Nonprofits: Why Do You Need a Technology Audit Now More Than Ever?

As a nonprofit organization, you may be accustomed to managing tasks with limited resources. However, things become overwhelming when growing demands are not met due to increasing workload. In this modern digital age, you can access various types of software, data, and processes to fulfill your organizational needs. It's a trend that everyone should take advantage of without overspending on teams or compromising productivity. The right technologies help optimize existing efficiencies, while the wrong choices can lead to operational bottlenecks and communication breakdowns. How can you avoid risks while leveraging the ever-expanding technological landscape within your budget?

You can hire professional tech auditors or managed IT service providers, such as Rooted Software, for assistance. With their guidance, you can empower your teams with the right tools and effectively address bandwidth and skill issues. When you adopt best practices and systems, new talents are easily attracted. Several other benefits can also be enjoyed. How do they conduct a technology assessment? Here’s a quick glimpse into this.

Organizational needs identification 

The IT service providers will first study your organizational structure, programs and services, and delivery systems. Relationship building, fundraising, and other aspects will also be analyzed to understand your existing analysis and reporting systems.

Analysis of the current suite of tools 

It helps them understand whether your tools are efficient enough to meet your needs or have become outdated. Typically, most nonprofit organizations use CRM, marketing software, accounting tools, event management software, and communications platforms. A tech assessment helps uncover which of them are helpful for your current requirements and which no longer serve your purposes. This step enables you to optimize your toolset and reduce unnecessary expenses, which can be a crucial factor for any nonprofit organization.

Technology SWOT analysis

This specific assessment process helps identify the advantages, limitations, opportunities, and risks of a technology for your business. 

• Strengths include facilitating fundraising efforts and promoting a mission efficiently.  

• Weaknesses can highlight a tool’s shortcomings, such as poor data collation, lack of automation, and more.

• Opportunities help optimize the potential of a tool by leveraging add-ons, plugins, and other extensions.

• Threats refer to the risks associated with technology, such as security breaches, overpricing, and unethical data handling.

Choice of technology

After completing all types of analysis, the tech audit experts compare your needs for the next five to ten years against the capabilities of the tool. They review all the aspects carefully, such as the possibility of change in a mission and the need to switch to a different tool to match new expectations. They check whether your current tools or any tools you are considering can scale and support growing databases. At the same time, the budget will be considered to determine whether you can transition to a more advanced technology or optimize the current one. With this forward-thinking approach, they can recommend the best tools for your company that cater to your expectations, even in the long run.

Tech audits work like an eye-opener. They help you embrace solutions that support your goals and eliminate anything that burns money without offering much benefit. The best part is that these services benefit both technologically savvy and less tech-savvy nonprofit organizations.