David Geilhufe, Philanthropy Program Manager, NetSuite
In this age of cloud computing, sophisticated, affordable (often free!) technology and increased measurement and reporting expectations, every nonprofit should ask themselves, “Who in my organization is responsible for successfully deploying technology in support of our mission?”
They should then immediately follow that question with: “Should they be a qualified professional?”
For the last decade or so, I would get together with my colleagues at the Nonprofit Technology Conference or other venues and, usually over a beer, bemoan the fact that the nonprofit sector has never really embraced the concept of a Chief Information Officer (CIO). What we were really bemoaning is that there are few roles in the sector whose responsibility, and professional expertise, is bridging mission and technology.
“But wait,” you ask “aren’t accidental techies the celebrated yeomen of bridging mission and technology?” Too often, amateur accidental techies -- nonprofit staffers who have taught themselves technology skills -- find themselves in over their heads trying to develop databases, but forgetting to do business process modeling or change management. They implement content management systems without getting users and executive sponsors on board. They configure the accounting software without understanding the core reporting needs of key constituencies like the board, funders and program managers.
Sure, the extraordinary ones don’t make these mistakes, but they are the exception, not the rule. Exceptions to the rule shouldn’t be the foundation of a sector-wide technology staffing strategy.
Some executive directors thought these accidental techies just couldn’t deliver (they were often right) and hired technical consultants who talked in jargon and sat in dark rooms by the light of a computer monitor. The consultants couldn’t deliver for a different reason: they built screens by asking, “What fields do you want?”; they deployed software to users by emailing a URL and thinking they were done; they told EDs that since they didn’t give them a mock-up of the report before hand, the ED can’t get the data out in the format desired.
Every once in awhile, serendipity struck. An accidental techie would describe the business process in a story, identify the curmudgeon in finance who was going to derail the project, or identify the reports that needed to flow throughout the organization. They didn’t know they were doing business process modeling, change management, or data design and didn’t understand how those things were linked to successful technology projects, but they worked with a consultant who could craft a solution in partnership with them.
Serendipity is also a poor sector-wide technology staffing strategy.
At NetSuite.org, we make product donations of fairly complex accounting, financial, ERP, and fundraising software. One of the conditions for receiving a grant is that the nonprofit has the technology capacity to implement the software. Grantees with capacity fall into four buckets: they have technology professionals on staff, they have extraordinary accidental techies with a lot of free time on staff, they have accidental techies on staff and pair them with consultants, or they have accidental techies on staff and pair them qualified volunteers.
These are the four faces on technology implementation in our sector and over the past 200 or so implementations at NetSuite.org, we’ve seen clear differences in success rates which are consistent with my 15 years of anecdotal experience in the sector.
- Full-time professional technology staff (highest success rate)
- Accidental techies + paid consultants
- Accidental techies + qualified volunteers
- Accidental techies (lowest success rate)
The bottom line here is no, your techies shouldn’t be accidental. Your organization might not be able to afford full time technology staff, but that just means you find a way to professionalize your project as much as possible with a paid consultant or qualified volunteer.
Born and raised in Silicon Valley, David has been in and out of technology and the private sector throughout his career. He has founded non-profits and for-profits, developed venture-funded enterprise software systems, and mentored at-risk youth into high-tech employment. He's always looking to create and execute a big idea that will do a little good for the world.