A Good Tech is Hard to Find

If you're a regularly reader of blogs you've probably already come across this article which previews a soon to be released report by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies.

The researchers found that second to hiring fundraisers, hiring techs is the biggest challenge for nonprofits.

This is bad news for all of us because TECHNOLOGY IS MISSION CRITICAL. How can you work for peace, deal with global warming, do micro finance, advocate for young people, etc. if you don't have the systems in place to:

• evaluate your work;
• collaborate with other agencies;
• manage volunteers; and
• fundraise?

Well you can't, of course, except in a very limited way and that is frustrating for all of us.

At NPower NY and NPower Greater DC Region we've launched new services to address the lack of technology resources in most nonprofits one region at a time. Specifically, by using technology (in this case software) we have developed new services to automate IT support. In DC we call it NPower ON! NPower NY invented IT Basic.

Both organizations are helping nonprofits move away from the "break/fix" or "computer guy" model of IT support where workstations and servers are only tended to when things are on fire. Instead, with NPower ON! and IT Basic, we are providing ongoing, full service IT support to more nonprofits all the time. Services like these (also known commercially as managed services) reduce unpredictable and costly on site visits. And continuous and automated updates, anti-virus protection and patches keep systems secure and predict problems BEFORE they occur.

I hope you'll check us out, especially if you're feeling the pain. I'd also love to hear what your organization is doing for IT support.