By Shane Thacker
(This article is the first in a continuing PNN series on technology funding.)
As nonprofits increasingly seek technological solutions for their needs, there are certain questions that must be answered along the way.
One of the most intractable is "How do we pay for this?"
There are a lot of aspects to that question, including assessment of needs, planning, operating costs, approaching funders and much more. Each nonprofit will have individual needs and answers for these and, as a result, will need customized approaches to answer the bigger question.
"How do we pay for this" will be the theme of a continuing series of articles, appearing in this publication, that will examine these issues, and more, in the world of technology funding.
To begin the series, interviews were conducted with industry professionals to find out what sorts of concerns those with experience in the field might have when it came to technology funding.
Those interviewed, chosen so that their experiences cover both sides of the funding relationship, highlighted certain areas on which nonprofits and funders need to focus to answer their questions about technology funding and offered some helpful advice:
Meeting the Mission
The area that creates the most universal concern is the need for nonprofits to concentrate on their missions when making technology decisions. This helps the nonprofits' cause in two ways, the respondents say.
First, nonprofits need to be able to decide what is driving them to acquire a particular technology, whether it be as simple as a telephone or as complex as an entire computer network.
A nonprofit's mission is its reason for being. However, just as businesses can forget their primary purpose of making money in a race to have the latest, greatest tech, nonprofits can end up acquiring items that do not help them fulfill their missions at all.
Steve Downs, director of the Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program (TIIAP) at the U.S. Department of Commerce, says that nonprofits should not forget that the technical requirements should be subordinate to the nonprofit's reason for being.
"The role of technology should be to enable nonprofits to do what they do better, to change how they interact with their clients, to reinvent their services," Downs says. "Technology investments should have clear programmatic goals."
Second, by concentrating on its mission rather than a wish list, a nonprofit can make itself appear to be a more attractive prospect for funding, respondents say. Funders interested in a particular issue will be more likely to give if they can see how the nonprofit is working to resolve that issue.
Assessment and Planning
Needs assessment and technology planning go hand-in-hand with an organization's mission, and respondents agree that those two aspects are absolutely necessary for any organization looking for technology funding.
A good technology assessment can help nonprofits refine their requests and make sure they are not simply getting technology for technology's sake.
Alnisa Allgood, executive director of Nonprofit Tech, says that nonprofits must use assessments to make sure that they are getting what they need.
"As a nonprofit it is critical that you understand how technology can make your agency more viable today as well as in the future," she says. "Vague notions of the promised land will leave your agency with nothing more than some spiffy-looking paperweights."
Putting together a coherent technology plan using this assessment is extremely important, Allgood says. This plan should cover future needs as well as the current technological wants.
Organizations that do not plan for the future can find themselves stuck when it comes to inevitable needs like maintenance and technical support.
Allgood says that funders can become a part of this process through requiring the nonprofits with which they deal to meet certain standards before the grants are made.
Allgood's advice: "Ensure that hard questions are asked in mid-term and final progress and evaluation reports -- questions such as: who from the agency's executive and project staff have been placed in-charge of ensuring technology becomes a part of long-term strategic plans; and will the agency designate a percentage of its solicited donations to the general maintenance, training and upgrades required to keep the technology viable for future use."
Operational vs. Project Funding
A common recognition among those interviewed is that funding is often not as readily available for a nonprofit's operating expenses as it is for specific projects.
Jayne Cravens, owner of Coyote Communications and director of the Virtual Volunteering Project, says the perception is often that spending money on operations is the "second best" option.
"I think this comes from the mentality of supporters and much of the public that all energy and resources must go into 'direct services' -- as though putting money into the infrastructure of the organization is somehow taking something away from the audiences served by the organization," Craven says.
While this perception may be changing, nonprofits can help themselves through making sure that needs for operational technology funding are couched in terms of the organization's mission, or how it can serve it clients better.
"I would encourage nonprofits to sell their proposed technology investments on the basis of how they will improve people's lives --i.e. focus less on the technology and more on the outcomes (e.g. better health indicators, educational achievement measures, greater participation in community events) you expect to effect," Steve Downs says, from a funder's perspective in his job at TIIAP. "Show how the technology integrates into your core functions."
To do this, nonprofits need to have a good grip on who they are and be able to demonstrate how the technology will help them help others, respondents say.
Getting the Information
For a technology project to be successful, it is important that the nonprofit have some idea how (and if) it is going to work. That funders want to see that the nonprofit has thought the proposal through carefully, doing its research along the way, was also a common theme among those interviewed.
Downs, for instance, emphasizes the need for nonprofits to do a lot of research simply to find out who is already trying the project they would like to do. He likes to see that nonprofits understand how they could succeed and fail through learning from others.
Nonprofits can also use research to avoid putting together the exact proposal another nonprofit has, interviewees say. Technology needs can be the same between organizations, but with a limited amount of funds to go around, many funders will go for what catches their eyes.
"Be imaginative -- show some vision. Too often technology-oriented proposals seem to be about marginal improvements in efficiency," Downs says, "Proposals that reach -- that demonstrate a compelling vision -- catch a funder's attention."
However, Downs cautions, part of research is learning what is realistic. "...Distinguish between the long term vision, which can be quite ambitious, and what you intend to accomplish in the short run, which should be realistic," he says.
The information gathered doesn't have to be about the entire scope of the project either. Sometimes it can just be about questions such as what software to buy. In that case, talking to fellow nonprofits can help, says Jayne Cravens.
"There are so many organizations out there that can help in this regard -- CompuMentor, TeamTech, nonprofit development and support centers, etc.," says Cravens." Visit other organizations and don't just talk to the executive director about the agency's technology use; talk to the person who actually uses it (the receptionist, the development director, etc.)."
Problems and Solutions
Many other potential problems and concerns were highlighted by the people this reporter interviewed. Each, in a real way, affects organizations as they search for the best ways to make technological improvements and pay for them.
However, while problems in technology funding abound, so do solutions. In this continuing series we will attempt to shed some light on practical solutions to the problems nonprofits face every day.
In the coming months we will interview people in the field for their experiences and expertise in the questions surrounding technology funding.
By doing so, this series will address practical resources that nonprofits and funders alike can use to come up with their own answers to that complicated, multifaceted question "How do we pay for this?"
Come back next month for the tips and tricks of "Technology Assessment."
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please contact Shane Thacker at
shanethack@mindspring.com or (919)899-3746.
