Technology used to be the realm of the IT department. These days, everyone in your organization is using technology, and they all have opinions about how it should be done. There is no place this is more evident than in the communications department. From email, to web sites, to social media, communications staff throughout the sector are pushing the limits (and patience!) of IT staff. In this session, we'll discover the keys to managing online communications technologies in ways that keep your organization secure, align with your mission, and allow your communications staff to do what they do best.

Why is mission first the topic of a session about technology? Because mission is what makes the nonprofit sector matter. Unlike for-profit entities, nonprofits are not accountable to a financial bottom line; rather, they are responsible for serving a social bottom line. It’s true that nonprofit leaders must be good financial stewards, but that’s because their organizations won’t be able to keep providing services (delivering the mission) to their communities if they go out of business.

The goal of IT alignment is to use technology to support and enhance the work that you do to meet your mission. In other words, IT alignment will help you select and implement technology to achieve your mission and to avoid the trap of implementing the latest technology because it’s shiny, or because someone told you to. To make the most of this chapter, then, you’ll need to know what mission really means.

Takeaways:

1. Visual framework to evaluate how well aligned your mission and technology is.
2. Understanding of definition of IT Alignment and methods to help others understand it.
3. Tactical and strategic next steps, what you can act on today, tomorrow, next year and next decade.

Assessing the return on investment (ROI) of technology projects is crucial to securing board support and staff buy-in. This session explains techniques for ROI analysis in the nonprofit context to help guide your decision making and demonstrate results.

The three most important factors in managing technology change in your organization are people, people, people. This session introduces practices for technology change that focuses on people and how factors inherent in change affect their performance and subsequently have a negative impact on the organization. In addition, the session will discuss key success factors and mitigation techniques to help improve the success of technology change.

Takeaways:

1. Identify behaviors, perceptions, and attitudes that emerge in organizations as a response to change and that ultimately impact organizational effectiveness
2. Understanding of how to make successful technological changes
3. What can be done to mitigate the impact of technology change in your organization.

• Kristie Ferketich, Ann Marie Hill, and Beth Hardy, Google Grants Specialists on Google's in-kind advertising program for nonprofits - Google Grants.

We know most non-profits have a limited (or even nonexistent) marketing budget. Join this session to ask questions about Google Grants, a program that offers free online advertising to select 501(c)(3) organizations. We’ll cover questions on the program basics, how to successfully manage your online advertising account, and more!

Takeaways:
1. Learn more about the Google Grants program: program guidelines, eligibility, requirements, etc.
2. Get answers to tough questions about managing your account, evaluating its performance, and making changes for success
3. Familiarize yourself with a variety of online educational resources to help you beyond this Q&A session

Where should you focus your efforts to find out where your stakeholders are and what they are doing online with and for your organization? What data is meaningful, actionable? These are the questions that drive the research and analysis that inform the program design of the highest-performing online organizations. Keeping pace with constituents’ evolving interests and behaviors online is essential to shaping your online strategies and tactics. If you want to improve your ability to target your outreach, serve your constituents, and engage in the online dialogue about your organization, it pays to know the networks in which your constituents participate, the websites they visit, the discussion lists on which they lurk, and how they spend their time online. This session will teach you simple and advanced techniques for determining what your audience is doing and evaluating your online endeavors later.

Takeaways:

1. You’ll learn ways you monitor the social media, social networks and your own Web site interactions for clues to how to engage your constituents.
2.We’ll review techniques nonprofits use to get direct feedback from constituents to guide their efforts
3.You’ll understand “dashboard metrics” and learn how to construct insightful reports for your Web activity.

Setting appropriate budgets and securing resources is one of the most important jobs a leader has, and raising money for technology presents a special set of challenges. This session examines adequate budgeting for different types of organizations and the classification of technological expenses, including what counts toward overhead versus program expenses. We review strategies for pitching technology projects and explore the foundations that fund them.

Marnie Webb, Co-CEO of TechSoup Global, will kick off Day 2, sharing her perspective from her role as the leader of an organization that continues to innovate its services to help social benefit organizations around the globe better fulfill their missions

 

Marnie has been with TechSoup Global since 2001, most recently holding the position of Vice President of Knowledge Services. To help address the nonprofit sector’s systemic technology challenges, Marnie works towards optimizing TechSoup Global’s popular Web resource, TechSoup, and its Knowledge Services program, which includes projects such as Healthy and Secure Computing and MaintainIT. She is one of the driving forces behind the NetSquared Initiative, which brings the social Web to nonprofits across the globe. A sought-after speaker and writer on nonprofit technology, she understands both challenges and technological possibilities facing the sector. Marnie is one of the founding members of the Nonprofit Emerging Technology Exchange and an organizer of the NPTech tagging experiment. In 2008, The Nonprofit Times included Marnie on its list of the 50 most influential leaders in the U.S. nonprofit sector.

• Laura Quinn, Executive Director of Idealware on software to support fundraising, outreach, and communications, and Idealware's forthcoming Field Guide to Nonprofit Software on these topics.

  Takeaways: 

1. An understanding of the types of software than can help your org raise money and reach new friends
2. A way to vet what types of software make sense for your org's technology level
3. Answers to your specific fundaising and outreach software questions!

Having highly capable and motivated people in your organization is crucial to success with technology. This session will discuss proven strategies for determining who you need on your IT team, setting salary levels, writing job descriptions, recruiting and interviewing candidates to make the right hire, effectively managing your staff, and creating low-cost professional development opportunities.

Takeaways:

1. How to determine who you need on your team.
2. How to find and hire the right people.
3. How to manage, retain and develop your staff.

Step 1 for online fundraising is partnering with a trustworthy donation processing organization and placing a prominent donate button on your website. Step 2 is enticing people to click on it. Join Katya for a bite-sized intro to online strategy and get your questions answered.

Takeaways:
1. 5 action items you can complete as soon as the session is over
2. Talking points to share with management who don’t support purchasing a fundraising solution
3. An understanding of the common ailments that befall rookie online fundraisers

Nonprofits have limited resources, which usually means that we have to make tough choices about where to spend our time and money. In this session, we'll cover best practices in planning for technology projects, providing tools to help you make smart decisions about where to invest those resources.

Takeaways: 1. Top to bottom outline of the nonprofit strategic planning process, incorporating balanced scorecards, multiple bottom lines and focusing on technology planning.
2. Sound advice on how to evaluate which tech projects need to be done the exact same way that a for-profit would and which ones can be done creatively, with a deep dive into what “creatively” means.
3. Direction as to how to develop of Technology Plan – what goes in it, how do you get it in there, how do you make it a document that others can understand and engage with.

Presented by Edward Granger-Happ

For those of us running IT operations on a daily basis, it's easy to think of technology as just systems we have to keep up and running. Good leaders do more than guarantee up time though. Leaders see technology as just another means to achieving an organization's mission.

Takeaways: 1. The differences between operations and strategy
2. The link between technology and strategy
3. Finding a seat at the strategy table in your organization

Ami Dar, Founder and Executive Director of Idealist.org, opened the ONTC with his thoughts on the intersection of technology and a nonprofit's mission.

Ami Dar is the founder and executive director of Idealist.org. Built in 1996 with $3,500, Idealist has become one of the most popular nonprofit resources on the web, with information provided by 90,000 organizations around the world, 70,000 visitors every day, and a staff of 60 in New York, Buenos Aires, and Portland. Ami is an Ashoka Fellow and currently serves on the boards of the Nonprofit Finance Fund and Allforgood.org. He was born in Jerusalem, grew up in Peru and Mexico, and lives in New York.