While all businesses had to deal with a multitude of challenges during the pandemic, non-profit organizations had extra layers of difficulties to deal with. In addition to the mainstream challenges of unemployment, government restrictions, working from home, and supply chain problems, non-profits also had to deal with the reduced cooperation of donors and volunteers due to the economic downturn and fear of the unknown.
Ensuring continuity of service to their clients, maintaining relationships with donors and volunteers, and navigating the challenges of the pandemic proved to be a mammoth task for non-profit organizations all over the world.
The key to continued and long term success for non profit organizations is digitization.
Non-profit digitization concerns
Every company, regardless of whether the organization is private, governmental, or not for profit has concerns and worries about taking the big step towards digitization. Whether digitization means automating financial planning, predicting analytics, increasing collaboration, or improving payment and donation methods, the time and money involved are the main reasons as to why CFOs in all types of companies are pushing off these implementations.
Among non-profits, these reasons apply even more. For an organization whose goal isn’t making as much revenue as possible, implementing software or digitization programs that are costly can be hard to justify- even if they can save money in the long run. Implementing these in a time period of economic and global uncertainty can be seen as even more of a risk.
However, there are numerous reasons why non-profits should embrace digitization, and in some cases making this transformation can be even more helpful than for-profit organizations.
1) Make accurate predictions using data
One of the biggest opportunities offered to CFOs and others by technology such as artificial intelligence and big data is the ability to look forward and make accurate predictions. In the charity and non-profit sector, this is more important than ever.
For non-profits, making the shift from staying afloat and looking in the rear view mirror- to planning ahead and understanding future information is crucial in taking the organization to the next level. Although for non-profit organizations it is less obvious, as the goal is not always to maximize revenue, being able to predict and use future information to their advantage will help the organization maximize their goals no matter what they are.
The particular challenge for non-profits and charities looking to implement this change is that unlike most other organizations, their focus is on helping others rather than making money for themselves. The benefits of digitization are many and are well worth the time and money after finding the right one. Accurate predictions are just the beginning.
2) Work more efficiently after investing time on implementation
It’s true and there’s no other way around it: Implementing new technologies can be time consuming.
But that doesn’t mean that it’s not well worth the time. Finding the right one for your organization is the challenge, but after choosing the right match, the organization will be rewarded with a more efficient work process.
Since non-profits don’t have the same long term growth mentality as for-profit companies, finding easy-to-use technologies with a fast implementation time is key. Whether it be a financial planning solution with an Excel interface that greatly reduces implementation time, easy-to-use collaboration tools, or simple marketing and sales technologies, the relatively small amount of time spent on implementation is well worth it in the long run.
3) Attract new talent
The labor shortage is something that has affected every part of the economy, and once again the non-profit sector has suffered even more. Non-profits often don’t have the luxury of raising salaries at the same rate as the private sector, and in the age of inflation and rising consumer costs, many people are looking elsewhere for work if they aren’t getting the salary they want.
But digital transformation and talent acquisition can form a virtuous spiral for many non-profits. In finance teams and other departments, talented people will be attracted to organizations that are benefiting from digital transformation and similar technologies rather than those that are struggling with aging, legacy systems.
Not only will technology help attract new talent, but it will also help retain talent, something equally important in today’s talent shortage. Employees (especially in the finance sector) who feel that they are doing too much manual or “boring” work will start looking for new employment sooner rather than later. By automating these aspects, employees will have more motivation to stay, as more time can be spent on analyzing and other skilled opportunities, which gives employees a bigger sense of contribution.
Lastly, non-profits have something that other businesses don’t have: volunteers. Non-profits that have efficient and up to date processes can attract an entire demographic of those with digital skill sets, many of which are looking to contribute in meaningful ways.
These organizations have a much bigger potential to attract young and skilled volunteers, who would much rather spend their time on efficient and skilled work rather than the opposite. Getting ahead in the “competition for volunteers” is almost as important as attracting workers among many non-profit organizations.
Conclusion
Non-profits tend to get left behind in the world of automation and technology. However,
transformation is not only possible but also very much needed. Non-profits that invest just a bit of time and energy into leveling up their processes, find the benefits ripple across the organization.
Stronger cross-team collaboration, more agility to seize marketplace opportunities and skirt risks, and streamlined reporting and presentations, which frees up FP&A pros to focus more time on high-level strategic work, are just a few of the benefits that will soon follow. Although it is harder for non-profits to plan for the future, finding a way to maximize the limited time and resources available will help the organization produce far better results.
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