How Managed IT Services Can Scale Your Nonprofit’s Operations Without Raising Costs
Nonprofit organizations face a complex scenario. On the one hand, they must contend with limited resources. On the other hand, if they want to achieve their mission and adequately address the social issues in their community, they also need to build scalable operations, which requires spending money.
In our contemporary digital business environment, successfully scaling nonprofit operations will require sourcing the right technology to help you use resources wisely and strengthen your ability to adapt to changing needs. However, that can be daunting!
Rather than trying to figure out how to find the appropriate tools on their own, organizations can partner with an external provider. These experts can guide you through using your technology to drive growth without proportionally increasing costs. Below, you’ll learn more about how managed IT services can provide the necessary strategic IT management and support to handle the increasing demands of scaling your operations to make a greater impact.
The Challenges of Scaling Operations in Nonprofits
Building an effective IT infrastructure to support the growth and expansion of a nonprofit’s operations becomes difficult when that goal competes with its financial reality.
Thanks to a limited budget and resources, organizations often try to make do with what they have. So, they use outdated and unprotected IT systems that lead to inefficient performance, disrupt service delivery, and security vulnerabilities. In 2023, 27% of nonprofits said they had experienced a cyberattack.
Relying on fundraising and grants can also create financial instability, which puts pressure on CFOs to optimize resource allocation and manage financial risks – making it hard to invest in long-term scaling strategies for their technology because they first need to ensure they can maintain their current programs. As a result, they don’t end up prioritizing resources for capacity building and integrating new tools.
The Financial Benefits of Leveraging Managed IT Services for Scalability
Partnering with a managed IT services provider (MSP) is a smart strategy for budget-conscious nonprofits who want to get the full value of their IT investment and grow their operations successfully. The provider’s technical support will allow them to experience:
Financial stability over time
An MSP will create a robust and sustainable foundation that can support your nonprofit’s diverse activities as you work on expanding. They will maintain your overall network health to remain resilient while tackling any issues that pop up, helping you eliminate significant disruptions. When that stability is paired with their subscription service model, your organization can rely on predictable and optimized budgeting, as well as:
Increased ROI from reduced costs and improved efficiency
A well-managed and functional IT environment that keeps your data safe and available is vital to making your team’s job easier.
Your staff can be more productive while collaborating more easily, which helps you use your limited resources effectively and avoid wasting them on duplicating or unnecessary efforts. At the same time, you’ll demonstrate to your team that you are investing in them by providing them with user-friendly and efficient tools. In turn, they will feel valuable and supported, increasing their job satisfaction and, ideally, your retention rates.
In the short term, you’ll also save money working with an MSP because they will streamline infrastructure expenses; in the long term, you’ll prevent more considerable costs from expensive system failures or cyberattacks. (The global average cost of a cyber attack in 2023 was 4.45 million!)
More effective decisions about resource allocation
When you partner with an MSP, they can help you with your IT infrastructure’s strategic vision. They will build you a technology roadmap that serves as a plan for how you can construct your infrastructure to accommodate growth. This will help you prioritize more targeted investments that efficiently use your resources.
The Role Managed IT Services Plays in Scaling Operations
Practically, your MSP can support various aspects of scaling your IT operations at your nonprofit, such as:
1) Assessing your organization’s scalability needs and goals
To move forward with your technology, you must first determine your organization’s starting point. An MSP can expertly analyze your current infrastructure and business processes, identify your usage and existing bottlenecks, and then use that information to strategically plan the necessary upgrades and investments in hardware and software. This will likely include conducting a cybersecurity assessment because scalability will only be possible if your infrastructure can avoid downtime impacting your ability to support your community.
2) Implementing scalable IT solutions
Procuring technology requires deep expertise and experience to build the right mix of tools for scaling your operations. An MSP can facilitate the process of implementing high-quality, optimized, and cost-effective IT solutions. They will ensure your network can continually handle increased traffic and changing connectivity requirements, and your hardware can reliably operate under varying loads and performance demands.
Additionally, if you want to execute an affordable scalability strategy, cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) technologies will play a central role. This technology offers easy access to expandable storage and application resources, and you only pay for what you use.
Your MSP can help you source the right vendors, manage your subscriptions, configure the environment to your distinct workflow, support any necessary data migration, and oversee the environment once deployed. They can also implement a strong cybersecurity framework that keeps your hardware, software, and other infrastructure protected and compliant.
3) Ensuring seamless integration with existing systems
Building a scalable IT infrastructure requires blending new technological innovations with the existing tools in your workplace. If done incorrectly, this can lead to operational inefficiency or data inconsistencies and, even more concerning, increased weaknesses and disruptions to your operations.
An MSP guides you through this process! For example, your organization may want to leverage a relatively new technology like Microsoft Copilot. The provider’s experts can ensure that you adequately set up your current IT ecosystem with robust access control and other strong governance policies to minimize data oversharing or other risks. Or your nonprofit may want to implement a new cloud-based donor management system with your existing CRM and accounting software. The MSP will configure your systems to communicate information seamlessly, preventing data loss and helping staff continue working uninterrupted.
4) Providing ongoing support and training
An MSP can provide staff training and ongoing support to educate your staff on organizational technology so they can proficiently use it to carry out their work tasks. As a result, your nonprofit can improve adoption rates while helping your team deliver consistent performance, maximizing your IT investments and ensuring that your attempts at scaling operations will be sustainable.
Scale your operations with designDATA
Unfortunately, when your tech works against you instead of with you, it’s hard to engage in the more critical work necessary to serve your community – let alone stick to your budget or even grow. Among your options for nonprofit growth strategies, partnering with an MSP is a powerful option for expanding your organization by enhancing your technology capabilities.
At designDATA, we have extensive experience in IT support for nonprofits. Our specialists are here to provide the tailored, managed IT services you need to scale your impact effectively.
Let’s connect to discuss how we can work together to maximize your IT investments.