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Nonprofit Tech Challenges You Need to Address Now Featured

Nonprofit Tech Challenges You Need to Address Now Ales Nesetril

Operating a nonprofit organization can be highly rewarding but can equally be challenging. In a  world where technology determines many operations, leaders of nonprofits have a lot on their plate, from ever-changing technologies to shifts in government regulations. Although many things keep coming up, nonprofits must always focus their efforts on updating their technologies, taking into account the fact that technology has always become the least among their priorities in the past. With the increasing cybersecurity issues in the corporate environment today, nonprofits must always stay abreast with changes that may impact their operations. While doing so, many nonprofits face tech-related challenges, some of that tend to affect their authority.

Some of the challenges that many organizations face today and that you need to address now include:

Data security

Data is a critical asset for nonprofits, just as it is for any other business. Therefore, protecting data is an integral part as this ensures your business secrets and customer personal identifiable data is not accessed by cybercriminals. Many organizations face challenges in ensuring the security of their data as a result of weak password policies, vulnerabilities in software platforms, and unsupported software. In many occasions, nonprofits lack strict password policies when creating accounts for employees and other stakeholders that allow them to access information or make donations. Organizations should update their password policies regularly and use two-factor authentication to secure user accounts. They must also update their software to patch vulnerabilities.

Budgets

Nonprofits often strive to spend less in their daily operations so that more resources become available to support their missions directly. This often means that some critical aspects such as technology and updates on tech are overlooked in the budgeting process. Without well maintained or upgraded systems, your nonprofit runs a risk of being compromised that may lead to outages, therefore, affecting the capability of an organization to achieve its goals.

Fundraising in the digital age

Fundraising efforts have changed significantly due to the critical role brought in by new technology such as social media platforms and enhanced marketing campaigns enabled by digital marketing platforms. In many instances, nonprofits have gained significantly from digital platforms since they can identify causes on their Facebook or Instagram pages and respond to them. They can also get donors through social media and receive funding for different causes.

Although digital technologies offer immense opportunities, they also pose various challenges. For example, it can be challenging to get the necessary attention if a nonprofit lacks proper marketing strategies. With the age of fake news upon us, it has become tough to trust the information being peddled by different people. As such, potential donors find it hard to trust social media posts to participate in specific causes.

Mobility

Mobility is at the core of every nonprofit organization, and this will become even more critical in the future. As technology continues advancing and not-for-profit environments advance, platforms that are mobile-friendly are needed to allow volunteers, donors and staff to access information from any location and at any time. As such, nonprofits are continually under pressure to provide this so that they can be in the right track to achieve their mission. This is not always easy but must be done anyway.

Cloud computing

Cloud computing is now among technologies being adopted massively by organizations. However, nonprofits have not adopted it as compared to other organizations. Currently, just 15% of nonprofits use cloud-based accounting in their fundraising operations, although this is beginning to change. The challenges they face while trying to adopt this include predicting how the future will look like, where they should use the cloud, solutions that will be available and security of the cloud. All these questions must be answered in due time. 

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Scott Koegler

Scott Koegler is Executive Editor for PMG360. He is a technology writer and editor with 20+ years experience delivering high value content to readers and publishers. 

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