What is your technology strategy?

When Hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans, the Red Cross developed an app featuring an “I’m Safe” button that allowed people to inform their families they were safe and well. Almost 10 years later, the same technology had a vital role in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, allowing users to log in to Facebook and tell friends and loved ones they were okay.

But today digital tools can do much more, making operations within organizations more efficient on a broad scale. Technology has gone from nice-to-have-to must-have, as non-profits increasingly realize the vital role it can play in achieving their missions. Twenty years ago, experts say, technology was a back-office item that fell low on budget priorities and failed to spark donors’ interests. Now it has become a must-have tool for spreading NGO’s messages, tailoring their communications and scaling impact — enabling them to replicate their work across the world.

The most ambitious NGOs are building systems that connect internally and with stakeholders, helping them communicate and raise funds. According to the 2018 Global NGO Technology Report, 72 percent of NGOs accept donations through their website, and 45 percent have customer relationship management software (CRM). Those that do nothing risk falling behind.

Building a movement

The Wildlife Conservation Society in New York is dedicated to protecting biodiversity and endangered species like cheetahs, chimpanzees or coastal dolphins. Jonathan Palmer, WCS’s executive director of strategic technology, says relationships with donors had been short-term and transactional. But the NGO needed longer-term relationships with donors to solve the intractable environmental problems that it sought to fix. WCS has now developed many touchpoints with donors, connecting with them across different media. The strategy is to bring together groups and individuals who can commit their efforts towards enduring goals — whether that’s by raising money locally or campaigning against the Southeast Asia’s ivory trade.

“One of the challenges of the world we live in today is that it’s a very instant world,” Palmer says. “People respond to things that are immediately in front of them and expect immediate results. We needed to get people invested for the long haul, so we needed to build a movement — not see WCS as an organization that was taking a donation but one that was a partner with them in solving conservation issues.”

Salesforce.org, the nonprofit arm of the CRM company, gets its technology in the hands of nonprofits and educators so they can do more good, customizing the technology to fit their unique needs. Less than a year ago, WCS adopted Salesforce’s CRM system to give it a comprehensive view of its constituent base and help enhance its relationship with donors and activists. The 123-year-old NGO is using Salesforce.org tools to build a more personalized relationship with its 3.5 million constituents. It is also creating a movement called “Five Million Strong” bringing together all those who support its mission.

Having better insight into the activities of stakeholders, big and small, will help WCS strengthen its relationship with them, Palmer explains. “Quite often, as important as it is to know that a major donor has given us $100,000 for a new project, it’s also important for us to be able to know that their daughter came to one of our facilities, or their sons raised some money by selling cookies.”

Reaching those in need

Implementing technology that provides a complete vision of constituents is also a goal for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, which made technology a pillar of its most recent three-year strategic plan. The Society, which funds research to cure MS, also runs more than 800 local support groups and takes 10,000 calls on its helpline each month. Users can get the information they need on its website, through live chat or telephone.

The Society recently embarked on an overhaul that will connect every part of the 62-year-old NGO’s operations — board members, donors, employees and users — in a single system. The linkage of data will allow it to understand its constituents, says chief information officer Jennifer Douglas. It will facilitate transparency because the system can show donors data about how their funds are being used. “The new millennial donors are not just giving money out,” she says. “You have to really engage with them and understand what’s important to them.”

An efficient, omni-channel system will also allow the society to serve its users better. “If a woman called Sally calls us and says she just got newly diagnosed today, what do we do?” Douglas says. “We want to know that Sally has already hit the ‘newly diagnosed’ page on our website, and we’re reaching out to her.”

For an endeavour of this scale, Salesforce.org is simply the “leading platform,” Douglas says. “They’re the ones that can connect the entire constituent from whatever view a 360 degree view of all the constituents and so that was our choice.”

Efficiencies

Although the transformation of the National MS Society isn’t cheap, it is expected to save significant sums over time, reducing duplication and simplifying operations. “Just managing our telephony, overall, we saved $800,000 annually,” Douglas says. “With our restructure we literally saved millions of dollars.”

But to bring about this level of transformation requires significant buy-in from staff. Change management was key. Douglas’ team continually sought feedback on how the program was being received to make sure that staff and users were open to the new developments, especially those in older age groups. As she points out, technology is just one part of the picture — adoption is the other critical piece.

At WCS, workers were already on board with the idea of a system that would allow them to connect better with donors and activists. Still, dialogue was crucial, Palmer explains. “The bottom line is that technology doesn’t solve problems, people solve problems by thinking through approaches and strategies and processes.”

Harnessing tech to tackle problems

So what does an effective technology strategy look like? NGOs must themselves be ready to change — what Douglas calls ‘organizational readiness’ — and leaders need to support digital transformation efforts.

Once the decision has been made, organizations must seek out the right partner carefully, one that not only can meet their needs but also reflects their values. In addition, when introducing a structural overhaul they must be willing to persevere and push through the difficult implementation phase until their goals have been met.

For its part, Salesforce.org aims to further advance its work with NGOs. It just announced Salesforce.org Nonprofit Cloud—a complete solution for nonprofits built on the trusted cloud platform designed for flexibility and scale. Nonprofit Cloud can power an organization’s entire mission: track and measure impact in real time, raise more funds with AI-driven insights on donors and take every constituent on their own personal journey. This targeted new set of solutions is built by and for nonprofits to accelerate fundraising, program delivery, mission measurement, and marketing engagement.

New technologies are never about innovation for its own sake but about enabling an NGO to fulfil its mission. “It’s really not about disrupting the organization, that’s not what’s important,” says Palmer. “What we’re trying to do is disrupt a problem, disrupt a situation that isn’t good for the planet or people on the planet.”