Where Do You Start With Nonprofit IT?
Maybe you just became the operations manager at a small nonprofit. Maybe you are the accidental techie, the person everyone thinks is good at IT because you fixed the printer. Or maybe you are managing IT vendors and are not quite sure what you should be asking them for.
Wherever you are coming from, your technology has to simply work. Your staff need to be able to log in, do their jobs, and get help when something breaks.
That is what this nonprofit IT checklist is for. In a recent episode of our podcast, Community IT CEO Johan Hammerstrom walked through 10 operations essentials that every nonprofit needs in place. None of them require a technology background. They require the same management skills you already use for budgets, hiring, and contracts.
The Nonprofit IT Checklist: 10 Operations Essentials
1. Everyone has a working device
Every staff member needs their own computer that the organization owns, manages, and protects. Devices should be replaced on a set life cycle, usually every three to five years.
If someone’s laptop is unreliable, their work stops, and with enough unreliable laptops, so does the organization.
By managing your replacement schedule so that no device is out of date and unable to receive security updates, you create anticipated costs in your budget. On the other hand, by relying on donated, out-of-warranty, or personal devices, you open up risks to your organization and lose control over your security. Your budget will not thank you when unexpected replacement costs cluster together, or a preventable security incident happens because a staff member was using their own device without the protections your organization’s devices have.
2. IT is part of onboarding
Onboarding is mainly an HR function, with a checklist of trainings, orientations, and benefits enrollment. IT belongs on that checklist too. A new hire needs the right accounts, access to the right systems, and working equipment on day one, plus some orientation to how your organization works, such as whether conversations happen in Teams or Slack, norms and etiquette, and where to get IT help when they need it (see #5 below.)
3. IT is part of offboarding
When someone leaves, their accounts need to be shut down and their equipment returned. These are important security steps, and they are easy to overlook in the shuffle of a staff departure. Proper offboarding also resolves budget risks of paying for licenses and equipment that are no longer in use.
4. Your core tools are defined and communicated
Decide which tools your organization uses to do its work, and tell staff clearly. A common example is Microsoft 365 versus Google Workspace. It is possible to run both, but only as a deliberate choice. Otherwise, you end up with some staff in one system, some in the other, and files scattered across both.
5. Everyone knows how to get help
You need a help desk, even if it is not an official call center. Some organizations handle support in house and some outsource it. What matters is that every staff member knows exactly where to go when something breaks, because something will.
6. Your hardware, software, and licenses are inventoried
Track your hard assets, such as laptops, mobile devices, and that printer in the HR director’s home office. Track your soft assets too: the software you pay for and who is using it. When we start working with a new client, this inventory is often where we immediately find real savings from unnecessarily duplicated accounts or assets.
7. Admin access, credentials, and license keys are documented
Microsoft and Google tie licensing to each person’s login, but other software may use license keys or a single shared account. Make sure administrative access and license keys are recorded somewhere secure, so a staff departure does not lock you out of your own systems. Ideally a copy of this list – up to date – is kept securely, such as in a password manager or a protected offline copy, and accessible even if your other systems go down, with other essential contact information in your recovery plan.
8. Your vendors and their deliverables are documented
Know who your IT vendors are, what each one is responsible for, and what they deliver. If the website goes down or the office internet goes out, who do you call? This gets harder as an organization grows and individual teams start hiring their own vendors. A quick way to start: look through your accounting system and document who you are paying, and for what IT systems and tools.
9. IT is in the annual budget
If your laptops are five years old this year, they all need to be replaced in the next year. Is that in the budget? Does your license renewal count accurately reflect your users, or are you paying for more than you need? Are you budgeting for staff training and security improvements in the age of AI?
Most nonprofits already know to include laptops and accounts when a grant adds new staff. What often gets missed is the bigger picture. Equipment funded one grant at a time, on different timelines, rarely adds up to a plan for supporting IT across the whole organization.
Instead, make IT part of budgeting at the leadership level. Ask what your mission needs to accomplish this year, and what IT support it will take to get there. Nonprofits that treat technology as part of their strategy tend to get more out of it: Salesforce’s 2022 Nonprofit Trends Report found that the most digitally mature nonprofits were four times more likely to achieve their mission goals. That is a stronger approach than guessing at IT needs after the budget is set, or waiting for an older laptop to fail.
10. There is a named IT owner
All of these essentials come back to one person who “owns” IT for the organization. At smaller nonprofits, that is often someone in an operations management role. The IT owner needs to know they hold the role, accept the responsibility, and have the authority to act. They also need a succession plan, so they can hand over the keys for a vacation or a departure.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Imagine a 25-person community nonprofit that just hired a new operations manager, Dana. Dana has a background in finance and HR, not technology. The executive director tells her she now owns IT, and hands her the password to the shared admin account and the phone number of a consultant who set things up years ago.
Dana starts with this checklist. She opens the accounting system and lists every vendor the organization pays for anything technical. She finds a website host, an internet provider, two overlapping file-sharing subscriptions, and a small monthly charge no one can explain. It turns out to be hosting for an event registration site a former program manager built three years ago. No one on staff knew it existed, and it was still collecting registrant data.
Next she pulls the device list. A third of the laptops are six years old, and two staff members are working on personal computers. She adds a replacement line to next year’s budget, and she provides an estimate to the development director to include equipment in an upcoming grant that will add two new positions.
Then she talks with HR about onboarding and offboarding. Together they add IT steps to the existing hiring checklist: accounts created, laptop ready, a short orientation to the organization’s core tools. They also add steps for departures, and in the process discover a former employee whose email account is still active, leaving a security risk open.
None of this required technical expertise. Dana used the same skills she already brings to budgets and HR compliance. Where she does need technical help, such as setting up multi-factor authentication or migrating those file-sharing accounts, she now knows what to ask her vendor for, and she can hold them to it.
This example is hypothetical, but every situation in it is one we have seen at real nonprofits.
IT Rides Along With Your Business Processes
Most IT problems are downstream from business processes. Your nonprofit already has a hiring process, signing authority for contracts, an invoice approval process, and an annual budget. IT simply needs to be part of each one.
The IT owner does not need to be an IT expert. You may not come from a finance or legal background, but you still understand budgets and compliance well enough to know when to bring in an expert and how to talk with them. The same is true for IT. Learn what your IT vendors provide and who can give you trustworthy advice. If a vendor uses obscure tech lingo or won’t explain something, find a vendor who will help you understand what you need to know.
This checklist shows the importance of this ownership role, and the importance of managing IT at nonprofits. The IT owner should not be an intern, or a volunteer role that changes hands every year. Treat it like the crucial management function it is. Imagine a nonprofit that used no IT at all. Hard to picture, isn’t it? With IT essential to work, nonprofits need to manage IT appropriately.
Is Your IT Partner Meeting the Moment?
As your organization navigates challenges, you deserve a support team that is as committed to your mission as you are.
Would you like to see how our human-centered approach can stabilize your IT environment? If you have questions about how to align your technology with your mission, we are here to help.
Community IT has been serving nonprofits exclusively for 25 years. We offer Managed IT support services designed for organizations that want a partner, not just a provider. For a fixed monthly fee, we provide the proactive planning and ongoing IT strategy you need to ensure your technology is always an asset and opportunity, not a liability.
We think your IT partner should be able to explain everything clearly, without talking down to you or using unnecessary lingo. If you’re ready to gain peace of mind and clarity about your IT roadmap in our challenging environment, let’s talk.
As advocates for using technology to work smarter, we’re practicing what we recommend. This article was drafted with the assistance of AI, but the content was reviewed, edited, and finalized by a human editor to ensure accuracy and relevance.