By Julie Chapman, President, NPower Greater DC Region

Increasingly, nonprofits are looking at outsourcing part if not all of their IT support. How do you know if this is the right choice for your organization? What factors should you consider? How should you go about finding and selecting a provider? Here are some thoughts from the team at NPower DC where we provide hands on tech support to small and large nonprofits across our region in a variety of mission areas.

There are two compelling reasons to consider outsourcing.

The first is that your staff time is your organization's most valuable resource and may be better spent focusing on your mission rather than on wrangling computers.

The second is that that the staff at an outsourced IT organization may have more breadth and depth of technology than your staff. They typically have access to more training than internal staff and have experience in a wide variety of different environments. They can be more knowledgeable about what technology offerings are available and what would be the best fit for an organizations like yours.

In choosing a tech provider, you should look for an organization that treats you as a partner and not just as a meal ticket. If you are a small organization, look for a group that has experience in working with organizations like yours and is sensitive to your budget considerations. A 1- or 2-person shop may be a great fit for you. If your organization is larger or you have particularly sophisticated needs, then consider a bigger shop with more depth of experience. In either case, make sure that you check out references. The best way to find the right partner is through word of mouth.

Larger nonprofits with in-house help desks may want to look at a co-managed solution with an outsourced vendor. This is increasingly popular and can provide the best of both worlds: you can still have an internal support person to help end users, but larger issues of infrastructure maintenance and even technology strategy can be handled by the vendor.

We encourage you to talk with other nonprofits in your community and to hear what they are doing to meet their tech support needs. There are a lot of options out there and many competant and trustworthy vendors who can help you make the best of technology. You can find many of them here as part of the NTEN community.

Julie Chapman brings more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry plus a deep commitment to community involvement. She joined NPower Greater DC Region as Interim Executive Director in the fall of 2002 and was hired permanently in early 2003.