Thoughts

Technology Best Practices

About a year into the pandemic I was asked to do a presentation for the Greater New Orleans Foundation on best practices for technology during a pandemic. This is a comprehensive list of Techcafeteria’s best pieces of advice, and they hold up perfectly well-post pandemic.

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The Fully-Informed Approach to Calculating Return on Investment (ROI)

This presentation for the 2017 Nonprofit Technology Conference combines a great topic with striking visuals. Edima Elinewinga, who was the Executive Director of IT at the UN Foundation at the time, assisted with the content and presented with me. Much like the related article, this is solid advice about how to measure ROI and transform your org into one that can make a meaningful difference with technology.

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Conducting System and Service Selections

Here’s another kitchen sink slideshow telling you everything you need to know from how to identify the candidates to signing the contract. With lots of examples, a key takeaway is in how an RFP for a system (such as a CRM or productivity suite) is a very different thing from an RFP for a service (such as a Salesforce consultant).

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Developing a Strategic Technology Plan

Some years ago, I contributed a chapter to the book “Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission” on “IT Planning and Prioritizing”. This slideshow, derived from that chapter, discusses how to create strategic plans – organizational and technology-specific, and discusses some of the tools and frameworks that inform those plans.

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What Every Executive Needs to Know About Information Technology Security

This deck offers a simple catalogue of the types of threats  that typical nonprofits might encounter and the standard suite of countermeasures that should be in place for protection. Originally written in the 2010’s (but updated in 2023), this type of case shouldn’t have to be made anymore but, sadly, it still does.

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Leading in Uncertain Times

Nonprofits operate on tight margins and rely primarily on goodwill and charity for our funding sources. Disasters, economic downturns, and changes in the political climate are just some of the threats that can turn us from functional to faltering. This advice, from an NTEN presentation, can help you prepare and contend with unexpected issues.

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Negotiating Software and Services Contracts

Once you’ve identified a major system or service purchase, the final step before diving into the project is to negotiate the contract. An attorney should be engaged, but your General Counsel might not have direct experience with technical contracts. I’ve been negotiating them for decades, and learned from many smart lawyers that I’ve worked with. These are my best tips.

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