Four Ways That Associations and Nonprofits Can Achieve Operational Sustainability with Managed IT Services
If associations and nonprofits want to support their communities long-term, they need financial and economic stability. Unfortunately, that is difficult to achieve in an unpredictable funding environment where almost 47% of nonprofits saw rising operating expenses in 2023.
However, with a resilient foundation capable of supporting their mission-driven activities and adapting to change, organizations can withstand economic uncertainty and remain effective.
A robust IT infrastructure will play a vital role in ensuring that this foundation supports operational sustainability: when employees have appropriate and reliable technology, they can communicate and collaborate smoothly and therefore use an organization’s resources efficiently to achieve its goals and drive long-term success.
Some organizations may struggle to create that necessary work environment in-house. In that case, hiring a provider specializing in managed IT services for nonprofits or associations will be immensely valuable.
Keep reading to learn four strategies for leveraging managed IT services to benefit your organization financially over time and improve your efficiency to make an even more meaningful difference.
The Struggles Associations and Nonprofits Face in Ensuring Their Long-term Viability
Nonprofits and associations face various unique obstacles to operational sustainability, such as:
Funding variability
They typically rely on fluctuating funding sources, whether that’s donors and grants or membership fees and event revenues, which can be unpredictable and inconsistent. In 2022, charitable giving dropped by 10.5%, although experts predict that in 2024, it will grow by 4.2%, and another 3.9% in 2025. This variability makes it challenging to operate steadily and plan long-term initiatives.
Staff turnover
Organizations also deal with staff turnover and executive departures that may disrupt their capacity-building attempts and hinder their ability to carry forward institutional knowledge and strategic direction.
Ineffective technology
As tools advance and our digital workplaces rapidly evolve, organizations who want to meet the expectations of their community and stakeholders need to adapt and invest in the most effective IT infrastructure. Yet their limited funds often prevent them from upgrading outdated systems and successfully migrating their data and processes to more effective tools. As a result, these organizations struggle to keep up or avoid disruptions to their performance, whether it’s from a software crash, system failure or cyberattack.
That inefficiency ends up massively impacting their financial health. The organization wastes time, money, and staff energy dealing with issues, diverting resources away from impactful programs and affecting their operational viability. They also will likely drive up costs by spending more due to delays or fixing a mistake, while simultaneously reducing their potential revenue if the ineffectiveness deters people from supporting them financially.
How Managed IT Services Can Contribute to Longterm Organizational Sustainability
Leveraging professional IT expertise can contribute significantly to your organizational longevity. An MSP typically provides a wide range of services, from secure data storage and network management to cloud-based software deployment and continuous monitoring. Let’s discuss a few ways that partnering with a managed IT services provider can be a strategic move for your nonprofit or association’s financial future:
1) Improving cost efficiency and savings in the short term
When working with an MSP, you will experience an initial cost reduction by avoiding spending large sums on certain IT infrastructure components, as most MSPs will provide you with access to their own data centers and other virtualized resources. These providers also typically have strong vendor relationships, meaning that they can negotiate more favorable rates to deliver more cost-effective IT solutions. Their subscription-based pricing model also means that you can rely on predictable IT budgeting with no hidden surprises.
All of this lets you redirect your funds to core mission activities and reduce financial uncertainty as you work on preserving the durability of your operations.
2) Enhancing productivity and performance
A managed IT services provider is a key partner in boosting your productivity. For example, they will help you implement modern solutions like cloud software and artificial intelligence to automate the more routine tasks and processes that take away resources from your vital programs. Importantly, a provider’s experts have the deep knowledge to smoothly integrate these tools into your existing infrastructure and support your team in using newer technologies like AI safely.
Additionally, when a provider focuses on following the ITIL framework for incident management, you will benefit from a standardized approach that leverages best practices to solve technical issues faster and minimize disruptions to your workflow. Your provider should also be committed to implementing permanent solutions to prevent recurring issues that waste your time repeatedly. This improved efficiency lets organizations optimize their resources and maximize output without increasing operational costs, all of which contribute to that critical organizational sustainability.
3) Reducing risks and maintaining compliance
A managed IT service provider will offer comprehensive cybersecurity solutions to protect you against rising cyber threats and reduce your risk of experiencing a data breach.
They will conduct security assessments to help you identify the potential vulnerabilities compromising your organizational sustainability and then help you build a security roadmap to address these issues. On an ongoing basis, the provider monitors your systems 24/7 to manage threats as they happen, as well as develops strong incident response and disaster recovery plans to deal with any significant problems when they pop up. Finally, they will pair implementing advanced tools with security awareness training so your employees can act as a human firewall to actively mitigate threats.
All of this can help you with regulatory compliance, as data privacy is typically central to industry regulations. Some MSPS will even help you perform an audit or prepare for an audit as well.
4) Providing support with strategic planning
In addition to the short-term cost savings discussed above, your organization will also optimize its funds long-term when your managed IT services provider builds you a high-performing, future-proofed, secure technological ecosystem.
Their proactive approach and consistent oversight will minimize any downtime and the financial ramifications from the resulting lost productivity. They will also reduce the need to spend heavily on reactive problem-solving, emergency repairs, or disaster recovery, as their experts will tackle issues before they escalate.
Your provider will typically conduct a strategic technology assessment to ensure that you invest only in technology that aligns with your organizational goals. In this process, they prioritize modern tools capable of supporting your needs as they evolve—all to prevent you from dealing with costly overhauls in the case of technical obsolescence and drive you forward with fewer resources and more sustained operational efficiency.
Implement sustainable practices with designDATA
Today, nonprofits and associations operate in a drastically different economic and social context than even just a few years ago. To advance their mission and sustain their operations, they need a sustainable governance model and the capacity to remain resilient as they face change. Their technology infrastructure will be instrumental in achieving that goal.
When your organization partners with designDATA for our managed IT services, our experts will take actionable steps to set you up for success and help your organization build an IT infrastructure that can weather any storms it might encounter.
Let’s connect to discuss how designDATA can help you use your technology to achieve long-term organizational sustainability.
