Small Nonprofit Technology Assessment
Audit your existing tools and decide which technology changes actually improve your work.
1. Inventory current workflows
List the systems used for donor records, grants, finance, programs, files, meetings, and communications.
2. Rate workflow friction
Identify duplicate entry, manual handoffs, missing access, outages, and where staff use unofficial workarounds.
3. Review security and ownership
Check multi-factor authentication, account ownership, least-privilege access, backups, privacy, and offboarding.
4. Assess cost and capacity
Total monthly and annual costs, who administers each system, and how staff are trained.
5. Prioritize a 90-day improvement
Pick one high-value fix with owner, budget, adoption measure, and review date.
Illustrative completed example
Example: A five-person organization prioritizes shared access and consistent file naming before purchasing a new customer relationship system.
Adapt this framework to your organization’s size, governance requirements, and local context. Review consequential decisions with your team.
Related practical resources
Explore another framework, adapt the example, and use AskTQ to turn your next decision into usable work.