Strategy

By: Yann Toledano
August 25, 2008
Courtesy of Techsoup.org

What do your constituents think about your programs and services? What kinds of activities are your donors likely to fund? Should your organization initiate a new program?

Rather than resort to using telepathic powers or mind reading, an online survey is a powerful research tool that can deliver the feedback you need. Paper-based surveys are often too costly and time-consuming to administer, but online surveys make it easy for any organization to get feedback on the cheap.

 

What makes a good page layout? Learn some tips and tools for improving your NGO’s graphic design

Do you want to create letterhead for your nonprofit, or lay out a monthly newsletter or report? Send thank-you cards to donors? Create an invite for your next event?

Inventory and track technology assets efficiently to save your organization time and money

Hiring at its worst inspires both boredom and anxiety. Wading through resumes bores us, and the thought of hiring the wrong person scares us. And the fear factor is worse when you’re a non-techie who’s been tasked with hiring IT staff. As with any complicated, difficult decision, success starts with good planning.

• Do you really know what you’re looking for in this new employee?
• Does the job description reflect your needs?
• Should this be a permanent, full-time position or should you hire a contractor?
• Do you have the right people on your interview team?
• Have you thought carefully about the questions you’ll ask the candidates?

Provided by Techsoup.org 

In a world where carrying the latest and greatest laptop, PDA, or digital device has become the norm, many nonprofit organizations continue to do vital work without even the most basic technology tools and resources.

TechSoup is committed to ensuring all nonprofits have access to the information, tools, and support they need — so technology can solve problems, not create them.

Our Tech Beginner's Guide provides the guidelines and methodology to meet these minimum standards. These guidelines support your core technology, so that your organization can maximize the impact it makes in your communities.

By Eric Leland, April 2008

A map can be worth a thousand words. If you're looking for ways to create maps or to display geographic data, there are a number of software package that can help, from free ones to complex and powerful ones. This article, part of our A Few Good Tools series, provides a summary of the software that is used and liked by the Idealware community. They may not be the very best of their kind, but they have worked well for us. Perhaps they will also work for you.

“We have some exciting news for you about Sentry Networks - our Australian Donor Partner offering Nonprofits in Australia a fantastic deal on managed networks – the way to go to keep your IT management costs down!"

IT Standardisation is a strategy for minimizing IT costs within an organisation by keeping hardware and software as consistent as possible and reducing the number of tools you have that address the same basic need. It may take the form of ensuring that every computer has the same operating system, or of purchasing hardware in bulk so that every PC in your office is the same make and model. Standardisation often goes hand in hand with centralisation, the process of giving your IT department more control over purchases of hardware and software, and more control over what staff members are allowed to do with their office computers.

While imposing equipment standards can help you streamline your IT infrastructure, simplify decision-making, and minimise purchasing and maintenance costs, the process of standardising itself can be complicated. This article will show you ways to gauge the level of standardisation your organisation requires, highlight some of the benefits of standardisation, and offer tips for standardising your equipment while balancing organisational and staff needs.

Being open and adaptive to new technologies can be important to both your organization's mission and its ability to operate efficiently. Likewise, being flexible when it comes to individual preferences — whether it's working on a specific platform or using a particular spam filter — can help employees work better and encourage creativity.

Hardware and software aren’t the only aspects of an IT system that you might consider streamlining. We’ve highlighted some of the advantages of standardising everything from your operating system to your vendor relationships.

If you work in an office with multiple models and versions of software and equipment, the task of standardizing everything can be overwhelming. Starting from scratch by buying all new equipment is probably not an option for most (if any) organisations, but there are a few steps you can take to standardise your equipment over time.

If your organisation has traditionally allowed departments to choose and customise their own equipment, it can be difficult to convince employees to switch to a more centralised, standardisation-friendly IT purchasing system. Yet there are ways to streamline your purchasing procedures without ignoring staff needs

Check out Doug’s blog. Doug is the Chief Executive Officer of Connecting Up Australia ( formerly CISA). Doug has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the government and nonprofit sectors and naturally many opinions and insights to go with it! Doug’s undying passion to build the capacity of the nonprofit sector has seen his vocal advocacy drive the issues forward both in government and other forums. One of Doug’s greatest strengths is

The purpose of this guide is to help you find the Windows server and licenses appropriate to your organization's needs.

Windows Server is a server operating system that enables a computer to handle network roles such as print server, domain controller, Web server, and file server and to be the platform for separately acquired server applications such as Exchange Server or SQL Server.

• 2008 and 2003 Versions
• Standard and Enterprise Editions
• Licensing