Do You Know These IT Best Practices For Nonprofits?

IT Best Practices For Nonprofits

The D.C. region is home to many nonprofit organizations. While they may have different missions, they all face common challenges like acquiring donors, retaining and sustaining funding sources, and deciding how to best allocate those resources, usually on a tight budget. Another shared issue is how to use the power of technology to overcome these challenges and accomplish the organization’s mission.

C3 works with nonprofits to answer questions like these by utilizing the following four IT best practices. We consider them when developing your technology strategy, and they’ll help you identify opportunities to optimize your financial resources, enable growth and achieve your mission.

How Do We Do This?

1. Align Your Information Technology with Your Mission

Sometimes technology is an afterthought for nonprofit organizations. Typically when this happens, IT investments don’t deliver the required results and end up “sitting on the shelf.” You can’t afford to waste money on technology that doesn’t perform. How can you justify this to your board of directors?

When we engage with a client, C3 Integrated Solutions conducts an IT assessment that will examine the technology you use and what’s lacking in relation to your goals, process, and financial requirements. This will generate greater value for your nonprofit while decreasing risk.

A technology strategy is more than a shopping list. Solution deployments need to include a proactive adoption strategy that considers business processes, communicates change, and educates the team. When you look at technology as a strategic investment and implement it in a proactive rather than a reactive way, it can be the tool you need to deliver both short-and long-term success.

2. Use Cost-Effective Cloud-Based IT Solutions

Instead of expending your capital, cloud solutions offer an affordable, per-user, monthly subscription. Additionally, you’ll no longer need to worry about technology solutions going out of date because cloud srevices are automatically updated. Finally, with cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions, you can quickly scale services both up and down to your needs. By efficiently sizing your solution you can maximize your productivity while minimizing expenses.

For example, with the Modern Workplace solutions contained in Microsoft 365, you can consolidate all your communications and collaboration services into a single, integrated platform. To make this event more powerful, Microsoft offers deep discount on many of its services to non-profits.

Cloud services offer much more than economic benefits. Beyond the cost savings of a cloud-based solution like Microsoft 365, your team will gain powerful efficiencies through anywhere, anytime access. With tools like Teams and SharePoint, you can drive more productivity making your organization more effective.

3. Invest in Information Security

You could be doing everything else right and have the most worthy mission, but if you don’t mitigate risk and protect your members’ and donors’ confidential data, you could face a costly data breach. Today’s world means that everyone is at risk of a cyber attack. Every individual, every company, and every non-profit. Tight budgets, underinvestment in IT, and potentially valuable donor information make non-profits an especially lucrative target for hackers. Just one breach could result in hefty fines, penalties, expensive litigation and a ruined reputation that scares donors away.

This is also an area where the power of Microsoft can add value. In addition to the core communications and collaboration services, Microsoft 365 provides leading edge security features to protect your information.

We’ll help you:

• Evaluate your current security posture;
• Identify the right approach to data security based on your risk level;
• Deploy leading edge solutions to protect your environment;
• Ensure your systems are constantly monitored; and
• Aggressively respond in the event of an attack.

Combined with Microsoft 365, C3 Integrated Solutions managed security services (MSSP) will ensure your environment is fully protected, constantly monitored, and high responsive to any attacks.

4. Back Up Your Data and Insure Accessibility

You must have a backup copy of your data in case it’s stolen or accidentally deleted. We’ll develop a policy and deploy a solution that specifies what data is backed up, how often it’s backed up, where it’s stored, and who has access to the backups.

Smart cloud strategies remove the risk of servers in your offices and can also provide device back-ups. However, even with all the advantages of the cloud, it’s smart to invest in third party back-ups of your cloud data. C3 Integrated Solutions works with multiple vendors in this space and can help you pick the right one for your needs. ’s smart to invest in third party back-ups of your cloud data. C3 Integrated Solutions works with multiple vendors in this space and can help you pick the right one for your needs.

C3 is Your Nonprofit Partner

By assessing technology in relation to your mission and vision, using the right cloud-based solutions, and by following information security protocols, your nonprofit organization can use technology to help facilitate growth and overcome mission-critical challenges.

C3 Integrated Solutions is your trusted partner to help navigate this process, and brings a proven commitment to best-of-breed, cost-effective solutions your organization requires. info@c3isit.com Contact C3 to learn more about how we’ve helped nonprofit organizations like yours.