There’s no doubt 2020 threw most nonprofit leaders for a loop. As the demand for your services increased, you and your teams had to implement new fundraising strategies to engage your donors and work remotely.
With in-person fundraising events and donor interactions becoming possible again, nonprofit leaders must encourage their teams to strike a balance between traditional fundraising means and online giving efforts. This demand for diverse revenue sources will only increase the need for nonprofit technology.No matter if your organization has fully embraced the digital revolution or not, here are six steps nonprofits can follow to affect the change they desire:
1. Align objectives with goals.
Answer the question, what outcomes do you want to achieve for your constituents? IT leaders need to know the problem the nonprofit is trying to solve and align their goals with the outcome the nonprofit strives to achieve.
2. Be bold when setting the scope.
Successful digital transformations are 1.5 times more likely than others to be enterprise-wide in scale. This will help CIOs recognize the biggest bang from their tech investments. Remember that point-solutions may not be flexible in the long-run to respond to the future needs of your organization.
3. IT and business must co-create.
IT must work as a co-creater with the nonprofit to solve problems and deliver value for donors and constituents.
4. Embrace adaptive design.
The days of upfront investment requirements and rigid KPIs are over. Adaptive design enables CIOs to pursue monthly tweaks to the transformation strategy including relocating talent.
5. Adopt agile execution.
Encourage risk-taking, enabling even lower-level employees to make decisions, fail fast, and learn.
6. It's OK to disrupt yourself.
Give yourself permission to question sacred cows! Ask if long-standing processes are really best. Look around, ask donors and staff, what can be better and what is possible in light of new realities. Have a strong bias toward change.
