How do you track your subscriptions and licenses? Why is it important to know who has which subscription at your nonprofit?
Many clients come to Community IT experiencing difficulty tracking IT inventory. In addition to tracking physical hardware, laptops, and devices, nonprofits also can find it difficult to track licenses and software subscriptions to cloud-based apps and IT tools.
The rise in cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) models has led to ease of use. It is really easy to sign up for a subscription to many IT tools and platforms that can help productivity and benefit your nonprofit. But there are many advantages to tracking subscriptions, and disadvantages – financial and security – over leaving subscriptions and licenses up to individuals on your staff. Also make sure your nonprofit has strong practices for off-boarding staff and ending their subscriptions and licenses when no longer needed.
Director of Information Systems and Technology Pat Sprehe joins Carolyn in this podcast to discuss the reasons your nonprofit should care about licenses and subscriptions, and how to go about managing the ecosystem from an IT and budget perspective. Among other duties, Pat manages subscriptions and licenses for Community IT staff and is well aware of the challenges and issues.
Learn best practices to manage costs and ensure security for all your users, without stifling their entrepreneurship and self-management. With a little prioritization now, you can ensure your organization is protected from bad actors and can save on subscriptions and licenses.
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Some Key Tracking Subscriptions Tips for Nonprofits:
Managing subscriptions is important for your nonprofit to track, both for financial reasons (paying for subscriptions that are not being used, or paying for individual subscriptions when an enterprise subscription would be easier/cheaper/have more features) and for cybersecurity reasons.
Central management is a benefit for all services and products that work through subscription.
Involving your IT team to manage your licenses and subscriptions does not have to involve getting their permission for every purchase. Your IT team can be a resource on nonprofit pricing, features and discounts at an enterprise level over individual subscriptions, and other ways to better use your licenses and subscriptions.
You need a standard process for off-boarding staff and deactivating their subscriptions, licenses, and access. This is a money-saver and lessens security risks.
Presenters
Patrick Sprehe is now Director of Information Systems and Technology, after serving as the IT Business Manager Team Lead. As that team lead he managed the team that guides our clients’ IT roadmaps and provides help with overcoming nonprofit technology challenges.
Patrick brings a deep knowledge of technical support, an interest in new technology uses at nonprofits, and experience implementing and maintaining established platforms and systems for large and mid-sized nonprofit clients to his role as Director of Information Systems and Technology at Community IT.
Patrick joined Community IT in 2010 and has provided technical support to a variety of clients on a variety of issues. His capable approach helps the ITBM team tackle strategic planning with clients with calm expertise. He holds the Microsoft 365 Fundamentals MS 900 and Microsoft Administrator MS-102 certifications.
Patrick graduated from University of Maryland, University College with a B.S. in Information Technology. Patrick is also a certified BRM (Business Relationship Management) Professional.
Carolyn Woodard is currently head of Marketing and Outreach at Community IT Innovators. She has served many roles at Community IT, from client to project manager to marketing. With over twenty years of experience in the nonprofit world, including as a nonprofit technology project manager and Director of IT at both large and small organizations, Carolyn knows the frustrations and delights of working with technology professionals, accidental techies, executives, and staff to deliver your organization’s mission and keep your IT infrastructure operating. She has a master’s degree in Nonprofit Management from Johns Hopkins University and received her undergraduate degree in English Literature from Williams College.
She was happy to have this podcast conversation with Pat Sprehe on Tracking Subscriptions Tips for Nonprofits. Find more resources on Nonprofit IT Leadership here.
Ready to get strategic about your IT?
Community IT has been serving nonprofits exclusively for twenty years. We offer Managed IT support services for nonprofits that want to outsource all or part of their IT support and hosted services. For a fixed monthly fee, we provide unlimited remote and on-site help desk support, proactive network management, and ongoing IT planning from a dedicated team of experts in nonprofit-focused IT. And our clients benefit from our IT Business Managers team who will work with you to plan your IT investments and technology roadmap if you don’t have an in-house IT Director.
We constantly research and evaluate new technology to ensure that you get cutting-edge solutions that are tailored to your organization, using standard industry tech tools that don’t lock you into a single vendor or consultant. And we don’t treat any aspect of nonprofit IT as if it is too complicated for you to understand. When you are worried about your email safety and spam, you shouldn’t have to worry about understanding your provider.
If you have questions about these tracking subscriptions tips for nonprofits you can learn more about our approach and client services and contact us here.
We think your IT vendor should be able to explain everything without jargon or lingo. If you can’t understand your IT management strategy to your own satisfaction, keep asking your questions until you find an outsourced IT provider who will partner with you for well-managed IT.
If you’re ready to gain peace of mind about your IT support, let’s talk.
Transcript coming soon.
Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash