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How do you maintain a cohesive, supportive nonprofit culture when the office is now spread across dozens of different locations? In this episode, Carolyn Woodard sits down with Saba Gebru, Vice President of Support Services at Community IT, to discuss the intentional work required to foster teamwork in a remote and hybrid environment.
Saba shares how Community IT transitioned through the pandemic and emerged with a deeper understanding of why social connection isn’t just extra—it’s essential for better service delivery.
When technicians feel supported and connected to one another, our clients benefit from the collective knowledge of the entire firm, not just a single individual. We also discuss how to keep team building from feeling mandatory by aligning activities with mission-driven values, such as local volunteerism and servant leadership.
Building a strong team culture is an ongoing process, especially in the remote era. If you haven’t recently checked in with your staff about what they need to feel connected, consider making it a priority in your next departmental meeting. Start the conversation by asking for feedback on what types of optional social or volunteer activities might resonate with their values.
Saba Gebru is Vice President of Support Services, having previously served for seven years as the Director of Service Operations at Community IT. She leads the Support Services Department which is responsible for providing technical support to all Community IT partner-clients.
Saba is responsible for the strategic development of the Support Services Department and provides leadership to the director and managers. She is also responsible for the capacity, capability, and availability of staff resources across the Support Service Department.
Saba is passionate about coaching and mentoring staff.
Saba has over two decades of experience in IT service delivery, managing and overseeing IT departments, and supporting and coaching staff. She brings a deep understanding of nonprofit needs to her development of the Support Service Department team ethics and a passion for service delivery. She is particularly cognizant of the need for her teams to calmly address stressful situations, investigate and address technical problems, and quickly get IT tools back up and running smoothly.
Before Community IT, Saba worked for nine years at the Ethiopian Community Development Council and the Enterprise Development Group managing, overseeing, and leading both organizations’ IT departments.
Saba has a BS in Computer Information Systems. She is a Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) and certified in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). She has AI 900 Azure Artificial Intelligence certification. She was happy to have this conversation with Carolyn about team building remotely.
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 sit down with Saba to learn about Community IT’s commitment to team building remotely.
Community IT has been serving nonprofits exclusively for twenty-five years. In fact, we celebrate 25 years of Community IT this month and all year. 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.
Being 100% employee-owned is important to us and our clients. It is an important aspect of our culture as a business serving nonprofits exclusively for 25 years. Your Nonprofit IT Budgeting strategy is important to Community IT. Unlike most MSPs, Community IT considers budgeting and strategic management a major part of our services to our clients.
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.
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.
More on our Managed Services here. More resources on Cybersecurity here.
If you’re ready to gain peace of mind about your IT support, let’s talk.
Photo by Camylla Battani on Unsplash
Wednesday February 25th at 3pm Eastern join Matt Eshleman to learn how to use AI tools more securely at your nonprofit.
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