The case for digital transformation
Whether you’re fighting inequality, eliminating poverty, or protecting our planet, your organization’s impact is vital. But there’s a problem: funding for nonprofits is flat. If, as a global community, we want to reach our development goals, we must find a way to address this resource gap and move beyond linear growth to achieve exponential impact.
In this world of highly constrained resources, how can you increase your impact and secure the future of your nonprofit? You cannot do more without changing the way you work. If your organization can create a step change in productivity, you will be well-positioned to overcome the resource gap, grow your impact, and accomplish your mission.
Innovation in the private sector – including social media, mobile computing, and artificial intelligence – is rapidly disrupting the way donors, employees, and beneficiaries expect to interact with your organization. Providing the level of service and transparency your constituents are expecting is directly relevant to earning their trust, and failing to do so may drive them elsewhere. Nonprofits everywhere are competing for the same pool of resources, and many are innovating with digital technology in ways that could impact your access to donors, volunteers, and high-skill employees. Are you prioritizing innovation to meet constituent expectations effectively and competitively?
People don’t use technology they don’t trust. This rule applies to everyone, from donors and volunteers to employees and beneficiaries. Although nonprofits face many of the same cybersecurity risks as their private sector counterparts, recent studies indicate that nonprofits generally lag in adopting the robust policies, practices, and tools needed to adequately secure their IT environments and data.
Instead of viewing things like resource constraints, disruption, and the demand for higher levels of security as limiting, nonprofits should view these challenges as an opportunity to be creative. These challenges are not unique to the nonprofit sector. Private sector organizations have long faced enormous pressure from their boards, their investors, and their competitors to do more with less. Many have changed the way they work by adopting innovative new technologies to transform their businesses. The growing impact of this digital transformation in the private sector is astounding. Is your nonprofit embracing a digital transformation?
Your nonprofit can thrive in the digital-first world by lessons from the digital transformation of leading private sector companies. One key learning: companies can accelerate digital transformation by focusing on what they do best and leveraging the advanced-technology service offerings now widely available. By building on flexible, robust technology service platforms, companies have freed themselves from building and maintaining expensive infrastructure that requires significant levels of personnel and expertise.
For example, when you move to the cloud, your organization can reduce capital expenditures on hardware rapidly becoming obsolete and make staff available to increase impact through higher levels of productivity and innovation. You can access a broad partner ecosystem that can aid in implementation, technical support, and the development of cloud applications.
Modern workplaces are flexible, employee-centric organizations that innovate with agility, using transparent information that employees can access anytime, anywhere. Personalized, decentralized-yet connected-workplaces where employees are continuously learning, collaborating in teams, working securely across any device, and contributing creatively with their best work will transform the nonprofits of tomorrow. Such an environment helps organizations attract talent, increase productivity and employee satisfaction, decrease employee attrition, and enhance innovation agility while minimizing spend. Implementing a Modern Workplace strategy is the most effective way of increasing your productivity.
Starting your journey to a Modern Workplace requires aligning the organization’s people, processes, and technology around the common goal of fostering seamless interaction. Asking five key questions can help your organizations define its path to transformation:
The good news is the Modern Workplace technology is readily available for nonprofit organizations. We recommend Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Azure, which provide nonprofits with universal collaboration toolkit that gives employees flexibility, mobility and ownership in how they work together to support cross-organizational teamwork.
Designing, implementing and supporting Modern Workplace technology is what FSi Strategies specializes in. We’ve helped hundreds of nonprofits implement Modern Workplace strategies in support of their missions. We invite you to discover how together, we can leverage mobility, collaboration and security to create efficiencies that streamline your organization and achieve your mission.
Related Readings:
(Re)think Teamwork: understanding the shifting landscape
Modern Security for Nonprofits: cybersecurity questions you should consider
Empower your employees securely, through the Modern Workplace. Connect with us today to engage your employees, accelerate productivity and collaboration while optimizing your environment securely.