What Tech Skills Do You Need for a Nonprofit?

The short answer is the ones you need to get the job done! Technology evolves at such a fast rate and can be so overwhelming, especially if you feel like you need to stay on top of it all. The important thing to keep in mind with tech skills is that they are supposed to make achieving your non-profit’s mission easier, solving problems and improving things that you need them to. When you run into a problem that technology would be able to fix, or an idea for outreach that technology can help you achieve, that’s when tech skills come into play. These skills may be needed in anything from a nonprofit technology helpdesk, to data backup, to IT security monitoring.

The best answer to the question in IT of “what skills do nonprofits need?” is the skills that let them know when and how to ask for the help they need. With all that nonprofits have on their plate, keeping up with the latest technology shouldn’t be a requirement that takes you away from your mission and the work you do to help people. The main skill your organization needs is to be able to identify where technology could make things better. Then find someone, either within your organization or externally who can give you the support you need.

Technology Challenges for Nonprofits

First, let’s look at where many nonprofits have challenges to get an idea of what tech skills are likely to be most important. There are almost an unlimited number of technologies that can be used within nonprofits, so we’ll go through four main types of challenges to provide a general overview.

Organizational

Figuring out what technology would add value to your organization and how to best use it is a huge part of developing a tech nonprofit skills list. This organizational banner can cover everything from evaluating and selecting necessary software, to developing an IT policy, to managing tech projects. The person or people responsible for this may be the ones that need the most understanding of what technology has to offer, even if they personally don’t need to implement the technology. Since this might feel overwhelming, working with an IT consultant (like one of ours at Computers in Ministry) can help with these steps.

Security

IT security is another important grouping of tech challenges. Everything from backing up data, to security monitoring, to disaster recovery in case all data is compromised, this set of challenges is likely to be one of the top core competencies for a non profit organization.

Technology Services

These are kind of the nuts and bolts of how the technology will operate. Things like the server, network, wireless administration, cloud data backup, managing applications, and migrating information to new or updated platforms.

User Services

Your nonprofit’s ability to help people and achieve its mission is going to be driven by how well the people you are trying to serve can use the technology you rely on for outreach. Things like technology assisting with desktop support, help desk features, and training may be the biggest driver of how smart tech is transforming nonprofits.

Can Technology Transform the Nonprofit Sector?

Now that we’ve gone over the main things that may be causing problems within your nonprofit that technology can address, let’s look at some of the ways it can improve areas that are already going well. The Forbes Nonprofit Council identified several nonprofit technology trends expected to play a large role in 2022 that provide insight into some great ways technology can help you achieve your goals.

• Education technology for nonprofits: Using multimedia storytelling to educate and connect with your supporters and attract new ones is a quickly evolving and very useful area of technology for nonprofits.
• Managed IT services: Utilizing third party technology to help to meet the changing technological needs of your nonprofit frees up valuable time and volunteer power to spread your cause more widely.
• Measurement and evaluation: Data collection and analysis has come a long way in a short time, and using data to make better decisions about digital outreach, the effectiveness of social media and mobile giving initiatives, and message targeting keeps getting more useful.
• Migration to the cloud: Storing all your nonprofit’s data in the cloud makes it both more accessible to everyone who needs to access it and better protected against potential IT security threats. As nonprofits begin collecting and using more and more data, both of these features become even more important over time.
• Hybrid and virtual events: The pandemic has changed so many things, one of which being how familiar we are with virtual meetings and events. Although virtual events do present their own set of challenges, nonprofits can use them to increase the reach and accessibility of their fundraisers, social functions, and organizations.

Computers in Ministry: We’re Here to Help

We at Computers in Ministry know the ins and outs of how technology can help nonprofit organizations. We can offer as much or as little support as you need to get you set up for success in using technology to do what you need it to. Contact us today with any questions you have so we can learn how we might best help you!