Community IT Innovators. Established 1993. Serving social mission organizations with integrated technology services you can trust.

A big thanks to everyone who joined us at the Nonprofit Technology Conference this year.  And an even bigger thanks to NTEN for putting on the biggest and best conference yet!

Community IT Innovators led three sessions on the conference’s “Technology Track” and it was interesting to see what aspects of these topics got the greatest audience engagement:

• Virtualization: the pros and cons of desktop and server virtualization, leading software, and related issues.
• Cloud Computing: hosted email, file sharing, apps, and related issues such as backups, vendor lock-in, and more.
• IT Planning for “Small” Nonprofits: regardless of whether you have 5 or 85 staff,  if you don’t have an on-staff technologist in charge of IT/IS this is probably applicable to you.

If the Technology Planning for Nonprofits panel discussion interests you, you can watch a recording of the session. Or, check out the presentation and this basic IT budget template. There was also question during the session regarding PCI Compliance and a potentially useful website was identified by a member of the audience.  For more information or questions, please contact Johan Hammerstrom.

The virtualization session notes, including Twitter feed and links, are available at the conference website.  Topics that got the most airtime included desktop virtualization and backup of virtual environments. The cloud session notes are also available. Topics in this session included vendor lock-in, backups, cloud-based file sharing, single sign-on, and rich media backups.

Finally, I was at the IT Directors Affinity Group meeting, where a theme seemed to be the changing role of IT in nonprofits. A few observations:

• There were about 100 attendees, most of whom described themselves as “IT Directors.” About 40% of those were representing organizations with over 100 seats/users/computers.
• Surprisingly to me, almost half indicated that they report to the CEO/Executive Director. This is encouraging since it implies a more strategic view of technology, rather than the traditional “cost center” approach that is more typical when the IT Director reports to the CFO.
• Several mentioned feeling marginalized within their organizations. “Corporate” IT, at the levels of funding it commonly receives in the nonprofit space, is hard pressed to keep up with the technology expectations of staff. Challenges include the pace of change in consumer IT and the introduction of those technologies into the enterprise, and the expense and difficulty in migrating integrated, enterprise-wide systems to newer technology platforms. They feel pressure to keep up despite the lack of funding for or strategic focus on the effective use on technology.
• Moving apps to the cloud and/or outsourcing does NOT mean that an organization does not need to oversee those things.  Several shared stories affirming the need to provide ongoing oversight of hosted apps and service providers.
• The role of IT Directors is changing, and some feel threatened while other see it as an opportunity to shift their focus to more value-adding work (if organizations will maintain their investment in the role!).

There’s no doubt there are major changes underway in the technology world, and that roles in the IT department are shifting. I believe the pace of change is frequently overstated, and that this will be a slow and incremental process for most organizations. Nevertheless, organizations need to be thinking about the changes and the opportunities now.

Here’s a really interesting approach to job skills training for homeless people, combined with e-waste recycling. Wilderness Technology Alliance (Wildtech) and CCNV are hosting an eCycling event next Thursday in conjunction with the NTEN Conference’s Day of Service. Wildtech has a worthy mission to “pioneer character and technology education programs through service learning.” As a result of this eCycling event, Homeless and unemployed people will have the opportunity to learn job skills and earn an income by refurbishing computers that will be provided to low-income families, and unusable electronics will be recycled.

It’s free to drop off “surplus computers, monitors, printers, empty toner & ink cartridges and peripherals,” although a donation is suggested.  They also request that you give them a heads up about what you’ll be dropping off.

They’re accepting e-waste from 7am to 6pm next Thursday, March 17, at Community of Creative Non-Violence (CCNV) Homeless Shelter, 425 Second Street NW, Washington DC 20001 (rear parking lot accessible from “E” street near 2nd NW).  No, it’s not coincidence that a “greening” event is scheduled for St. Patty’s Day!

Props to Wildtech-CCNV for a worthy and creative effort, and something worth our community’s support!

 CITI’s Katherine Mowers, Sr. Consultant/Project Manager, and Karen Finn, Partner at Results Leadership Group, will be jointly leading a workshop titled “Simplifying and Maximizing Organizational Impact Data” at the Not-For-Profit Leadership Summit IX in Tarrytown, New York set for May 9, 2011. The interactive workshop will introduce participants to the tools necessary to optimize their organizations’ current data, enabling them to turn data into information to tell the story of the organization’s impact in a powerful way. 

During the session Katherine and Karen will introduce participants to a method to:

1. Identify their most important impact performance measures;
2. Assess their current organizational data and business systems in light of these performance measures;
3. Learn about software options used to support performance management, demonstrate impact and help to strategically plan for improvements.
4. Learn a process to review software and determine a system that will be most useful to the organization’s operations.

Reaching out to others with compassion and care, speaking well of others when they are not around, and taking interest in others, these are all traits of leaders who value relationship. In these times when the focus is on “getting things done”, it is easy to loose sight of people – and regardless of the mission an organization has, it is in the people business. Darryl Jones, Sr. Vice President of CEO of Maryland Nonprofits shared these and many other thought-provoking words in the opening session at Maryland Nonprofits’ Annual Conference. Dave Deal, CITI’s CEO, and myself participated in the one day conference centered on the theme “Sustaining Nonprofit Leadership”, held on March 2, 2011. Here are a few other take-aways:

Leaders are good listeners, and listening supports learning.

Leaders stay in touch with emerging trends and issues, to help determine what talents and resources they will need to address them.

Leaders clarify vision, communicate the vision, and align daily activities with that vision.

Leaders need to build up their resiliency ahead of time, so they can be ready for a crisis when it comes.

It is okay to have plan A, B, C and D and to know that you may have to jump to next plan. The main thing is: have a plan.

One’s leadership style may need to shift to support each generation … from a talk by afternoon keynote speaker Peter Brinckerhoff, author of “Generations: the Challenge of a Lifetime for Your Nonprofit“:

• Baby Boomers: born between 1946 and 1964
  There are 80M
  Boomers had the technology innovation of the television during their formative years. They saw the same shows at the same time, and television as a technological innovation brought them together. Boomers in their collective wisdom believe they saved the world in the 1960’s. Engage them to come and save the world with us again.
• Generation X: born in the 1960s and 70s, ending not later than 1982 (The X stands for 10th generation after the Declaration of Independence)
  There are 45M
  For Generation X, the technology innovation that occurred during their formative years was the personal computer. They remember what life was like before computers. What is important to them: they think “How can I make technology work for my community.” Generation Xers need to know they are valued. They value independent thinking, contributing their ideas and participating in the organization, and they value work-life balance.
• Generation @, or also known as Generation Y: born after the mid 1980’s through to the early 2000’s
  There are 75M
  Generation Y was born into technology, it is like air to them and there is no drastic technology innovation during their formative years, so they can’t remember what it was like before technology. They make decisions based on their access to technology. What is important to them: they need to be connected all the time. They also have high expectations for what they should get out of their workplace.
• Micromanagement is out: This style does not work with Generation X or Generation Y. Allow them to work. And seek them out for input – say “Here’s our Fundraising Plan (or any other plan), what do you think?”
• Board Diversity — How to get younger people to join aging Boards: All those Baby Boomers are eventually going to have to retire. Getting younger Board Members is hard because when they come to a Board meeting, to them it is a meeting of their parents. Bring younger Board Members onto the Board in pairs, this seems to work well, and helps them feel they have a peer.

“… leadership is defined by results, not attributes.” — words by the famed Peter Drucker who is described rightly so by The Drucker Institute as being a person focused on relationships among human beings, rather than focusing on number crunching. He also focused on how organizations can bring out the best in people.

Drucker though wouldn’t toss number crunching to the wayside. Numbers are needed to know results, to guide staff, make decisions about program direction, and determine improvements. Nearly every non-profit organization seeks to do “outcome tracking” to “show impact” and has “performance measurements” to produce numbers in order to understand organizational results. Such numbers also help organizations tell their story to aid fundraising efforts.

Performance management – got to have the right measures
Performance management depends on the existence and use of performance measures. A performance measure is a mechanism for knowing how well the organization is doing. According to the Results-Based Accountability method, outlined in the book Trying Hard is Not Good Enough, a performance measure (or it can be called a “performance metric”) uses these questions as a foundation for developing different types of performance measures:

• How much did we do? – these show up as numbers of people served and number of activities. For example: how many events did our members/clients/constituents attend.

• How well did we do it? – the quality of what we did by a ratio % of activity, for example % of people who came to three or more events over a set period of time.

• Is anyone better off? – these are results shown by behavior change, attitude change, skills/knowledge increase, or change in circumstances. For example: % of people who now own a home, or % of people who say they feel more economically secure.

A few months ago I discovered that the Annie E. Casey Foundation is using Results-Based Accountability. It is certainly a practical and easily understandable approach, and is a method that people at all levels of the organization can connect and relate to.

Some precautions when looking at performance management software systems
There are performance management software systems in the form of constituent relationship management software and case management software that do “outcome tracking”. This is excellent! However, one must be careful to look closely and see if the outcome tracking features gives your organization the ability to track performance measures the way you want to.

For a cornerstone, if we use the Result-Based Accountability definitions for performance measures, “How much did we do?” is easy to track in such systems and is almost always in the reports and/or dashboard section of the system. If you want to know quality of service – “How well did we do it?” – and especially “Is anyone better off?”, these are not always as evident in these systems and require closer inspection. You may see wonderful charts and graphics in the demonstration of the system, and descriptions of various scales, however it is important to take a closer look.

More importantly, a business decision needs to be made – do we have the system dictate our performance management method? Or do we decide the performance management method, and we use the system to give us what we need? You could also take an approach to have one inform the other. Neither is more superior, it is just important to make a clear decision on this rather than end up one way wishing you had taken the other.

A related topic is the common jumbling of terms in the sector: “results”, “outcomes”, “measures” are used interchangeably. The best advice I have heard from Karen Finn, a Partner at Results Leadership Group, is: establish your own internal definitions and have discipline on using the terms consistently. When your funders use various terms, then you will have more clarity on what you are giving them, and can provide them your equivalent definitions to truly communicate impact.

Community IT Innovators’ team of Sr. Consultants has expertise in selecting software that helps nonprofit organizations solve their business challenges, including selecting performance management solutions. If you would like to have a conversation about your performance management vision (or struggles), contact us.

We care about many relationships – with loved ones, and with the professional relationships we have with staff and colleagues in our fields of expertise. We have certain expectations in relationships. And who is not looking for trust in a relationship? Though it sounds a little contrived, the same care about relationship holds true for the relationship you have with companies contracted for your business needs – be it a fundraising system, case management system, Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) system, Association Management System (AMS) or other software that helps support your operational processes.

In talking recently with more than 10 vendors as part of a software selection project for a national non-profit organization, I was quite disappointed at the transactional nature of at least three of vendors – and these three are no small peanuts in the industry. Their behaviors created an immediate red flag. When making such a significant investment in money and people-time for the implementation, it is critical to know that the vendor can be trusted in a relationship for the long haul – we are talking 3 – 4 years, maybe even 10 years.

When looking for Software as a Service (SAAS) (SAAS is software deployed over the internet that the vendor typically hosts or recommends a hosting facility), or for other software solutions, there is the official discovery of business requirements, documentation of those requirements, and the prioritization of needs for comparison with the vendor’s product. This is necessary to understand whether their solution will help solve your business challenges. In addition there is the official, yet more intuitive, discovery of the relationship. Many of our clients care about the relationship aspect as much as the solution – there is wisdom in this approach. Here are a few questions to keep in mind if you are going through a similar process, or plan to be in the future:

• Does the culture of this vendor company have any blend with our organizational culture? Do I feel the vendor is interested in our mission?
• Does the vendor demonstrate interest in wanting to help us make improvements in our processes?
• Does the vendor freely tell me about their product, and does so without using pressure to purchase?
• Does the vendor act respectfully towards me and my staff? Do they engage in genuine small talk and seem interested in learning more about us?
• Does the vendor get back to me in a timely manner? Is it same day, by the next business day, or at the very latest 2 business days?

When you are making your final decision, consider what weight you are giving the relationship in your decision making process. Consider your expectations and what behaviors you are comfortable with, what you can tolerate, or what is unacceptable and clearly not a good match for your organization. Relationship truly matters.

Katherine Mowers is a Senior Project Manager with the Community IT Innovators Consulting practice.