where there is a will, there is now a way. And we’re seeing much more collaboration in return. We can use wikis or online apps like Google Docs or Microsoft Live to share draft documents, share our resources, etc. And it’s all much more manageable than before. The data in our systems can get out MUCH easier, and we can send it other places via the magic of the interwebs. Unified and mobile communications means that we can all meet together, from every corner of the world, in pretty meaningful ways.But there are downsides. Collaboration tends to drive up email and other e-communications exponentially. That doesn’t help our information overload. And there are security risks. The more people that you let through the front gate, the more likely something bad will happen. Wikis are not secure (ish). Are they safer than Twitter? Probably. Are they as easy to secure as paper? No. But then again, you’re probably not really securing your important papers well enough either.
One thing I want to stress here is that data is our most important asset. All by itself our data paints a picture of where we are – like in this dashboard. It’s the stuff that tells us how we’re doing and what we need to keep working at. In short, it helps us understand our own work better.
Source: Information is BeautifulUse Data to Tell Stories for our stakeholders
Source: http://countysinrankings.org/Use Data to Tell Stories for our stakeholders
Source: http://countysinrankings.org/Use Data to Tell Stories for our stakeholders