Community IT Innovators Nonprofit Technology Topics

Matching Business Processes and Nonprofit IT with Johan Hammerstrom

• Community IT Innovators • Season 6 • Episode 11

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Do you have a technology tool that just isn’t working? How do you get at the root of the issue and find solutions?

Sometimes IT staff and directors and executives get really into the cool details of their technology tools without considering the whole organization needs and tolerances. And sometimes executives and leaders want to change IT tools on a whim, where that IT tool is deeply embedded in the functions of the nonprofit organization, and the change impacts all the stakeholders greatly, but none of them were consulted. 

How can you reconcile those two aspects and do a better job of matching business processes and nonprofit IT? What are best practices in assessing your organization needs and matching them to the available technology tools, thoughtfully making the selection (usually in a hurry and under budget and staff constraints), and then implementing your tool with lots of communication and staff training? 

 CEO Johan Hammerstrom shares some of his insights and experience gained in over 20 years of serving nonprofits with well-managed IT. 

Don’t ever look at a technology problem as just a technology problem.. 

If you zoom out enough, technology problems are always part of a larger business problem. It’s really hard to make progress on fixing technology problems if you just have that very narrow focus on the technology itself. 

The more you can zoom out and understand the broader context for the technology problem, the more you can frame it as a business problem for the organization, the more effective you are going to be at addressing it. 

At the end of the day, it may seem to you to be a really big technology problem, but it may actually be a relatively small business problem. So trying to look at what constitutes the business problem around the technology solution will help you to get better perspective on how much of a problem this really is to the organization. You may be right that it is a huge technology problem, but if you look at the larger context and it turns out it’s not a huge business problem, just let it go – because you’re not going to get anywhere trying to change that.  


Some Key Takeaways:

  • Business problem aspects of nonprofit IT
    • What’s the price? What are the cost investments? What are the costs to inaction?
    • Who are the people who are impacted by this technology solution?
    • What was the decision process when the technology was chosen?
    • What is the decision process to choose a new technology now?
  • Sometimes staying with sub-optimum technology solution is the decision that best matches the business needs of the organization.
  • Every “untouchable” ancient IT solution that only one person knows how to keep running actually CAN be replaced. Many vendors for server-based solutions – if they are still in business – will help you move that tool to their cloud-based subscription. If the vendor is no longer in business, that function can definitely be replaced – and should be replaced – with a modern, secure, solution.
  • Your people are the most important component of your technology. Plan for redundancy. 



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