In a recent Not for Profit webinar with Chloe Devin of WebVine, Tammy Ven Dange of Roundbox Consulting was asked: “What if your Not for Profit cannot afford to upgrade your IT systems?” Here is her advice and also more about preparing a business case for your Board.
If you prefer to read the full transcript, scroll further below.
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Tammy Ven Dange is a former charity CEO, Association President, Not for Profit Board Member and IT Executive. Today she helps NFPs with strategic IT decisions.
If you found this information helpful, you may also want to check out: “What to do when you can’t afford to replace a broken system?”
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: “What if your Not for Profit cannot afford to upgrade your IT systems?”
Tammy Ven Dange: “When you talk about the ageing platforms, we start to have over time what we call a technical debt – where a lot of not-for-profits will reduce their (IT) operating costs and fail to invest on an annual basis to the point that you have to make a major investment at some point.
If you don’t have the cash now, you need to set up a separate account for a future fund. Because one day, you’re going to have to replace one of these systems that you haven’t done anything with, and it’s going to be an emergency then.
The reality is that I think most staff already feel the pain. They’re the ones that are doing the manual processes. They’re the ones dealing with unhappy stakeholders because it’s hard to work with them.
I think the harder question is how they get the Board across the line?
One of the surveys that I’ve done with clients comes up a lot. They say, “We make it so hard for people to pay us” and if a Not for Profit feels that way, it’s like,” Well, that’s a revenue generator right there.” Make it easy for them to give you money, and suddenly, that makes sense from a business case perspective.