Community IT Innovators September 2017 News

Welcome September!
September is here, school is back in session, summer is over, time to get serious again. Serious about budgeting! If you are working on your budget, check out our webinar September 20th when I will be addressing FY2018 specifics to include in your IT budget – including security, disaster recovery planning, and routine improvements.
On August 23d Community IT Innovators’ colleague Peter Mirus from Build Consulting presented a short webinar on ways We Are All Data Managers, and the link to the slides and recording are now available if you missed it. He presents six steps to become a data management ninja, no matter what role you hold in your organization. The incremental steps he proposes can quickly lead to better time and data management. In one example a client discovered that a report that took a day of staff time could actually be generated in less than an hour using a tool built-in to their database. This is a webinar to help anyone become more valuable to your organization and your mission.
If you miss any of our webinars or blog posts, these resources can found here on our website.
Next Webinar:Community IT Innovators September 2017 News
Wednesday, September 20th from 4-5pm EDT join me for a completely reworked update to one of our most popular topics: Your Nonprofit IT Budget.
If you have anxiety about how to budget for IT and how to find the expert advice you want without getting a hard sell for upgrades you probably don’t need, you aren’t alone. It can be difficult to talk about IT needs, especially if your organization has ever been burned by an IT project gone wrong.
We know that putting the minimum expense into IT and hoping things turn out ok is probably not the best path – but how do you know where to put the best money in? This webinar will help get the conversation started.
In our 15+ years of experience working exclusively with nonprofits, we have learned there is absolutely no “one-size-fits-all” budget document possible, and we won’t be providing one. The wide variety in process, and in where IT reports, make us skeptical of universal budget templates. However, we do have advice on what needs to be included, and we will also provide ideas on describing your needs and the benefits of functional, secure IT to the non-techies at your nonprofit.
This webinar is appropriate for nonprofit executives, managers and nonprofit IT personnel. We welcome and encourage audience participation and love the chance to address practical and timely nonprofit technology situations in our monthly webinars.
Resources
This month we have links to several aspects of data management at nonprofits.
Staff Leaving? Dealing With Data Retention
Data transitions should be part of the exit process, before the final paycheck. Each employee leaves a data trail, and expectations need to be set about how this data is handled. You should carefully consider what data needs to be kept, for how long, and who has access to that information. READ MORE →
Data For Nonprofits To Use
The biggest rule of data: measurement only matters if it changes the way you act. This article explores how to collect and share data in three strategic areas: fulfilling your promise (how you deliver); failure (what can you change?); and stories people can relate to (qualitative data).
READ MORE →
Nonprofit Database Managers
In this recent webinar from Build Consulting Peter Mirus discusses what an official nonprofit database manager does. This webinar complements the August webinar on how you can contribute to data management, no matter what role you fill at your organization.
READ MORE →
How You Think About Data
In this thoughtful post Vu Le at NonprofitAF discusses the data paradox (you need data to get funding to get the data you need.) There is more and more pressure on nonprofits being able to produce good data. Getting more and better information on practices and outcomes can only be good for our sector, but requiring data can hold some communities back.
READ MORE →
Please let me know if you have questions or ideas for future webinar topics you’d like covered, and follow me on LinkedIn or FaceBook for all my latest posts and news.
Warm Regards,
Johan Hammerstrom, President & CEO