Service
IT and technology consulting
Most organizations do not have a technology problem. They have six tools that do not talk to each other and nobody with time to sort it out.
The usual state of things
A donor system chosen years ago for reasons nobody remembers. Email running through a personal account. A domain registered to a former volunteer. Two spreadsheets that duplicate the database, maintained because the database is awkward. Every one of those is normal, and together they cost more staff time than any of them individually appears to.
The work here is mostly deciding what to consolidate and what to leave alone. Replacing a functioning system because a newer one exists is rarely worth the disruption. The wins are usually smaller and duller: recovering control of a domain, moving email onto something the organization owns, connecting two tools already paid for.
Access and ownership, before anything else
The first question in any engagement is who controls what. Who can move the domain, who can reset the hosting password, whose credit card renews the subscriptions, and what happens if that person becomes unreachable.
Organizations run by volunteers and boards turn over their people regularly, and access that was never written down disappears with them. Documenting it is unglamorous and it prevents the single most disruptive failure a small organization hits: a website or email that cannot be recovered because the only person who could is gone.
Common questions
What is the 33% rule for nonprofits?
It refers to a public support threshold in United States tax rules, broadly that a public charity should draw about a third of its support from the general public rather than a handful of sources. It is an accounting and legal matter rather than a technical one, but it shapes technology decisions: an organization that has to demonstrate broad small-donor support needs systems that record and report those gifts properly. Confirm the specifics with your accountant.
What is the 80/20 rule for nonprofits?
The general observation that a large share of funding tends to come from a small share of donors. Its practical consequence for systems is that donor records matter more than most small organizations treat them as mattering. Losing the history behind a major relationship during a software migration is expensive in a way that is hard to see until a renewal conversation goes badly.
What are the 7 types of digital marketing?
Lists vary, but they usually cover search, paid search, social, email, content, affiliate and mobile. For most small organizations the list is a distraction. Email and search carry nearly all the value, and the remaining categories consume time out of proportion to what they return.
Consulting across the area
Sort out what you already have
Often the most useful first step is an inventory: what the organization pays for, who controls it, and what is safe to switch off.