Effective IT Project Management Strategies for Nonprofits

Project management is useful for any company or organization, including nonprofits. It allows for better organization and communication to achieve a nonprofit’s goals. However, many nonprofits especially struggle with one particular form of project management: information technology (IT). Technology usage helps nonprofits engage with supporters, and if the organizations don’t have up-to-date technology, then they can’t keep their supporters up-to-date. In fact, a 2018 NetChange Digital Teams survey of nonprofit organizations found that 29% of its respondents do not have a department responsible for managing supporter engagement. Of those, 42% of centralized teams report that their digital structures are broken and do not work.

What exactly does that mean? It means that few nonprofits have a team assigned to engage digitally with volunteers and/or donors. The few that do feel that the technology their organizations use does not effectively engage with those supporters. Simply creating a nonprofit technology helpdesk could help with this issue.

IT project management for nonprofits is important to increase organizations’ success through better communication and resource tracking. This blog will discuss what exactly nonprofit project management is (as well as IT project management), why IT project management is important to nonprofit organizations, and the steps needed for effective project management.

What Is Nonprofit Project Management?

Project management in a nonprofit organization is the development of a universal process for accomplishing goals. For IT specifically, that means achieving technological goals. The process, whether for IT or for other plans, should not only involve the management of a project, but also the organization and timeliness of it as well. The appropriate people should be held accountable in completing those tasks.

Why Is Project Management Important in Nonprofits?

Project management in nonprofit organizations is important because it ensures they use their resources as efficiently as possible. Nonprofits often need to readjust their habits depending on the amount of funding they get from donors or the number of volunteers who help them out at a given time. With a project management plan in place, nonprofit organizations can improve flexibility to ensure that the variability in these factors doesn’t drastically affect their success.

IT project management is especially important for nonprofit organizations because technology allows them to communicate with donors, follow reporting and compliance procedures, and learnwhere resources are used and where they could be used better. By setting technology goals for your organization and learning to better optimize your technology, your organization ensures that any information in your system is current and keeps it protected from cyberattacks. Computers in Ministry offers many technology services, including IT security monitoring and Customer Relations Management (CRM) assistance to help you out.

What Are the Key Steps in Effective Project Management?

The key steps for effective project management are setting a goal, creating a nonprofit project plan, launching that plan, monitoring performance, and closing the project. Let’s look at each of these a bit more closely.

1. Setting a goal: It is hard to form a plan if you don’t know what you want to accomplish first. Without a goal in mind, employees and volunteers within an organization are left confused and wondering what exactly they should be doing to advance the organization’s mission. When initiating a plan, organizational leaders should think of SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based) that are specific enough to strive for and achieve.
2. Creating a plan: After you set a goal, you have to determine which steps to take to reach it. Come up with a strategy with reasonable steps that can be shared with everyone involved in the project so that they know what they need to do to help the organization succeed.
3. Launching a plan: Take the time to follow the plan you created for your organization. Make sure everyone involved is on the same page, and get all the resources that you’ll need to follow that plan ready for use.
4. Monitoring performance: It’s difficult to determine whether you are getting closer to your goals if you aren’t monitoring your performance. In the process of analyzing your progress, look at the data to make sure you are sticking to your plan and achieving what you set out to achieve.
5. Closing the project: This is what you do when you finally achieve those goals you set for your organization. In terms of IT, this doesn’t mean that the project is ever officially finished. It just means that you have accomplished what you set out to do. Because technology is constantly improving, you will have to continue to make updates as needed to your project.

Improve IT Project Management with Computers in Ministry

Now that you know what IT project management is and why it is important, you might be wondering how to take that first step towards initiating your project. Computers in Ministry can help. We are a nonprofit organization that aids faith-based nonprofits, higher education institutions, mission organizations, and churches and denominations in leveraging technology to help achieve their mission.

We offer organizational and consulting services, security and risk management, technology services, and user services. If you would rather that we don’t have a full hands-on approach on your organization, we will teach you what you need to know to work on your own technology. We offer several certifications to improve your technological skills. We will be your partner and work alongside you every step of the way!

If you are interested in learning more about our organization to get your digital structure up and running, contact us.