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This Month's topic:
Mission Uses of Technology
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Make sure you don't miss the upcoming joint
Annual Conference of the Alliance for Nonprofit Management and
the National Council of Nonprofit Associations. This three day
conference, which runs from July 14-17 in Chicago, is a must for anyone
interested in capacity building for nonprofits of all sizes and types. For more
information, including a look at the full conference agenda, click on the logo
above or go to:
www.allianceonline.org/annual_conference/2005_conference.page
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Great training for nonprofits
is available from:
The
Learning Institute for Nonprofit Organizations (LINO):
This
link will take you to a whole array of wonderful online training from LINO.
Programs include Board Governance, Social Entrepreneurship, Resource
Development, Volunteer Management, Strategic Planning, and Marketing.
Peter Brinckerhoff provides the "Mission-Based
Management" training module.
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Blog!
Problem: There is so
much going on in our field that a once-a-month communication doesn't seem
adequate.
Solution: The Mission-Based Management
Blog. I am trying to post nearly every day with something of value
to nonprofit board, staff, volunteers, and funders.
Take a look and see
if you find things that can help you. My postings are in no particular order,
just what's on my mind, or what has crossed my desk or screen that I think you
should be aware of.
And, like any blog, you can comment right on the blog
for others to see. If you agree, disagree, or have other resources to share,
please do!
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| This Month's Topic: Mission Uses of Technology |
Each month, this area provides with a
number of my favorite and most helpful sites regarding the topic of the month.
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Management
Tip of the Month
Each issue, I start with a discussion
of my management perspective on the month's topic, and give you a few hands-on
ideas to consider.
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Recommended Publications
Here, I provide you with my
recommendations on the best printed materials available that can help you
become more mission-capable in the area of Technology.
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Technology
I provide you with some good ideas for
uses of tech to better your organization in the area of mission uses of
tech.
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Marketing
Tip
So much to say, so little space to say
it.....and marketing has enormous benefits to gain from usingtechnology
wisely.
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Next
Issue
In June we'll look at an issue that is really
important: Sustainability.... We all want our organizations to be here
in 10 or 20 years, right? Check in next month and see some suggestions on how
that can happen.
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Websites of the
Month
Here are my recommendations for websites of interest
on this month's topic, Mission Uses of Technology..
| Techsoup: Need
tech advice, discounted software, a great newsletter or a soup recipe? They are
all here. |
www.techsoup.org/ |
| N-Ten: The
Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network. In addition to other great stuff,
includes a tech-finder resouce search tool. |
www.nten.org/ |
| Tech Foundation:
A great resouce, home of "Geeks for America". |
www.techfoundation.org |
| Npower: great
site dedicated to "putting technology know-how in the hands of
nonprofits." |
www.npower.org/ |
| Electric Embers: Web serving, domain hosting, email,
listserve services specifically for nonprofits. Great people, great service,
low price! |
http://electricembers.net/ |
Back to
Top
Management Tip of the Month
Can tech be used for
Mission?
Sounds like a "duh" question to many readers,
I know. But you would be surprised how many organizations resist tech as a
mission accelerator, feeling that it is dehumanizing, or not "people first".
Certainly, tech can be used badly, and is (I always feel that automated
answering units -- "press 1 for service, press 2 for a directory.....blah,
blah, blah" --are a great example of tech run amok), but many nonprofits are
using tech better and better to do their mission, educate their public, and to
stay in touch with their funders, donors, and service recipients.
I
could write for a month on this subject, and since we don't have that kind of
time, I'll just focus you on a few things.
1. Tech can and should be
a way of doing better communications. From email, to blogging, to your
website, to cheaper marketing materials, to voice mail, tech can keep you more
in touch with, and more responsive to, the people you need. This does not mean
you need the coolest, newest, PDA. It just means that you can more quickly,
efficiently and effectively be in communication with the right people at the
right time, if you think it through.
2. Tech can and should make you more
effective and more efficient in your accounting, your accountability and your
outcome measurement. There is no excuse in today's low cost tech
environment for not getting more lean and outcome oriented with the tech tools
that are available. These tools also make reporting easier, and more
targeted.
3. If you want to recruit and retain workers (paid or
volunteer) under 30, tech is essential, and tech at work is an expectation.
I hear all the time from people about how they can't recruit board members
under 30 (see the October 2004
issue for more on this). of course, when I ask, they don't have much
about board service on their website, nor about how to volunteer. In the
workplace, younger workers, who have grown up with and around tech, have been
trained to work and solve problems in a tech environment. If the tech's not
there, they are less grounded and often a bit disoriented.
4. Tech is no
longer a luxury, it's an expectation. In the past 10 years, tech has gone
from remarkable ("Ohh, I see you've got computers and a scanner!") to being
ubiquitous and an expectation of donors, lenders, funders, and oversight
groups. Gotta have it.
So do it right. And, since tech is not free, you
need to be a good steward as you do your tech. One tool for this is the
Tech
Planner from TechSoup. They also have articles on forming a
Tech
Team for you to review.
Tech, well planned, well thought out, and focused on
mission enhancement can be a great tool for any nonprofit. It requires that you
pay attention to the relentless change in the field, and make good investment
decisions, but is no longer the high cost luxury that it was a few years
ago.
If you found this hint helpful, there are
lots more management, marketing, and technology ideas for you in the "Ideas"
section at www.missionbased.com.
Check them out--they're free.
And, remember to take a look at the
Mission-Based Management
Blog.
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Top
Print Resources
My recommendations for
texts on Technology in Nonprofits are shown below.
If you want more information on these
recommendations, click on the cover image. You will go the page about the book
on Amazon.com. There, you can look at more info about the book, and read some
reviews before you decide whether or not to purchase or look for this book at
your local library.
Note: If you want more
recommendations on publications in a wide variety of areas, including
nonprofit technology, go to the publications section of my website:
http://www.missionbased.com/publications.htm
Again, If you don't find enough choices there, type
"Nonprofit technology" at Amazon.com and you'll have more choices than
you probably want!
Back to
Top
Technology Ideas .
Tech as mission accelerator
In "Good
to Great", author and researcher Jim Collins looked at the issue of why
some good companies become (and remain) great, and some don't. He found a
variety of reasons that differentiated the two different kinds of success
paths, one being the fact that in great companies, there was a consistent use
of technology "as an accelerator" of success, but not as a quick fix, or quick
solution. Great companies did a lot of important things before applying
technology--getting the right people, facing the facts of their situation,
establishing what Collins calls their "hedgehog concept"; the core thing that
they do for their target market. Then, and only then, did they use tech to
accelerate that.
There are lessons here for us. (By the way, Good
to Great is on my must read list for any nonprofit exec.) Before we
make our tech plans, before we go out and buy our new software, or new cell
phone, or re-work our website, before we invest the resources, have we asked
and answered the key question: What is our core mission, and how will this
investment improve our ability to carry out that mission? This, of course,
should be the question you ask before any investment decision, whether it's a
computer, hiring a new employee, or repairing an old copier. But with tech,
it's easy to get caught up in the glitz, and in the "everyone's doing it"
mentality.
You may want to go buy all the new stuff right now,
or you may resist moving ahead technologically at all. You may be asking, How
can tech accelerate my mission? Think about these examples:
- Add a section to your website that lists all the
best books, tapes, work books and papers to help educate your service
recipients about your issues. For example, if you are a symphony, you might
have an on-line "reading room" full of books on the great composers, some for
adults, some for children. You could recommend recordings of upcoming concerts
so that patrons arrive having listened to and learned about the music. If you
are an organization working with autistic children, you could have a parents'
area, with resources on parenting children with autism.
- Chat rooms, listserves, and blogs offer
opportunities for the people you serve to stay connected to what you are doing,
to discuss new events, and keep in touch with the organization. They are simple
and inexpensive to set up, easy to maintain and, depending on the skill of the
person moderating or posting, incredibly popular.
- Outcome measurement and time management software
offer real, significant time savings for staff, along with the ability to
document outcomes, an increasing demand of most funders and donors.
More than anything, you just need to have a staff
person and a volunteer who pay attention to tech and look at ways it can help
your organization do more mission, more efficiently and more effectively.
Because, after all, that's the point!.
If you found this hint helpful, there are lots more
management, marketing, and technology ideas for you in the "Ideas" section at
www.missionbased.com. Check them
out--they're free.
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Top
Training Schedule for Peter Brinckerhoff
Below you'll see the date, location, and topics
of public training I'm scheduled to do in the next few months. For more
information on a particular speaking engagement, get in touch with the contact
person listed in the right hand column, or
email me.
For more information on my availability throughout
the next 12-18 months, available topics, sample agendas, and fees go to
www.missionbased.com/training.htm
Marketing Tip
Tech and Marketing---oh what a great
match!
Regular readers know I love the application of tech
to mission, and tech to marketing that mission. Every month I discuss something
in this space that relates the topic to marketing, usually with a tech twist.
See the list of past issues below and click on the topics that seem most
interesting to you. In May, 2004, the entire issue was spent discussing
Online
Marketing, for example.
There is no end to the applications of good tech
to marketing, whether it's a quick HTML survey, an online newsletter, posting
your 990 on your website, or meeting the wants of board, staff, and funders
(and reducing paper, printing and mailing costs) by emailing documents to
them.
That having been said, you need to make sure you don't depend on
tech to do all your work. As my development professional friends always
say..."You can't do a good ask online. You've got to do it in person." I agree,
but you have to balance that with always having the ability to receive
donations online via credit card or PayPal. You can survey easily online, but you
don't want to fill people's inbox with dozens of surveys, nor do you want to
disenfranchise people who are not regularly online or don't have access to
computers.
Marketing is about finding out what people want
and giving it to them, to the extent you can. As I tell my audiences all the
time, the point of nonprofit marketing is to give people what they need
in a way that they want it. To find out what they want, you have to ask,
analyze, listen, and respond.
Tech can help you do that, but only if you
think before you act.
One other resource for you is a great piece of
marketing plan software:
Market
Plan Pro, by Palo Alto Software. Not only is it easy and intuitive, it
comes with 70 sample plans...which makes it worth the price right there. And,
no, I don't get a commission from PaloAlto!
If you want to see more about this in detail, take
a look at more about my book
Mission-Based Marketing; Second
Edition
If you found this hint helpful, there are lots more
management, marketing, and technology ideas for you in the "Ideas" section at
www.missionbased.com. Check them
out--they're free.
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Top
Future Topics in
2005-06 for the Mission-Based Management Newsletter....
| July |
Sustainability |
| August |
Entrepreneurship |
| September |
Ethical Employee
Benefits |
| October |
Internal
Communications |
| November |
Board
Recruitment |
| December |
Better
Budgeting |
| January,
2006 |
Generation
Change |
| February |
Accountability |
| Send me
your topic suggestions at peter@missionbased.com |
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You asked, so here they are:
Past Single-Topic Issues of the Mission-Based Management Newsletter...
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Copyright 2005,
Corporate Alternatives, inc.
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