A Tech Team - Who Needs It?
Your non-profit does. Every non-profit does. But maybe not right away.
It can be a significant leap for a small or medium-sized non-profit to have a tech team. But it is becoming ever more imperative. Why? Because we are leaving impact on the table.
You’ve heard of leaving money on the table? It’s the concept of basically when there is free money and you don’t take it. Like not putting in enough money to max out your organization’s 403B match (hopefully they have one) or not taking your vacation days - the days you are PAID but are not working.
Leaving impact on the table is when we could be reaching more people, could be making more change, could be going deeper with our missions, but we can’t or don’t take advantage of the tools available to us to facilitate that impact. Specifically those tools being data & technology.
There are two huge barriers though to taking advantage of these tools:
TIME & MONEY
Sooner or later we are going to have to invest more time & money in data & technology in order to gain all of the benefits they can offer - in the non-profit space those benefits being the chance to make greater impact.
Where to invest this time & money? My suggestion: In the people.
We need more time & money invested in the people working at non-profits for their continuous learning (ie professional development) in data & technology. A tech team is awesome and great and will definitely help your organization to take advantage of data & technology for impact. But a tech team alone is not even enough. It is clear that all people working in non-profits - from the program teams to development teams to the C-suite to community organizers - increasingly need to use data & technology in their daily jobs.
So before you can invest in a tech team for real, you can start by investing money in and giving time to all your employees for continuous learning and professional development in data & tech. They don’t need to become coders. They just need to be on this lifelong learning-journey to use the tools available to them to make the most impact in the world.
This week we had the first offering of the Mission-Driven Data & Tech Without a Tech Team workshop, and it was so cool! There is no doubt that there is a need to work together to support non-profits that do not (yet) have tech teams so that everyone feels supported in their learning journeys with data & tech. I hope you’ll be able to join the next one! (check out our website to register for upcoming workshops).
Some other cool ways I’d love to connect with you all (and connect you all with each other!):
Make Tech Mindful For You: Weekly gatherings where we ground ourselves with deep breathing, poetry, art, meditation, mindfulness, and more to help us be ever-more present with our work and make more impact in the world.
Shut Down Your Computer Challenge: Help your computer and your mind stay sane by committing to managing our digital experiences (email, browser tabs, to-do lists, passwords, etc) in more mindful and intentional ways.
COMING SOON! The LEARN, USE, LOVE full-day retreat. We are planning a full-day retreat in the fall at a beautiful location where we can come together to LEARN mindsets and mindfulness, practice USING our technology mindfully together, and cultivate LOVE for our work and each other. Want to learn more? Email us at emily (@) maketechworkforyou.com. (you know not to put your email address on a website, right? :)
