Sam Chenkin discuss the changing nature of technology within nonprofit organizations. Using technology to be efficient is no longer enough to stay relevant as a nonprofit. Even using data effectively is old news. Today, nonprofits are expected to “disrupt” social ills through the network effects and scale of technology. This event explains this trend, its opportunities, and its dangers. We talk about how the commodification of data storage, analytics, and AI is making software development a compelling option for nonprofits. And we talk about how your nonprofit can take an idea from inception through to the creation of a website or app.

1. The Third Wave of Nonprofit Technology: Technology for
Social Change
With Sam Chenkin, Tech Impact
July 20, 2017

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Presenters
Susan Hope Bard
Training and Education
Manager, TechSoup
Sam Chenkin
Director of Consulting
Services, Tech Impact
Assisting with chat: Alicia Kidd, TechSoup

4. The 3rd Wave
Technology for SocialChange

5. sam@techimpact.org
Tech Impact
Tech Impact is a national nonprofit organization that helps other
nonprofits realize their missions through technology. Tech Impact
provides day-to-day technology support to over 200 organizations
nationwideandproject-based work to several hundred more every year.
To learn more check out our live annualreport anddashboardat
http://bit.ly/2u7gUTw
Sam Chenkin
DIRECTOR OF CONSULTING SERVICES
As Director of ConsultingServices, I oversee our consultingstaffas they
help nonprofitsfocus on their mission.Our teamsupports hundreds of
nonprofits every year as they make decisions about their technology
strategy, builddatasystems,and understandtheirdata.
When I’m not at Tech Impact I’m cooking,traveling,or singingrather
poorly.

6. POLL QUESTION
• Do you consider yourself to be:
• A nonprofit executive
• IT staff
• Data or Information staff
• Program Staff
• Operations Staff
• Other
6

7. 7
What are we talking about?
• The cheap and cheerful model of nonprofit technology
• Technology as a core competency for nonprofits
• Fundamental changes in how technology is built, packaged, and sold
• How to take advantages of these changes as a nonprofit
• Making it real for nonprofits of your size

8. Where are you now?
• Do you think that…. (multi-select)
• Technology doesn’t help us at all, it just gets in the way
• Technology helps us be more efficient
• Technology helps us tell our story better
• Technology helps us understand what works be moreeffective
• Technology allows us to completely change how we approach ourmission
8

9. Technology & TheNonprofit

10. Technology has always been a
force in the nonprofit world, but
not entirely of our own free will
In this realm, our main motivator
has not been our constituents but
our boards and our funders.
1
0

11. 1
1
What’s the result?
• Focus on presenting ourselves as “businessy” while trying to keepthe
focus internally on our constituents.
• Forced use of technologies that are built for our funders & boards and
not for the good of our constituents or staff
• A perception that technology hurts our work, rather than helps it.

12. 1
2
How did we get here?

13. First Wave
10
Just try everything!

14. The First Wave ofnonprofit
technology brought us
conveniences like websites,
email, and spreadsheets.
The most cutting edge
nonprofits had a truly terrible
database created in Microsoft
Access by the ED’s 14 year old
niece.
Digitalization,not
transformation
11

15. Just about everything was tried, not
nothing worked particularly well.
Really that was fine, because technology
just couldn’t do much besides slightly
automate work we were alreadygoing.
12

16. Second Wave
16
The world got
technology legs and
started to focus on
efficiency and value (ie,
Data, data,data).
This is technology built
for our funders

17. Societal changes and the possibilities of
technology encourage nonprofits to focus
more and more on collecting and reporting
on outcomes data
17
The end result is that technology is focused
on supporting funders and not constituents
(though funders are ultimately trying to
support those constituents)

18. 15
Sound familiar?
Nonprofit technology is like cheap
and cheerful home renovation. It
makes us seem on top of things, but
it isn’t fixing the core issues ortaking
advantage of newer techniques.
“Sure we collect data, but
it’s not really clear why…”
“Our marketing team makes
beautiful graphs, but we
don’t use them to decisions”
“Our direct service staff see
technology as a burden,
not as an enabler”
“Getting my ED to approve
a $10/month online service
is like pulling teeth”

19. So, are we
up a creek?
16

20. We can do something – Times have Changed
Bunch of PhDs Microsoft Computer
Vision APIs
Very Expensive
High Maintenance
$1.50/1000 queries
Zero Maintenance
Nonprofit can’tafford Nonprofit canafford!
 5 years ago
Now 

21. You don’t write software anymore. You connect together bits and
pieces that much smarter people have written.
Your login window is from Microsoft, your database is stored
with Amazon, analytics comes from Qlik, and in-app search
is managed by Google.
Individual components are commodities
and you can build incredible things very
cheaply
Technology Today
18

22. Our mission is to
respond to disasters
with technology
interventions that help
those impacted findand
receive the services
they need to be safe,
healthy, and as
comfortable as possible.

23. But it’s not all fun and games.
20

24. Nonprofits don’t have access to capital.
Foundations aren’t ready to take a risk
on big projects managed by small
organizations.
Nonprofits can’t fundraise by selling
equity like startups can.
You need to be creative. Use off the shelf
tools or build simple and iterate (MVP)
21

25. It’s Expected
Just like every startup needs to
“disrupt” their market, nonprofits
are increasingly expected to use
technology to fundamentally change
their sector.
This is a market force on nonprofits
that can re-entrench the focus on
giving funders what they want.
22

26. Do we double down and continue to use market
forces to guide technology? Or do we step backand
use our understanding of society to create
technologies with the main goal of helping our
constituents.
26

27. Third Wave
27
Technology for
our constituents

28. 28
It’s our responsibility
• Technology, as promised to me in my childhood, has the potential to create
real, sustainable change through:
• Amplifying my own efforts
• Providing the disenfranchised with amouthpiece
• Creating radical transparency and forcing those in power tolisten
• The business world hasn’t stepped up to create technology tools to address
inequity and injustice.
• Nonprofits are intimately familiar with these issues. But as we standtoday
aren’t up to the challenge of building technology tools.

29. 29
If we want to take advantage of technology’s ability to create big,
radical change we need to change ourselves.
We need to adjust our attitudes towards technology,
how we approach technology projects, and the skills
that we staff.

30. 30
Attitudes
Technology isn’t an afterthought, it’s agenerator
of new programs andtechniques.

31. Approach
Technology isn’t effective as a top down paternalistic intervention. Just
consider two large databases of highly personal information
vs
31
Your approach must be
community integrated, iterative, and prepared to fail

32. Skills
Server & desktop administration is old news. Find a vendor who can do
it and refocus your staff. Make sure you have the skills on staff to:
Identify where
technology can help change
how your programs work
32
Be hands on helping
staff integrate technology
into their work
Have enough technical expertise
to define requirements &
manage vendors

33. 30
POLL QUESTION
• Which of these skills do you think you already have on staff?(multiple
choice or even better a scale for each of them)
Identifying how technology can help
Be hands on helping staff integrate technology into their work
•
•
• How enough technical expertise to define requirements andmanage
vendors?

34. What can you reasonably accomplish?

35. Tiny Nonprofit (<5 staff)
Goal
How to staff
Possible Projects
Use free and inexpensive off the shelf tools in
innovative ways.
Have a tech savvy program manager or operations
person.
• Create a self-service educational
portal for your users with
Eliademy or teachable
35
• Allow your constituents to sign
up for workshops using
Eventbrite and automatically
solicit feedback using Zapier and
SurveyMonkey.
• Create beautiful public-facing
dashboards in Microsoft PowerBI
pulling from spreadsheets you
manually maintain.

36. Small Nonprofit (<50 staff)
Goal
How to staff
Possible Projects
Create complex integrated data systems withonline
platforms
Part time or full time information manager. Expect to
use external consultants for big implementations and
adding features.
• Integrated web portal with self
service outcomes reporting
36
• Automated SMS alerting
integrated with case
management system to remind
constituents of appointments
and provide tips.
• Live public dashboarding
showing impact based on real
time data from your database

37. Medium & Larger Nonprofit (>50 staff)
Goal
How to staff
Possible Projects
Custom applications that completely change how you
pursue your mission
Full time information manager. You’ll also need either
an outsourced development firm or at least two full
time salaried developers.
• Custom applications integrating
artificial intelligence chat bots
with natural language processing
to allow constituents to ask
questions in their own words.
37
• Data integration from wearables
and other devices to combine
with existing outcomes data.
• Real time machine learning
integrated with your systems to
identify at-risk constituents
before something happens

38. Where to Start?
35
• Making technology a core competency requires
a cultural shift
• Focus on winning hearts and minds over to the
promise of technology. You want quick wins.
• Borrow expertise from board members,
volunteers, or vendors until you’re able to hire
internally.

39. 39
One Final Reminder
Technology is a tool, not a goal. It can help your organizationcreate
impact far beyond it’s ability without technology.
If you aren’t careful it can take over.
Whatever you do, keep technology grounded in your work, your
mission, your understanding of the problems in the world, and in your
community.

40. POLL QUESTION
•
40
Where are you now?
• I’m lost and confused
• I disagree
• I think I’m getting it, but I really don’t know how to create change
• I have some ideas about small things I can do now to start to change my
culture
• I’m ready to integrate technology into my organization’s mission

41. Thank You!
Sam Chenkin – sam@techimpact.org

42. Questions

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