The Challenge – New IT Capabilities Needed.
Community IT helped this client save money by reducing hardware costs, and by guiding strategic IT planning and budgeting during their transition and growth.
The client operated resource centers in six U.S. cities, and served over 100,000 low-income members across the United States with increased access to community resources. When they developed new and ambitious growth goals to expand their centers to new cities, the client knew they would need to develop IT capabilities or they would struggle with their existing IT on a larger scale.
The client neither had nor wanted to build out an IT department with stronger capabilities. They didn’t know what questions to ask IT vendors as they looked to expand, and lacked IT expertise to make informed budget and operations decisions.
The Solution – Strategic IT Planning, Software Selection, and Implementation by Community IT
The client had wisely decided it could not just “get by” with a break/fix approach to IT, and required more strategic technology capabilities. Community IT came onboard as their technology partner to help assess, plan, and implement IT systems for the expansion, including everything from cloud-based email and file sharing to case management.
Various Community IT experts led different projects:
- assessment
- selection
- testing
- implementation
- training and support
Each project team helped the client explore what was possible and what was most important, which solution best fit their needs in each functional area, and what it would take to implement—including everything from cost to change management.
In addition, Community IT helped the client realize a new need and hire an in-house Information Systems Manager after implementation of its new case management system.
Results – Greater Impact at Greater Scale, Supported by Effective IT
The client has seen better ability to serve clients and resource centers through effective and efficient IT systems, including Cloud-based solutions, business continuity safeguards, and secure managed IT.
Community IT’s strategic guidance, proactive approach, and implementation-specific teams with great depth and varied technical expertise helped this client realize their growth goals.
Community IT helped this client save money by reducing hardware costs, and by guiding strategic IT planning and budgeting during their transition and growth. Careful planning throughout the process yielded overall cost savings while providing a solid foundation for budgeting and project planning going forward.
Community IT was able to help the client move to the right IT solution for them. We are always ready to support our clients face their real needs and constraints. We use our IT and nonprofit expertise to guide clients as they navigate their changing IT needs, as shown in this Implementation Strategic Planning Case Study. You can be sure we are dedicated to the success of your mission and will help you find the solution that fits you.