First session: Assessing Technology Needs and Creating a Technology Plan for Non-Profits by MJ Shoer, President of Jenaly Technology Group, Inc.

As I continue to work with libraries implementing Scriblio, I thought it would be helpful to know how to give libraries advice on how to think about their technology plans.

Do we even know what we need? How do you assess? What makes up a quality needs assessment? How do you turn it into a viable technology plan? How detailed should it be? [This is a great one, I think a common mistake is to indoctrinate the tool instead of the reason for them in the first place. On second thought, this just might be a concern with web services.]

Wow! He’s showing that silly youTube phenom about the monks and the book. It’s amazing that libraries so often seem to operate in a vacuum forgetting that they’re part of a wider world.

When assessing existing technology - figure out what you already do well and where you could improve. Then assess other non-profits (hey, that’s what I’m doing today). What do your clients expect? Are you providing the expected level of service? [HELLO!?] Are there technologies that will help you open up new areas of service. [This is what so many libraries are forgetting about or not realizing about social software - stay tuned - I'm writing more about this later this week.] NEVER forget to ask the staff what they think!

Seven Steps to a Technology Plan from TechSoup

1. Establish leadership support for your technology plan. Get technology people on your board and get there support.
2. Assess you current resources. He gives an example of a non-profit whose strategy was to acquire as many donated computers as possible. This means they’re always using useless computers and then wondering why computers are so frustrating to use.
3. Define your needs. Don’t just implement because it’s new or sexy. Does it help you satisfy your mission? Can you improve your operations?
4. Explore solutions This is the fun part! Okay, duckies, choose your weapons. This is a big deal - get help if necessary.
5. Put it in writing. Identify resources, needs, solutions, and planned uses, as well as your budget.
6. Develop a funding strategy. 70/30 rule. For every dollar you spend, 30 cents goes to equipment and 70 to the training and support.
7. Implement the plan AND a timeline.

Hardware leasing? Never occured to me, but of course!

I didn’t catch the organization, but someone just mentioned an organization for girls who have started online programming… libraries are starting to do that too!

Resources:

TechSoup
ePhilanthropy Foundation
Network for Good - including a way to collect donations.

Again, my thought in closing is that technology people have to be VERY aware of how large the field is and thus be honest about what they do and do not know. It’s totally okay to say, “Golly, I’m more an infrastructure guy, I don’t know much about web services.”

Tags: conference, liveblog, new hampshire, nh, nh center for nonprofits, nhnonprofits, non-profits, plan, technology

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