Regardless of the project I do for a Not for Profit, I always perform a Current State Analysis at the beginning. The results usually surprise the Executives. This is especially true regarding the number of manual processes their staff do on a day to day basis. The reasons may vary, but here are some of the common ones I see frequently.
5 common reasons for manual processes in a Not for Profit:
- There’s no (or little) integration between their systems so information cannot be passed between them;
- Staff have not been trained on the systems, and therefore they have created their own ways of doing things;
- Systems have limited “out of the box” reporting capability resulting in a lot of spreadsheets;
- Managers don’t have enough insight into what their staff are doing, and therefore are managing them outside of systems;
- Systems are no longer meeting the organisation’s needs from a function and process point of view.
A few years ago, fixing these issues especially around integrations would have been costly. However, interoperability (or the way that systems talk to each other) have come a long way with easy plugins available for the most popular systems and automation capabilities that even a non-technical person can set-up.
This gives Not for Profits a lot more options than in the past, and the benefits can improve your bottom line too by potentially reducing headcount, as well as increasing revenue.
If you want to know more about how your organisation may benefit from a Current State analysis, please get in touch.
Tammy Ven Dange is a former charity CEO, Not for Profit Board Member and IT Executive. Today she helps NFPs with IT decisions.