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

I think we’re all hearing and thinking about what the tough economic environment is meaning for fundraising for social mission organizations – with economic uncertainty for many nonprofits looming.  This post from Bruce Trachtenberg at Communications Network points out a flip side to raising less money is attracting more scrutiny of the money you do raise.  Particularly in light of the Maddoff scandal and the losses to foundations there.  As Trachtenberg puts it,

Seems to me that if you are responsible your foundation’s communications you better become ultra-familiar  — if not already — with your organization’s finances: your balance sheet; how the endowment is invested, including types of asset classes; the returns (and losses); as well as how your foundation selects, monitors, and evaluates its investment managers; the performance benchmarks it uses, etc.

Many if not all nonprofit staff have trouble addressing most of these points, depending on the savvy-ness of their finance and development staff.  And of course the culture of communication within the org.  With fundraising databases and software, you know from both an ethical and a PR- standpoint you should know what you’ve got going on, but social mission orgs often have fundraising data one can politely term … disorganized.

Of course, whipping that data into shape isn’t as sexy as using social networks to raise small sums instantly – yeah, right – but in this climate, knowing your data is rock solid may be the best investment you can make.  Because if your list is right, you can better reach the right people with the right ask.  Whether or not your CFO makes the right investments - and whether you have the right checks and balances in place to know – is up to you.

Engineer Nate Solloway presented at the American Society of Association Executives annual Association Technology Conference this week. He discussed “Greening Your IT Infrastructure,” including what green IT really means, the pros and cons, and techniques organizations can apply immediately to green their information infrastructure.

CITI senior consultants Dan Shenk-Evans and Frank Hamilton, along with Bill Farrand, Director of Operations at the SEEP Network, presented a case study on the Holistic Technology Assessment completed with SEEP. This project involved CITI colleagues from across our service areas working closely with SEEP, providing them with a concise evaluation of their business processes and technology systems, including the human element.

Read more about the Holistic Technology Assessment and Infrastructure services, including getting your own customized Green IT Audit.