What Do Nonprofits Need From Their Tech Leaders
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Technology leaders at nonprofit organizations come in all sorts and job descriptions, according to the resources and the needs of the organizations they serve. Some organizations have a CIO, others an IT Director, and sometimes a Finance, Operations, Administrative, or Programs executive or manager takes on the technology leadership role. But what do nonprofits need from their tech leaders? Our colleagues at Build Consulting believe there are a few indispensable qualities or capabilities that all tech leaders should have, regardless of what they otherwise do. Community IT is pleased to partner with Peter Mirus and David Deal at Build to present a webinar on technology leadership best practices. Many of these tips you can put in place quickly and begin to use immediately. There was a 15 minute Q&A following the webinar, addressing specific questions and challenges of participants. As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience. Presenters: Peter Mirus co-founded Build Consulting in 2015, following over 15 years of nonprofit consulting experience in the areas of technology, branding, marketing, and development. His work for Build’s clients has a broad focus spanning many operational areas, including fundraising, program monitoring and evaluation, accounting, and impact reporting/analysis. He presented our recent webinars on creating a technology roadmap, improving data quality and creating an information strategy for your nonprofit, and has been a speaker on nonprofits and technology at Good Tech Fest and NTC. David Deal co-founded Build Consulting in 2015, building on over 20 years of deep experience in the nonprofit technology sector. His work with nonprofits includes fundraising, program and case management, human resources, accounting, and much more. He writes frequently on software selection, CRM management, and the role of Salesforce in the nonprofit sector. He is a frequent speaker and author on technology issues and nonprofit leadership.
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What Do Nonprofits Need From Their Tech Leaders
- 1. WhatDoNonprofitsNeedfromTheirTechLeaders? The qualities every nonprofit tech leader must have.
- 2. Interact Ask questions using the available Questions feature in GTW. Focus Avoid multitasking. You may just miss the best part of the presentation! Webinar Recording and Slides Links to the recordings (video and MP3) will be shared via email after the webinar.
- 4. Invested Work exclusively with nonprofit organizations; have served over 1,000. Strategic Help our clients make IT and IS decisions that support mission. Collaborative Empower you to make informed choices.
- 5. HowBuildleadsinthesocialgoodsector: Interim or Part-Time CIOs Outsourced CRM Management Assessments and Roadmaps Software Selections Implementation Support
- 6. Peter Mirus Partner, Build Consulting David Deal Partner, Build Consulting
- 7. Tomorrow’s best nonprofits will use technology to transform themselves... and the world.
- 8. More than 50% of nonprofit technology projects fail.
- 9. The technology moves forward... but the organization does not.
- 10. Transformation is critical to your success.
- 11. Build’s Information Strategy Framework Leadership and Governance DataOperations Process Technology TM
- 14. Ethical
- 15. Strategic
- 16. Process-Minded
- 17. Collaborative
- 18. Adaptable
- 19. Servant-Leader
- 21. Q&A
Editor's Notes
- Welcome to the Community IT and Build Consulting webinar for May 2020 titled “What Do Nonprofits Need from Their Tech Leaders?” Technology leaders at nonprofit organizations come in all sorts and job descriptions, according to the resources and the needs of the organizations they serve. Some organizations have a CIO, others an IT Director, and sometimes a Finance, Operations, Administrative, or Programs executive or manager takes on the technology leadership role. But what do nonprofits need from their tech leaders? Today we’ll be describing the qualities Build Consulting believes are most important to being an effective technology leader, and tell some stories about our experience with tech leaders in various nonprofit organizations. We had over 40 registrants for this webinar, with XX attending live, and some questions submitted which we will try to address in the course of this webinar – and we hope to leave a few minutes at the end for any additional questions. You’ll also have access our personal contact information for any follow-ups you would like to send our way.
- Before we get started on the webinar, here are a few housekeeping notes….
- Join our CEO Johan Hammerstrom and expert guests to discuss what works about remote working, what could be better, and what we can do to move forward thoughtfully as nonprofit offices reopen. Please join me in a webinar to discuss the relationships our nonprofits have and how to document them with constituent journey maps that have benefits in the areas of branding and marketing, operations, and information systems requirements development and system design.
- Now, a little bit about Community IT and Build Consulting. We both work exclusively with nonprofit organizations to help them make information technology and information system decisions that support their mission. We have a collaborative approach, empowering our clients to make informed choices for their organizations.
- All our services are designed to help clients transform themselves to better serve constituents of all types, including funders, donors, program beneficiaries, staff, volunteers, board and committee members, and the general public.
- My name is Peter Mirus, and for today’s discussion I’m joined by my friend and colleague David Deal. Together, we have nearly 50 years of experience in nonprofit technology leadership—and have worked with peers in that area across hundreds of nonprofit organizations. Over the course of my career, I’ve served as a technology leader, on both a short and long-term basis, under many job titles including CIO, Senior Advisor for Strategic Projects, Digital Communications Director, and as the project leader for a broad range of initiatives ranging from 3 months to over three years in length. I’ve managed small teams at small organizations, and teams as large as 100 members at organizations with over $2B in annual revenue. Across that time, I’ve learned a lot about what it means to be a good leader in general and technology projects specifically. And one of the things I’ve learned is that what’s in your heart and between your ears is what matters – how you engage with those around you, and how you think. It isn’t so much about the specific technical knowledge – that’s more readily available than ever. But the hardest things to develop, and what requires the most self-awareness and introspection, are the things I just mentioned. Over the course of the past 20 years, my approach to leadership has been shaped by many people, one of the foremost of which is with me today – David. David, would you please introduce yourself?
- Build’s analysis of industry statistics, combined with our observations of hundreds of organizations in the nonprofit sector, indicates the success rate for nonprofit technology projects is under 50%. Summaries of the relevant studies and their findings are available in one article on our website.
- Build Consulting’s experience is that most nonprofit technology projects fail because of other factors than technology. What do we mean by that? Simply that in today’s market, nonprofits have access to a broad range of quality technology solutions. There’s a good (or at the least, good enough) solution for the vast majority of needs. The challenge is often not the technology, but the fact that organizations do not first identify and make the organizational changes necessary to successfully select and implement new technology—or make significant improvements to the existing tech.
- No, the challenges are largely cultural, orienting around leadership and governance, operational capacity, business process, and data modeling—and then technology. That’s why Build Consulting formulated its Information Strategy Framework™ to help clients explore these considerations. (See also our whitepaper: Build An Information Strategy for Your Organization.) Yes, there are technological problems to be addressed, but as one study reported, “48.5% of executives said the problem was related to the people in the [organization], while 32% blamed processes, and 19.1% pointed the finger on technology.”
- Experience is key: choose someone to lead the project that has already successfully performed a similar project in a similar situation (organization/environment). Empowerment is critical: it is very difficult being an unempowered project director or manager, who stakeholders can feel free to ignore of disregard. One of the primary challenges of successful time management at nonprofit orgs is that employee time is often not budgeted or tracked for other projects, resulting in the behavior that all staff time is considered infinitely flexible. As a consequence of this, staff are often given new responsibilities associated with the technology project, and managers do not take anything off their staff’s plates so they have the time available to commit to the effort. This results in many projects underperforming or failing outright, as well as morale problems and increased turnover during lengthy projects.
- Experience is key: choose someone to lead the project that has already successfully performed a similar project in a similar situation (organization/environment). Empowerment is critical: it is very difficult being an unempowered project director or manager, who stakeholders can feel free to ignore of disregard. One of the primary challenges of successful time management at nonprofit orgs is that employee time is often not budgeted or tracked for other projects, resulting in the behavior that all staff time is considered infinitely flexible. As a consequence of this, staff are often given new responsibilities associated with the technology project, and managers do not take anything off their staff’s plates so they have the time available to commit to the effort. This results in many projects underperforming or failing outright, as well as morale problems and increased turnover during lengthy projects.