Many nonprofit staff are facing increased stress and multiplying concerns about privacy, security, and vulnerabilities. What should you be tackling first in this new political environment?
The takeaways:
- Most attacks are still financially based: criminals want you to wire money to the wrong account. The good news is that cybersecurity basics that protect you from fraud also protect your organization from politically motivated attacks.
- Taking action – even modest first steps or reading up on the issues – goes a long way to assuage fears and stress. But when the stress is all around us, it is hard to prioritize the boring, back-office tasks like reviewing your incident response plan or acceptable use policies, or updating your cybersecurity awareness training. Working with an accountability partner can help!
- To find motivation to carve out the time to gather stakeholders together, remind them that as Jenny says, a trip in an ambulance to the emergency room costs way more than an annual check up. The cost of a breach will likely be a lot more than the time it would take your team to strengthen your security.
There are lots of resources available – here on our site we have free resources on basic cybersecurity, anti-doxxing resources, staff training, and governance policies. If you need motivation to start, listen to this podcast and take those first steps.
Listen to Podcast
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Assuaging Fears, Taking Action
Jennifer Huftalen is a 17-year veteran at Community IT and is our Director of Client Services. She speaks daily with clients about their needs and fears and shares her insights in this podcast interview with Carolyn. The good? news is that our fundamental recommendations on foundational cybersecurity still stand, and will protect most nonprofits from most threats, financial or political. More good news? Basic solutions do not have to be expensive, in fact in our experience, most nonprofits worried about cybersecurity need to walk – put fundamentals in place – before they can run – engage vendors in expensive comprehensive testing when an assessment could have already revealed those weaknesses, for less.
Bottom line, it feels good to take action, and Community IT has lots of resources on taking your first steps.
If you have questions that aren’t answered by our downloadable Cybersecurity Playbook or other online resources, schedule time with our Cybersecurity Expert Matthew Eshleman, no strings attached.
Presenters
Jenny has been providing Account Management services for Community IT’s partner organizations since 2007. Now as Director of Client Services, she is responsible for ensuring those partner organizations are receiving the right combination of IT support services that meet their organizational needs and goals.
Before joining Community IT, Jenny worked in a similar role for a best practice healthcare research and consulting firm. Jenny enjoys Community IT’s commitment to serving progressive organizations that are devoted to making a positive impact on their communities and the world at large. She earned a BA in political science from Union College, with minors in economics and history. She is assuaging fears and helping clients take action every day, and is happy to share her insights from recent client conversations on where the stress is largely coming from, and what actions we recommend.
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 Jenny on assuaging fears and taking action to address cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the current nonprofit sector climate.
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 cybersecurity, you shouldn’t also have to worry about understanding your provider. You want a partner who understands nonprofits.
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.
Transcript coming soon
Photo by The Jopwell Collection on Unsplash