The gradual decline of the generic phish

The most significant innovation in phishing simulation is the move toward hyper-personalization. Traditional one-size-fits-all campaigns, such as a generic “Your package is delayed” email, often fail to challenge savvy employees and produce misleadingly low click rates. According to Gartner, nearly 29% of cybersecurity leaders reported that their organizations have faced GenAI-driven attacks in the past year, with GenAI used across a broad range of use cases, including phishing, deepfakes, and social engineering. The simulations of today must leverage new-age tactics, such as Business Email Compromise (BEC). These tactics leverage no malicious links at all, but rather a request for a conversation or a change in banking details. According to the FBI IC3 2023 Report, BEC remains one of the most financially devastating forms of cybercrime, with losses exceeding $2.9 billion, underscoring that the human element is the ultimate exploit.

By replicating the exact essence and cadence of corporate communications, employees can be pushed to look for the subtle technical red flags rather than obvious stylistic ones.

To simulate this effectively, internal security teams should analyze the specific software and communication styles used within their own organization. If an organization uses Slack for 90% of its internal chatter, an email-based “Internal Memo” will look suspicious from the start. On the contrary, a simulated direct message on a collaboration platform or a notification from a specific SaaS tool like Jira or Workday is far more likely to test the user’s actual judgment. By replicating the exact essence and cadence of corporate communications, employees can be pushed to look for the subtle technical red flags rather than obvious stylistic ones.

Technical sophistication and MFA bypass

We are gradually going to an era where a simple message such as “don’t enter your password” warning is insufficient. Threat actors are increasingly using Adversary-in-the-Middle (AiTM) techniques to bypass Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). In such cases, the victim is directed to a certain proxy server that mimics a real login page. After the victim enters their credentials and enables MFA, the attacker captures the session cookie, granting them full access without ever needing the password again. Microsoft’s Security Blog highlights how these session-theft attacks are becoming a standard in the criminal toolkit.

Innovating simulations in organizations means moving toward “session hijacking” simulations. Instead of a static page that tells the user they failed, the simulation should demonstrate the danger of “proxy phishing.” This involves using tools that can simulate the redirection of a user through a middleman server. When employees see that their MFA code, something they previously thought was an “invincibility cloak,” can be intercepted, the educational impact is significantly higher. This shift in training aligns with MITRE ATT&CK Technique T1566, which categorizes the various ways attackers subvert traditional defenses.

Also read: Meet rising compliance requirements with smarter workflows

The psychology of the ‘teachable moment’

The goal of a simulation is not to catch people; it is to teach them. The “teachable moment” occurs within seconds of a user failing a simulation. If a user clicks and is met with a 30-minute mandatory training video, they will feel punished and likely grow resentful of the security team. Innovation in this space involves Just-in-Time micro-learning. A successful landing page after a click can be visually engaging and immediately highlight the missed cues in the specific email they just interacted with.

The “teachable moment” occurs within seconds of a user failing a simulation.

Furthermore, the NIST PhishScale provides a framework for security leaders and teams to understand why certain emails are more effective than others. It analyzes the cue visibility and the human context of a phish. For example, an email sent during a busy period, such as year-end accounting, is naturally more difficult to handle than one sent during a quiet summer week. By using the PhishScale, innovators can ensure they aren’t just making hard phishes, but relatively fair ones that provide measurable data on employee resilience under different levels of cognitive load.

Accessibility for all: the nonprofit strategy

It goes without saying that nonprofits often operate under very tight constraints, such as limited budgets and skeleton IT teams, making them a prime target for threat actors who know that their defenses are not that robust. However, the reality doesn’t have to be that expensive with modern phishing simulation tools and techniques. They can innovate using powerful open-source tools like Gophish, which is an industry-standard toolkit for managing phishing campaigns for free. As outlined in the Gophish User Guide, the platform allows organizations to clone their own login pages and track results without a recurring subscription fee. 

For a low-friction approach, nonprofits can also utilize the starter or free tiers of commercial platforms. For example, certain organizations offer a free phishing simulation starter tool that includes incident insights. Additionally, for the educational component, the SANS OUCH! Newsletter provides high-quality, free security awareness materials that can be linked directly to the failure pages of a Gophish campaign. This allows a nonprofit to run a professional-grade simulation program with limited or even zero software spend, focusing its limited resources on remediating the vulnerabilities identified during the tests.

From click-rates to a reporting culture

The final frontier of innovation in phishing simulation is the metric of success. For too long, the industry has obsessed over the click rate. However, a low click rate might simply mean the simulation was too easy. The more valuable metric is the reporting rate. A high reporting rate indicates that with humans in the loop, they can actively contribute to the company’s threat intelligence. 

A high reporting rate indicates a vigilant human team that actively contributes to the company’s threat intelligence. When an employee clicks the ‘Report Phishing’ button, they are not just protecting themselves; they are alerting the SOC to a potential campaign.

When an employee clicks the ‘Report Phishing’ button, they are not just protecting themselves; they are alerting the SOC to a potential campaign.

Building this culture requires positive reinforcement. According to a benchmark report, it is observed that organizations that gamify the reporting process, including regular simulation, training, and reporting mechanisms, see a drastic reduction in their phish-prone percentages. Instead of shaming those who fail, companies that thrive tend to celebrate their top reporters. This shifts the perception of the security team from simply being digital police to partners in defense. Ultimately, a realistic simulation program should strive to turn every employee into a sensor, creating a mesh network of human intelligence that is far more difficult for an attacker to penetrate than any single technical control.

The post Innovative phishing simulations to build cyber-resilience appeared first on NTEN.

Last summer, I had the privilege of completing a student capstone paper, Contemporary Practices in Nonprofit Technology Use and Management: An Exploratory Data Analysis, that was a collaborative effort between NTEN and our University of Minnesota team, composed of Nick Bovee-Gazett and me. Our goal was to conduct an exploratory analysis of NTEN’s Tech Accelerate dataset. Our work included quantitative analysis, and a structured literature review to contextualize findings within broader nonprofit sector trends.

What the data confirms: Size, age, and staffing matter

Our analysis examined a dataset of Tech Accelerate assessments from almost 1,300 organizations spanning the past eight years. We found clear, consistent patterns:

• Smaller organizations (by staff and budget) report higher technology risk across all categories. Micro-sized nonprofits with fewer than one full-time employee trigger risk flags on 65% of survey answers, compared to just 34% among organizations with 150+ staff.
• Newer organizations face greater digital vulnerability. Nonprofits founded in the 2010s and 2020s show significantly higher risk levels than those established in earlier decades.
• Dedicated technology staff make a difference. While disparities were evident across multiple dimensions—size, budget, age—the number of technology staff employed by an organization appeared to have the biggest impact. Organizations with no tech staff averaged nearly 60% risk flags, while the rate among organizations with more than ten tech staff dropped to 28%. Investment in people—not just tools—appears to be the most effective lever for digital readiness.

These findings may sound familiar, but the granularity of the Tech Accelerate data brings some disparities lurking underneath into sharper focus. Fifteen individual assessment questions show risk flag rate differences of 50 percentage points or more between the smallest and largest organizations. These gaps aren’t just statistical—they’re indicators of structural deficiencies that shape how nonprofit staff perceive and self-report on their digital readiness.

Investment in people—not just tools—appears to be the most effective lever for digital readiness.

Repeat engagement appears to drive improvement

Our most encouraging finding was that organizations conducting multiple Tech Accelerate assessments over time tend to show improving scores. Among 181 organizations with repeat assessments, 61% reduced their overall risk flag rate, with average risk levels falling from 44.2% to 40.8%. The share of organizations in the lowest-risk quartile increased by 50%, suggesting that repeated engagement may support real progress.

This trend raises important questions: Are these improvements actually a reflection of substantive organizational change, and if so, what role does Tech Accelerate play in driving that change? While the data cannot establish causality, it points to the potential of self-assessment as both a diagnostic and developmental tool. Further research is needed to explore whether score improvements correlate with real-world outcomes and how assessment use or cohort participation contributes to that journey.

Cohort participation: A promising advantage

Since 2024, organizations participating in NTEN’s Nonprofit Tech Readiness cohorts have reported lower average risk levels than non-group peers. While pre-2024 data showed similar distributions, cohort scores have since diverged in a positive direction. This suggests that structured engagement and support through cohort programs may yield cumulative benefits, though more research is needed to confirm the link between participation and lasting organizational change.

Beyond the numbers: Technology adoption is not just technical

The evidence gathered in this analysis reinforces a critical lesson: technology adoption in the nonprofit sector cannot be treated as a purely technical exercise. Progress requires:

• Cultural change
• Leadership commitment
• Equitable governance
• Intentional alignment of digital tools with mission outcomes

Emerging technologies, especially AI, bring both transformative potential and new risks. The urgent need for clear policies, robust data hygiene, bias audits, and cross-functional governance structures is more apparent than ever. The sector stands at a critical juncture: opportunities for impact are expanding, but so too are the risks of exclusion, inequity, and strategic drift.

Toward integrated, intentional strategies

Meeting modern challenges requires strategies that weave technology into every layer of organizational planning and practice—strategies grounded in equity, informed by data, guided by community voices, and supported by sustained investment in people and systems. The path forward is not about adopting the newest tools for their own sake, but about building the technical, ethical, and organizational capacity to ensure that technology serves as a true enabler of mission and social good.

Organizations conducting multiple Tech Accelerate assessments over time tend to show improving scores.

The challenges are real, but so are the opportunities. By embracing integrated approaches, investing in people, and centering equity and mission, nonprofits can harness technology to lead.

The post Technology adoption in nonprofits: An analysis of NTEN’s Tech Accelerate data appeared first on NTEN.

These changes to website traffic and search are happening right now to nonprofits everywhere. We’re seeing this pattern across organizations, from small local charities to major international NGOs.

The good news is that there are concrete steps your team can take to adapt to keep your website traffic up. This guide covers what’s happening to nonprofit search traffic, how to make your content AI-readable through structured data, the types of search terms that still drive visitors to your site, and how to measure success.

What exactly is happening to nonprofit website traffic?

Google’s AI Overviews now appear above traditional search results, answering questions without requiring clicks. When someone searches “how to help homeless veterans,” Google’s AI pulls information from your website but displays it directly in search results. The person gets their answer, but you lose a potential volunteer, donor, or advocate.

This creates zero-click conversions where users get answers without visiting your site. AI Overviews could reduce organic traffic by 18-64% for websites with informational content. That’s exactly the type of educational content nonprofits create.

What’s reassuring is that donation conversions seem to be holding steady as traffic being lost comes primarily from informational queries that don’t typically convert to donations immediately anyway.

The timing couldn’t be worse. Many organizations are already stretching limited budgets while depending heavily on organic search for awareness and donor acquisition. Unlike businesses that can quickly pivot marketing spend, nonprofits often lack the resources for rapid digital strategy changes.

What’s reassuring is that donation conversions seem to be holding steady, as traffic being lost comes primarily from informational queries that don’t typically convert to donations immediately anyway. The real challenge lies in losing that crucial top-of-funnel awareness that eventually leads to engagement.

Also read: Seven ways to build an equitable website

How do you make your nonprofit’s content AI-readable?

Think of structured data as creating a “nutrition label” for your content that AI can easily read. 

This structured data, also called “schema markup”, is a short snippet of code that labels key information on your web pages, like your mission, donation options, or upcoming events. It helps search engines and AI tools interpret and surface your content more accurately, and can be added manually, through a CMS plugin, or with tools like Google’s Markup Helper.

This is code you add behind the scenes that doesn’t change how your site looks to visitors, but dramatically improves how AI understands your content.

Think of structured data as creating a “nutrition label” for your content that AI can easily read. 

This approach includes Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and it’s different from traditional SEO. Instead of optimizing for human searchers clicking through to your site, you’re optimizing for AI systems that need to understand and reference your content in their responses.

Google’s algorithms now prioritize content with clear, structured information. When AI systems can quickly identify your organization’s mission, contact information, and donation opportunities, they’re more likely to reference your content in responses.

Essential schema types for nonprofits

Organization schema helps search engines display your contact information, mission, and credibility indicators. This markup tells AI systems exactly what your organization does and how people can support your work.

DonateAction schema makes your fundraising pages more visible to AI systems:

• Add to donation landing pages and fundraising campaign pages
• Include donation amount options and currency
• Specify recipient organization details
• Link to your secure donation processing page

Event schema helps your fundraising events and program activities appear in AI-generated event listings:

• Mark up fundraising galas, volunteer training sessions, and awareness events
• Include date, time, location, and registration details
• Add performer or speaker information when relevant
• Specify ticket prices and availability

FAQPage schema structures your common questions about your cause:

• Use for “How can I help?” sections on your website
• Include donation process explanations
• Cover volunteer opportunity questions
• Address common misconceptions about your cause

Implementation approaches

Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper provides a free, user-friendly way to add this markup to your pages. The tool walks you through tagging different elements on your pages without requiring extensive coding knowledge.

WordPress users can leverage several nonprofit-focused plugins that automatically generate appropriate schema markup. These plugins handle the technical implementation while you focus on content creation.

Organization schema helps search engines display your contact information, mission, and credibility indicators. This markup tells AI systems exactly what your organization does and how people can support your work.

For complex websites or organizations with extensive technical needs, bringing in developer support makes sense. A developer can implement complex schema markup across your entire site so it integrates properly with your existing systems.

Testing your structured data

Google’s Rich Results Test tool shows you exactly how your markup appears to search engines. Paste your URL into the tool and it reveals which schema elements Google can detect and any errors that need fixing.

Common mistakes include marking up content that doesn’t actually exist on your page or using incorrect schema types. The testing tool catches these issues before they affect your search visibility.

Which search terms should nonprofits focus on now?

AI Overviews appear most often for broad, informational queries. Specific, actionable queries still drive clicks to your website. Understanding this shift helps you create content that keeps reaching your audience despite AI changes.

Query types that still work vs. those that don’t

Queries that still drive clicks:

• “How to donate to [specific cause]” – requires transaction completion
• “Volunteer opportunities in [location]” – needs real-time, local information
• “[Organization name] contact information” – branded searches
• “Register for [specific event]” – requires interactive registration

Queries now answered by AI (fewer clicks):

• “What is climate change?” – general educational content
• “Homelessness statistics 2024” – factual information AI can summarize
• “How to help endangered species” – broad advice AI can compile
• “Nonprofit fundraising best practices” – general guidance

Content strategy shifts

Focus on “how to take action” rather than “what is this issue.” Instead of writing “What is food insecurity,” create content like “How to volunteer at your local food bank this weekend.” The difference matters because AI can easily summarize abstract concepts, but it can’t help someone actually show up to volunteer.

Create interactive content like donation calculators, volunteer matching tools, or impact assessments. These require user engagement that AI can’t replicate. When someone needs to input their zip code to find volunteer opportunities or calculate their potential tax deduction for a donation, they have to visit your site.

AI Overviews appear most often for broad, informational queries. Specific, actionable queries still drive clicks to your website. Understanding this shift helps you create content that keeps reaching your audience despite AI changes.

Build content around specific, local needs rather than general topics. For instance, “Animal rehoming shelter in Miami” performs better than “animal rehoming shelter information” because people searching for local help need current details that can change daily. Your Miami shelter content might include specific locations, supply drop-off times, and volunteer coordinator phone numbers.

Think about the questions people ask after they’ve learned the basics. AI handles “What is climate change?” well. But it struggles with “How do I start a climate action group at my workplace?” or “What supplies should I bring to the beach cleanup this Saturday?” These actionable queries still send people to your website.

Protecting your brand visibility

With organic clicks declining, Google Ad Grants become even more critical. Nonprofits get up to $10,000/month in free advertising to maintain visibility for branded searches and high-intent keywords.

Focus paid campaigns on branded terms and high-intent phrases like “donate to [your cause]” or “volunteer with [your organization].” These queries have clear commercial intent that AI responses can’t fulfill.

Google Search Console now shows which queries trigger AI Overviews for your content. Monitor this data to understand how AI affects your specific keywords and adjust your strategy accordingly.

How should nonprofits measure success when clicks disappear?

Traditional metrics like total organic traffic become less meaningful when AI answers questions without sending visitors to your site. New measurement approaches focus on engagement quality and brand visibility.

Set realistic expectations for both timeline and results. Schema markup might take 3-6 months to show measurable impact, and Google continues tweaking how AI Overviews work.

New metrics that matter

Track brand mentions in AI responses rather than just click volume. When AI references your organization’s expertise or data, that builds authority even without direct traffic.

Monitor conversion rates rather than total visitors. Higher-quality traffic that converts at better rates can be more valuable than previous traffic volumes with lower engagement.

Email sign-ups and newsletter subscriptions become leading indicators of engagement. These metrics show whether your content resonates with the people who do visit your site.

Tools for tracking AI impact

Setting up Google Search Console tracking:

• Performance report filtered for “AI Overview” impressions
• Query data showing which terms trigger AI responses
• Click-through rate changes for high-volume keywords
• Brand name search performance trends

Third-party tools for AI tracking:

• SEMrush: AI Overview keyword tracking (premium feature)
• Ahrefs: SERP feature monitoring for AI responses
• BrightEdge: AI impact measurement dashboard
• Custom Google Alerts for brand mentions in AI responses

Set up Google Alerts for your organization name and key terms to monitor when AI systems reference your content. This helps you understand your brand’s AI visibility beyond traditional click metrics.

Reporting to your board or leadership

Explain the shift from quantity to quality metrics. Board members need to understand that fewer, more engaged visitors can drive better outcomes than high-volume, low-intent traffic.

Create dashboards that show multiple traffic sources rather than focusing solely on organic search. Include email traffic, social media referrals, direct visits, and paid advertising performance. When board members see that email newsletter clicks are up 40% while organic search drops 25%, they understand you’re successfully diversifying your digital reach.

Set realistic expectations for both timeline and results. Schema markup might take 3-6 months to show measurable impact, and Google continues tweaking how AI Overviews work. Let leadership know that early wins might include better brand mention tracking rather than immediate traffic recovery.

Frame the challenge as an opportunity to strengthen owned media channels. While you can’t control Google’s algorithms, you can build email lists, social media followers, and direct relationships that don’t depend on search engines. Building these owned channels often creates more reliable long-term engagement than chasing organic search rankings.

Also read: Cybersecurity strategies for nonprofit websites

Ready to take action?

Google’s AI changes require immediate action, but you don’t need to overhaul everything at once. Start with these foundational steps that will protect your nonprofit’s search visibility as AI continues evolving.

Immediate next steps:

• Audit your current content’s AI Overview presence by searching for your organization’s key terms and noting when AI responses appear and whether they reference your content
• Implement basic organization schema markup on your homepage and about page to help AI systems understand your organization’s basic information and mission
• Begin tracking new metrics in Google Search Console by setting up custom reports that monitor impression data and AI Overview performance alongside traditional click metrics
• Train team members on structured data basics so your team can make informed decisions about content optimization and technical improvements
• Establish ongoing optimization processes rather than treating this as a one-time project, since AI search continues evolving and successful nonprofit website ranking requires consistent attention to these changes

Many nonprofits haven’t realized what’s happening to their search traffic yet. If you’re reading this you likely have a head start. Time to use it.

The post Keep your website traffic up in an AI-first search world appeared first on NTEN.

1. Build a centralized “compliance calendar”

Effective compliance starts with knowing exactly what’s due and when. Rather than relying on tribal knowledge or siloed spreadsheets, catalog every federal, state, and grant-specific filing requirement, everything from IRS Form 990 to quarterly foundation reports, and capture its due date, frequency, and required attachments. Feed that into a shared calendar or project-management tool that can:

• Trigger multiple reminders. Configure notifications at 90, 60, 30, and 7 days out so teams have time to gather data, draft narratives, and route drafts for review.
• Assign clear ownership. Tag each deadline with a primary and secondary owner so responsibilities are never ambiguous.
• Archive automatically. When a filing is marked complete, have your system save a timestamped PDF to a designated folder (e.g., “2025_Federal_Filings”) and notify key stakeholders.

Over time, this living calendar becomes a single source of truth, eliminating last-minute scrambles, over-reliance on individual memory, and the risk of missing a critical deadline.

2. Embed policy checks into everyday requests

Rather than catching policy violations in after-the-fact audits, shift controls to the moment of spend. Translate your finance and procurement policies into simple rules such as “any expense over $2,000 needs executive sign-off” or “office supplies must come from approved merchants” and integrate them into your purchase-request workflows. Many nonprofit spend management platforms now offer:

• Virtual cards programmable by merchant category. Limit usage to office supplies, travel, or vendor codes you predefine.
• Real-time transaction controls. Block or flag charges that fall outside policy thresholds.
• Automated approval routing. If a request exceeds policy, it automatically creates a ticket for the appropriate manager; if it’s within policy, it logs and processes without manual intervention.

By embedding these checks directly into the tools your team uses daily, you reduce the volume of post-transaction reviews, minimize human error, and ensure every dollar flows through pre-approved paths.

3. Centralize and tag all key documents

Audits and grant renewals often hinge on your ability to produce board minutes, contracts, and financial statements within minutes. To make document retrieval frictionless:

1. Adopt one repository. Whether you choose a cloud-based drive, an open-source document management system, or a repository within your CRM, funnel all compliance-related files into a single platform.

2. Standardize filenames. Use a clear pattern, such as YYYYMMDD_Type_FunderOrVendor_Name.pdf, so documents are sorted chronologically and by category.

3. Implement metadata tagging. Beyond just folders, apply tags like “audit,” “grant2025,” “boardMinutes,” or program-specific labels.

4. Don’t forget receipts. Use a mobile scanning app or your spend management platform’s receipt-capture feature to digitize every purchase, then upload and tag those images alongside corresponding invoices.

With these conventions, a quick full-text search or filter by tag will unearth exactly what you need, whether it’s “all 2024 audits” or “grant agreement for ParkAccess project,” in seconds, not days. The push for more frequent state-level oversight makes instant access even more critical.

4. Generate real-time reports with one click

Preparation for board presentations, annual reviews, or funder check-ins often drains dozens of hours as teams copy data from accounting systems into slides or spreadsheets. Instead:

• Connect systems via API or secure export. Link your general ledger, CRM, or spreadsheet tool to a reporting dashboard.
• Design reusable report templates. Create your standard views—budget vs. actual, cash-burn forecast, program spend breakdown, and save them as templates.
• Enable one-click refresh. At the start of each reporting cycle, hit “refresh” to pull in the latest data and export directly to PDF or presentation format.

This approach slashes report-prep time from days to minutes, eliminates version-control headaches, and ensures leadership always sees accurate, up-to-the-minute insights.

5. Seek out nonprofit discounts for your tools

Investing in compliance-automation software can feel costly, but many vendors offer generous programs for registered nonprofits. To maximize savings:

• Search proactively. Before purchasing, Google “[tool name] nonprofit discount” or check for an “Education” or “Social Impact” section on vendor sites.
• Track eligibility periods. Note when proof of status needs renewal and set calendar reminders to resubmit documentation, so you never lose discount eligibility.
• Leverage free tiers and grants. Some platforms provide free credits or grants (especially during open calls for social-impact tools) that you can apply toward consulting hours, extra seats, or advanced modules.

By systematically hunting down and documenting available discounts, you can give your finance team breathing room to reinvest savings into programs rather than overhead.

In conclusion

By cataloging every deadline in a shared compliance calendar, embedding policy checks at the point of spend, centralizing and tagging documents, automating real-time reporting, and taking full advantage of nonprofit discounts, you’ll transform compliance from a reactive scramble into a proactive, transparent ecosystem. Your auditors, funders, board members, and most importantly, your team, will thank you.

The post Meet rising compliance requirements with smarter workflows appeared first on NTEN.

The default charts you can produce with your go-to software, like Excel or Google Sheets or even Tableau, will never get you to a data story. Because, even if enhanced with AI, they don’t know your story. You do. 

That said, you can reshape those default charts so that the story you see is clear and direct for your team, your audience, and your stakeholders. It’s easier than you might think.

The defaults don’t do you justice

Let’s say you’re evaluating the effectiveness of your nonprofit’s email strategy. You’ve run three types of email campaigns this year: Advocacy, Fundraising, and Newsletter. Now you want to show how they performed over the last four quarters.

A default chart of that campaign data would look like this:

This column chart might not seem so bad at first glance. But try to pull out a story. It’s a challenge that requires some insight, some data literacy, and some mental effort – all of which will clog up your team meeting and slow down your progress.

The reasons this default chart drags you down:

• Vague title: “Click Through Rates by Email Campaign Type” states what the data is about. But it doesn’t tell you the story in the dataset. What a wasted opportunity!
• Overly colorful: A different bold color on each email campaign makes a viewer’s eyes bounce all over the chart, never landing on the evidence that conveys the story.
• Cluttered labeling: The repeated (%) along the x-axis is redundant of the “percent” y-axis label. Additionally, the data labels on every column are redundant of the y-axis altogether! All that excess creates more noise for your viewer to dig through.
• Hard-to-follow comparisons: The chart type itself makes for some needless strain. In order to see how, for example, Newsletter performed over the 4 quarters, a viewer’s brain has to try to un-see the blue and orange columns to try to piece together the green columns – which is very difficult for human cognition.

Let’s adjust these defaults and make over this chart so the story pops out. 

Change the title to state the key takeaway

Truly, the simplest way to tell a story with your data is to maximize your chart’s title space to, well, tell the story.

Rather than the vague “Click Through Rates by Email Campaign Type” use your insider knowledge and your data literacy skills to interpret the data and highlight what you see: “Click through rates for advocacy emails gained ground while fundraising lagged behind.”

The title is now a complete sentence that tells the audience exactly what you want them to notice about the email campaign data. 

Now that we have a clear story to highlight, we need to reformat the rest of the chart so the evidence that supports that story is more obvious. 

Also read: Seven ways to build an equitable website

Use color intentionally to highlight the story

Bold colors on every data series will create visual competition. Once you see the story, reserve your bold colors for those data points and tone down the other data with gray.

Gray will fade the rest of the data into the background and let the more important data points jump out. 

When you apply action colors to the salient points in your chart, your audience knows exactly where to look. 

Even better, leverage that storytelling title and color-match the words that correspond to their associated data series. Now you have a chart title and a dataset that unite. But we can make this chart even clearer.

Simplify axes and labels

Despite the smart changes we’ve made so far, viewers can still get bogged down by the redundancy and clutter in the graph. And it isn’t your fault! Every software program we use to make charts will include clutter by default. You just need to learn to recognize the clutter and cut it out.

Look for repetition that doesn’t add clarity. For example, we don’t need CTR in every label along the x-axis if the title is already telling everyone that this data is about click-through rates. We can ditch the (%) all along the x-axis AND the y-axis label “percent” if we just add percentage signs to the data labels.

In fact, if we have data labels on every column, we don’t need the y-axis at all. Bye!

Clutter also shows up as excessive and unhelpful lines.

If we remove the y-axis, we don’t need its associated horizontal gridlines either. Also, you can almost always remove your chart border.

These might seem like minor tweaks – and they are so minor it will only take you a moment to implement them – but they add up to a chart that’s much easier to read.

We could stop right here and we’d have a suitable chart that does the data justice and sparks conversations with our team. But let’s go one step further. 

Try a different chart type

Though we have significantly improved this visual, the chart type itself is still posing a problem. To track progress on any one email campaign, our brains have to weed through and attempt to ignore the data for the other email campaigns. This dilemma is inherent to every clustered column chart.

Convert to a line chart.

Line charts do a better job of showing trends over time. They connect the data points for each series so our brains don’t have to work overtime to see where we increased sharply or where we stayed flat.

Because the inclines are now so clear, I took a risk and removed the exact data label from most of the data points and only retained it on the most recent time period. I assumed the most recent quarter would be of most interest to my audience, but you know your audience and what they’ll want to see. 

The remaining data label was also an opportunity for me to embed the legend directly into the chart. No more attention bouncing back and forth between the legend entry and its corresponding line. Saving everyone’s mental energy is always a win.

The story told in the chart’s title is now much more obvious in the chart itself.

Also read: What ‘user-centered’ could mean for you

Bottom line

You are the person best positioned to know the story in your data. You just need to adjust the default chart formatting so the story you see is just as evident to everyone else. 

• Use the chart title space to articulate your point as a complete sentence.
• Gray out the less germane data and apply an action color on the data you want your audience to notice.
• Strip out clutter like redundant labeling and unnecessary lines.
• Explore alternative chart types that can better highlight your data. 

With just a few moments of effort (that will get even faster with practice), you will end up with a chart that produces clearer insights, easier decision-making, better engagement, and tells your data story effectively.

The post How to tell a story with your data appeared first on NTEN.

An equitable website isn’t just a “nice to have.” It’s a core part of serving your mission and your community—and not just in June, but all year long.

Also read: 6 steps to elevate brainstorming with opportunity mapping

What makes a website equitable?

1. It reflects your full community

The people who visit your site should see themselves represented — not just visually, but culturally and contextually. That starts with the language you use and the photos you choose, and extends to how you frame your services.

• Honor different lived experiences – Make sure your instructions and examples respect diverse family structures, income levels, gender identities, and life situations.
• Show real diversity – Use images that reflect the racial, cultural, and generational diversity of the people in your community — not as tokenism, but as an honest reflection of those you serve and a welcome to those you’d like to include. Make sure you show diversity in people in different roles — not just in the people you’re serving.
• Don’t focus on people suffering, in sadness or poverty. These images are dehumanizing. Instead, show people so that it’s easy to imagine them with strengths, relationships, and lives beyond the challenges they may face.
• Avoid assumptions – Think through how your webpages will be perceived by people of different marital statuses, income levels, cultural backgrounds, gender identities, or family structures, to make them inclusive to as wide a range of people as possible.

Representation helps build trust. It shows your organization sees the full humanity of your audience—and values it.

2. It prioritizes accessibility

An equitable website works for everyone, regardless of ability, device, or sensory needs. 

• Meet technical accessibility standards – Ensure your site is navigable by screen readers, works without a mouse, has readable contrast, and follows WCAG guidelines for contrast, alt text, labels, and keyboard access.
• Support neurodiverse users – Go beyond minimum standards by reducing visual clutter, keeping layouts predictable and easily scannable, offering a dark mode or other display options, and avoiding moving images on a page. These changes help users focus and feel more in control.

Accessibility is not an add-on; it’s fundamental. If your website isn’t working for everyone, it isn’t truly working.

3. It works on visitors’ devices

Not everyone accesses your website on a giant desktop screen — and equity means designing with that reality in mind. Your site should:

• Work well on mobile – Many people, including lower-income users and people of color, rely on phones as their primary (or only) way to get online. Make a habit of using your own mobile site!
• Load on slow connections – Reduce large images, unnecessary animations, and bandwidth-heavy features so your site stays usable for people with limited data or spotty internet access.
• Run on older devices – Ensure compatibility with outdated phones, older browsers, and public computers like those in libraries, which may have slower speeds or outdated software.

Designing for these constraints is about meeting people where they are. If your site only works in perfect conditions, it doesn’t work equitably.

4. It uses inclusive language and forms

Small choices in language and form design can have a big role in building an equitable website. They signal whether people are respected or erased.

• Avoid insider language – Steer clear of jargon, acronyms, or references that assume a white, middle-class, liberal, English-speaking default.
• Respect gender diversity – Use gender-neutral language (like “they” instead of “he” or “he/she”) and include pronouns and nonbinary options on forms.
• Support diverse names – Make sure form fields accept names with accents, hyphens, and multiple parts to accommodate cultural and linguistic differences.

Inclusive design shows people they belong — and that your organization is thinking beyond default settings.

5. It provides language access, if relevant

If your site provides essential services — such as housing assistance, legal aid, healthcare, or crisis support — your website must be readable for the people who rely on it. 

• Translate key content – Offer translated materials for the most common languages in your community (even if just the most critical content).
• Make translation options easy to find – Place language choices in obvious, prominent places — not hidden in a footer or dropdown.

For many sites, language access is just as important as accessibility for people with disabilities.

6. It prioritizes clarity and usability for all

Equity includes making your site easy to use for everyone, including those under stress, with limited literacy, or unfamiliar with your systems. Good design and clear writing are powerful tools for inclusion.

• Use plain language – Write at a 6th–8th grade reading level to ensure broad understanding.
• Design for readability – Break up text with clear headings, short paragraphs, and generous white space.
• Organize content by user needs – Structure your site around what visitors are trying to do, not your internal departments.
• Be transparent and actionable – Make it clear what someone can do, how to do it, and what to expect. Typically, visitors care much more about understanding what they can do next rather than the detailed context (for instance, legal, legislative, or scientific details).

Clarity is an act of respect. It honors people’s time, energy, and attention and helps your site serve its purpose.

7. It’s built with (not just for) communities

Equity isn’t just about what’s on the site—it’s also about how the site is built. An equitable website is shaped with the input of the people it serves.

• Involve your community early – Talk to potential visitors before you design to understand their needs, challenges, and expectations. Listening at the start helps you build something that actually works for them.
• Center lived experience in decisions – Use surveys, interviews, and user testing to gather real feedback, and prioritize input from those directly impacted by the issues your organization addresses.

A site shaped with community input helps ensure it meets real needs, making it more relevant, and more trustworthy.

Equity is a foundation, not a feature

An equitable website doesn’t require perfection or a big budget. But it does require intention. It means asking better questions, centering the people you serve, and being willing to adjust how you work.

Websites have the power to reinforce injustice—or to challenge it. Embedding equity into your website helps ensure your organization isn’t just reflecting the world as it is, but helping shape it for the better.

This article was written by a cis, heterosexual white woman with a consulting practice built in part on generational privilege. What business do I have talking about equity? It’s everybody’s business. It’s especially the job of white people to learn, listen, and then educate other white people about how they can move in an anti-racist and more equitable direction. Read my full equity statement.

The post Seven ways to build an equitable website appeared first on NTEN.

The Digital Equity Act, passed with bipartisan support by Congress, enables all 50 states to build locally contextual digital equity plans to shrink digital divides across the country. It enables infrastructure support to expand broadband coverage, and programmatic support to local organizations who work with their communities to build digital literacy and confidence among new users. In the words of Senator Murray, who passed this Act in 2019, attacking the validity of this Act would impede “local libraries from getting funding to help seniors navigate telehealth options or middle schoolers in rural districts from getting laptops.”

The Digital Equity Act, passed with bipartisan support by Congress, enables all 50 states to build locally contextual digital equity plans to shrink digital divides across the country.

Accusations that the Digital Equity Act is unconstitutional are blatantly false and a direct reproach of what Congress, state leaders, and communities in every region have already committed to. This is not a moment to stop the progress that creates more jobs, positively contributes to the economy, and increases opportunities for veterans, seniors, low-income families, communities of color, and rural communities across the country.

Through 10 years of NTEN’s Digital Inclusion Fellowship, we have worked with hundreds of local organizations helping local populations who are cut off from internet access get online and get access to the thousands of resources that the people reading this online take for granted every day. What does digital equity really mean for these communities? Here are some stories of individuals whose lives changed through internet access and digital literacy. 

• A frequent library patron who had never used a computer before would visit the library to fill out paper job application forms in her job search. She was trained to use the internet by a digital literacy trainer, and was able to find many more jobs online, apply directly, and land a new job.
• A mother from a low-income family wanted to support her children’s education, but didn’t know how to use a computer or communicate with her children’s teachers. She attended a free training program at the school district’s parent center, earned a free laptop for completing the training, signed up for her first email account, and learned t access the school’s communication platform.
• A senior citizen joined an activity with neighbors in the community center’s computer lab, where a digital literacy trainer showed him how to use the internet to find recordings of concerts from his favorite bands from his youth. Inspired, he began to host regular listening sessions and created a community built around music sharing.
• A veteran who already had valuable leadership and entrepreneurial skills, but wasn’t connected to the internet, found a local nonprofit’s internet skills course. After training, he started a business and launched his first website.

This is not a moment to stop the progress that creates more jobs, positively contributes to the economy, and increases opportunities for veterans, seniors, low-income families, communities of color, and rural communities across the country.

The internet is a powerful and necessary tool. It is vital that the internet is affordable and accessible to all people. NTEN will continue to work in collaboration with organizations of all sizes and mission areas to advance initiatives that help everyone be part of the digital world. 

The post Digital equity is a key enabler to public participation and stronger communities appeared first on NTEN.

From data-driven decision-making that helps food banks better meet the needs of their constituents and reduce food waste or an AI-powered chatbot that expands opportunities for underserved communities, funding technology empowers organizations to do more with limited resources. These innovations demonstrate that when leveraged effectively, technology isn’t just an operational tool—it’s a force multiplier for social good.

Encouraging progress meets concerning trends

The 2024 State of Philanthropy Tech Survey from the Technology Association of Grantmakers reveals a mixed landscape regarding funder support for nonprofit technology. The survey, released biennially, includes responses from more than 350 private, community and family grantmaking organizations on their technology practices, applications and strategies.

Adequate funding ensures nonprofits can scale their impact and serve communities that need them. Grantmakers have an obligation to ensure that their grantees can deliver on their promise.

While the survey showed strides have been made in some areas, ongoing challenges risk undermining nonprofits’ ability to deliver on their missions without adequate investments in technology.

The good news is that a majority of funders are committed to streamlining grant applications (67%) and reporting processes (56%). Additionally, the transition to paperless payments is gaining traction, with 72% of funders adopting digital payment practices.

However, troubling trends have emerged:

• Only 20% of funders are providing technology tools and resources to nonprofits, down from 23% in 2022.
• Unrestricted funding has also declined, with just 30% of funders offering this flexibility, a drop from 34% in 2022.

According to Salesforce’s Nonprofit Trends Report, digitally mature nonprofits are four times more likely to achieve their mission goals than their less-equipped peers. While these declines may reflect a return to pre-pandemic norms, in an era defined by AI, increasing cybersecurity threats, and evolving nonprofit needs, technology funding is more critical than ever.

The equity implications of technology funding

Why should grantmakers take notice? Technology is not just an operational need — it’s a driver of equity and enabler of mission.

According to NTEN’s Nonprofit Digital Investment Report, nearly half of nonprofits (45%) say they aren’t spending enough on technology. The top barriers include lack of budget (77%), funder support (47%), and donor support (38%). Small organizations, which make up 92% of nonprofits, often lack the resources to prioritize technology. Without intervention, this disparity risks deepening inequities for grassroots organizations serving underserved communities.

According to Salesforce’s Nonprofit Trends Report, digitally mature nonprofits are four times more likely to achieve their mission goals than their less-equipped peers

When nonprofits can invest in technology, the impact is undeniable:

• 96% report improved program and service delivery.
• 89% experience increased organizational capacity and growth.
• 82% achieve better fundraising and financial stability.

Whether it’s engaging constituents, securing funding, or delivering services efficiently, technology is the backbone of nonprofit operations. Adequate funding ensures nonprofits can scale their impact and serve communities that need them. Grantmakers have an obligation to ensure that their grantees can deliver on their promise. By removing barriers, offering unrestricted funding, or supporting specific technology needs, funders are supporting organizations ability to increase their capacity, be more impactful and efficient, and achieve shared goals more effectively.

Tips for nonprofits applying for technology funding

Securing technology funding requires nonprofits to articulate their needs clearly and strategically. Here are three tips:

1. Articulate impact: Frame technology as an enabler of mission outcomes, not just a tool. For example, highlight how improved systems will enhance program delivery or constituent engagement.
2. Demonstrate need: Connect technology investments to your strategic plan. Use data to illustrate gaps or risks that technology funding will address.
3. Tailor requests: Understand funders’ priorities and align your proposals. Show how your technology needs directly support their goals and values.

By leveraging these strategies, nonprofits can strengthen their applications and advocate effectively for the technology resources they need to thrive.

Funders also need to recognize that funding for tech is not arbitrary overhead; it is a mission-critical investment. Closing the technology gap doesn’t just lead to stronger organizations, it contributes to healthier and more vibrant communities, better outcomes, and a more equitable world.

The post How donors are approaching nonprofit technology funding appeared first on NTEN.

This might look like the marketing department not fully understanding the program with resulting accusations of “false advertising” (or the program team doing its own advertising!). It might look like the finance department enforcing policies and procedures that don’t align with the other teams’ workflows and slowing down work across all departments.

Is there a better way? Definitely. Let’s consider how each functional area within a nonprofit organization can effectively interact with its counterparts toward mission fulfillment. For the purposes of this article, we’ll consider four functional areas: programs, development, marketing, and finance/administration. Whether some or all of these functional areas are “departments of one” at your organization, the ideas here are meant to be broadly applicable and start conversations between colleagues across different functions.

We’ll identify how siloing manifests at the intersections of those functional areas, and then explore how to de-silo those pairings. We’ll conclude with a brief look at how executive leadership fits into this effort to de-silo.

Programs and Marketing

We hinted at how this cross-functional relationship can go awry above. If marketing doesn’t know what’s happening in programs, how will they ever tell the story to the public toward garnering new clients or customers? In a healthier relationship between these areas:

• Program invites Marketing to attend or observe events.
• Program suggests clients and customers who can provide testimonials.
• Program helps Marketing access the best opportunities for capturing content.
• Marketing uses the knowledge and content library to expand the number of people who know of the organization’s programs.

If your organization provides services for a fee or has other earned revenue, there’s an even greater need for marketing to have the content library to support the sales and contracting process.

Programs and Finance/Administration

Finance and administration is a broad functional area, covering needs such as payroll, insurance, and interface with regulatory agencies. One especially significant process is preparing the annual operating budget. Budgets reflect an organization’s priorities, and since programs are the entire reason the organization exists:

• Finance must shape the budget to reflect how programs operate.
• Financial resources should be allocated and optimized according to the programs’ taxonomy.
• Finance should be willing to alter their budget templates as programs evolve year over year, rather than annual copy-and-paste exercises.
• Program must keep accurate records and notes of their work – including future plans such as the anticipated number of future clients – so that finance has the data needed to shape the budget accurately.

Also read: 6 steps to elevate brainstorming with opportunity mapping

Marketing and Development

A nonprofit organization doesn’t just need to communicate with its clients and customers; it must also communicate with its donors and funders. There may be overlap in recipients, but even so, the messaging is different when offering services as compared to inviting support.

• Communication is needed not only to reach new donors, but also to steward current donors.
• Leverage the work done between Programs and Marketing and re-package that content for the donor audience.

Development and Finance/Administration

This pairing of two critical support functions requires a dose of humility for each function to understand the other’s particular nomenclature and professional standards. Accrual accounting rules can run against the grain of donor stewardship timelines. Ambiguous pledges are seen differently depending on which side of this pairing one falls.

A healthy relationship between these two functions looks like:

• Finance understanding the campaign calendars.
• Development understanding Finance’s documentation needs and building those considerations into the solicitation and stewardship workflows.
• Both teams having a regular cadence of reconciliation so that donor records match revenue records.
• Finance recognizes its role is to support development, so that development can support programs, the mission of the organization.

Executive Leadership

The above ideas will help start the conversations among colleagues and teams – and there’s a lot of value to be had from this work beginning between peers. At the same time, there is a critical role for executive leadership. Nonprofit executives often rise through their organizations, or at least through the sector, from one of the functional areas, and must thus:

• Resist the tendency to favor that functional area.
• Take time to learn the nuances of the other areas.
• Foster a culture of collaboration.
• Encourage teams to find synergies.

The organization’s board has a role here as well if there is an established committee structure. Similar to how the management-level finance and development function must work against siloing, so too must the finance and development committees of the board recognize the dependencies between those functions and encourage collaboration from their oversight perspective.

Where do you see siloing in your organization? Are certain intersections more prone to it than others? Try some of the above ideas, and see how your organization can overcome those silos and the different teams work better together toward fulfilling your important mission.

The post De-silo your nonprofit workplace appeared first on NTEN.

Fast forward a decade and Twitter, now renamed X and owned by Elon Musk, has gotten so bad that the Atlantic has officially declared it a “White Supremacist Site”.

Never one to be left behind, Facebook’s parent company Meta has contributed a million dollars to Donald Trump’s inauguration while announcing the elimination of its fact checking team in an obsequious capitulation to Donald Trump.

Being seen on X is not only unhelpful, but has become a liability. And, given the direction of Meta, Facebook is not far behind.

Are X and Facebook exceptions, or is this the future of Big Tech? 

Silicon Valley, once known for its support of liberal causes, has pivoted to the right; a move accelerated and exacerbated by Trump’s victory. This change is largely fueled by economic realities. Big Tech corporations are some of the largest companies on the planet, now representing three of the top ten largest corporations in the world—Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

What does this trend towards the right mean for our organizations when we not only use these technologies, but many of us are downright dependent on them?

How does a technology company worth billions of dollars stay on top when strategies like inventing yet another new app or adding even more features to Gmail are played out? They pursue military and police contracts. The Pentagon has signed multi-billion dollar contracts with Big Tech, Amazon makes no effort to hide their military ambitions, and Project Nimbus includes a deal between Google and the Israeli Ministry of Defense worth $525 million dollars.

In the case of Amazon, their facial recognition contracts with the police were so offensive that a mass organizing effort forced the corporate behemoth to pause the program back in 2020. But now, with every Big Tech giant pursuing artificial intelligence, we can expect more and more contracts with police and military forces around the world.

And now we hear Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of the end of independent fact-checking for Facebook, including ending most content moderation policies on what he called “hot-button” issues such as immigration and gender. Zuckerberg has changed his tune to parrot right-wing MAGA talking points with statements like “the company’s content moderation approach resulted too often in censorship”. 

Many in the nonprofit sector are raising the alarm. What does this trend towards the right mean for our organizations when we not only use these technologies, but many of us are downright dependent on them? Will other social media platforms like BlueSky meet our needs in the same way, or will they fall to the right as well? What if artificial intelligence-powered algorithms flag our content as too political, banning our accounts and cutting off our organizing before we even have an opportunity to download our data? Will Trump further erode privacy laws and, in what seems like a growing partnership with Big Tech, increase surveillance of our internet use, our email, and our data?

Why aren’t more of us leaving corporate technology behind?

For the 25 years that Progressive Technology Project has been doing technology justice work, one of our major focal points has been on increasing understanding about why Big Tech is so detrimental to our movements, our organizations and our communities. Over the past 10 years as the U.S. and global political climate has pivoted to the right and it’s become more widely known that Big Tech is in bed with right-wing extremists, we’re seeing some organizations reach a deeper understanding about the importance of embedding technology into their wider strategies. But, even as organizational leadership acknowledges that a move away from Big Tech is needed, the number of groups actually committing to transitioning doesn’t match the level of alarm. Why is this? Over the past 6 months, the Progressive Technology Project has been conducting a research project to ask the movement this very question so that we—and our network of technology justice partners—can be better prepared to help.

Our research surveyed 460 individuals and organizations, and we focused our questions to ask about the barriers to leaving Gmail and Google so that we could get specific data that could then be applied beyond Google and Gmail transitions. Our initial findings indicate that the biggest barrier to leaving Google is not a lack of features or concerns over the stability of alternatives, instead it’s the fact that everyone else is on Google. Through follow-up interviews, we found that people had similar reasons for hesitating to leave Facebook, Zoom, and Apple. The top three additional barriers to leaving Big Tech services like Google included 1) a concern about whether all of a person’s data would transfer seamlessly to a new system, 2) people felt they had too much data to make a transition, and 3) people were concerned that an alternative, non-corporate technology would not be able to integrate with other systems the way that their current technology tool could (for example, people use their Google information to log into masses of other tools and websites).

The biggest barrier to leaving Google is not a lack of features or concerns over the stability of alternatives, instead it’s the fact that everyone else is on Google.

Encouragingly, people were not generally concerned about the security of non-corporate technologies, and we found this was reinforced in our follow-up interviews, where respondents expressed that alternative technologies were probably more secure than Big Tech tools. People also thought that alternative technologies had no issues with government and other compliance requirements, and they felt that non-corporate options were stable and reliable.

This research is proving incredibly valuable as PTP and our partners work to strengthen the network of values-aligned technologies and providers, add and improve functionality for the technologies themselves, and create more capacity to help organizations transition away from the technologies owned by the very same Big Tech corporations that they fight. 

We’ve got a whole network of providers poised to help organizations start transitioning away from Big Tech, but what if you’re not officially ready for that step? What can you and your organization do to start thinking about technology more strategically and take steps towards a transition?

How to find the Big Tech off-ramp

Building political education about technology strategy into your regular organizational planning and discussions is a good place to start. Thinking about technology as a tool in a silo is not helpful. Thinking about technology politically as an integral part of your campaigns will help increase understanding among your staff and teams about the importance of this issue. Many people don’t know that Google has contracts with the Israeli military or that Amazon assists the police with improving facial recognition software meant to surveil us or that Zoom is using AI to comb through our meeting data. Without political education and a concerted effort among all of the stakeholders in your organization to see a transition through its inevitable learning curves and pain points, any technology transition is unlikely to be successful.

While Big Tech options can seem cheaper and sometimes prettier than some of the alternatives, their costs—both monetary and otherwise—are much higher.

Secondly, it is important to start slowly. Go for the low-hanging fruit. Let’s face it—technology transitions are painful, and the learning curve is usually steep. People are comfortable with what they are already using, and as we saw from our research, are comfortable that everyone else is using it as well. This may mean that your organization keeps all of your current technology and doesn’t mandate some huge, immediate change, but starts to use an open-source collaborative note-taking pad for some virtual meetings like those offered by Riseup. Or, instead of using Zoom for every meeting, try using the alternative Jitsi.meet or Big Blue Button for smaller meetings to see how you like it. Next Cloud is an open-source alternative to Google Docs that you could try out for specific, non-urgent tasks, and organizations like Cloud68 can help host and support Next Cloud for you if needed.

Transitioning to using new technology will require a cultural change in your organization—and this will take time. A strategy that can be useful and sustainable during the early phases of considering a technology transition is to develop organizational policies and protocols on how and when to use different communication channels. For example, it may be critical for your organizers to use Signal rather than texting through corporate phone providers for sensitive communications during mobilizations or protests. Building internal agreements about what information can or cannot be shared, and creating policies describing when it’s okay to use corporate platforms for general outreach and announcements are also examples of what to consider.

Also read: Data empowerment for nonprofits

As you and your staff slowly grow comfortable with some of the alternative options and learn that the politics of many of these options are aligned with yours, you may consider taking the next step. Perhaps you could decide to transition just one of your main technology systems to a liberatory alternative. If you use a Bonterra CRM database for example, explore what a transition to civiCRM or Powerbase would look like. Plan ahead and get input and feedback from every part of your organization, making sure you commit to the time and resources it takes to truly integrate a technology into your work (which includes loads of post-transition time and dedication and a commitment to seeking ongoing support). Maybe you choose to transition all of your virtual meetings from Zoom to Jitsi or Big Blue Button. Or you move your organizational email away from Gmail to May First Movement Technology’s email client.

A strategy that can be useful and sustainable during the early phases of considering a technology transition is to develop organizational policies and protocols on how and when to use different communication channels.

Another step you could take is to build technology strategy more thoughtfully into your budgets. While Big Tech options can seem cheaper and sometimes prettier than some of the alternatives, their costs—both monetary and otherwise—are much higher. That being said, the network of liberatory alternative technology organizations and providers is grossly underfunded and under-resourced. We need to start divesting from Big Tech and investing in these liberatory alternatives to scale their viability for the movement and to do that, we need funders to pay attention to technology strategy. If organizations build budgets and fundraising efforts that include technology strategy, it will go a long way to lift up movement technology.

Finally, as you begin thinking about a technology transition away from Big Tech and towards open-source and movement-aligned alternatives, it helps to get lots of support. Organizations like Progressive Technology Project, May First Movement Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Media Justice, the Association for Progressive Communications, and many more can help point you in the right direction whether it be about strategy or finding alternative tools. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has one of the best resources for learning about the importance of digital security, and the why and how of technology transitions—their Surveillance Self Defense article.

The network of liberatory alternative technology organizations and providers is grossly underfunded and under-resourced. We need to start divesting from Big Tech and investing in these liberatory alternatives to scale their viability for the movement and to do that, we need funders to pay attention to technology strategy.

Any conversation about technology transitions inevitably becomes about the tools. But the meaning behind the technology we use goes much deeper than that. It is where the data about our constituents’ immigration status is stored. It’s where we track cases about reproductive health needs. It’s where we post our political viewpoints for all the world to see. It’s where we store our credit card information. It’s where we text our best friends about our deepest fears. Progressive Technology Project and our partners work tirelessly to make this data about us—about every part of our lives—safe, more secure, and firmly in the hands of the people, rather than with Big Tech billionaires using extractive surveillance of our lives to increase their power and profit and to censor our speech and track our actions.

Join PTP at 25NTC!

If you are interested in learning more, reach out to us or any of the organizations we mentioned in this article! We also invite you to join the Progressive Technology Project for our Cutting the Cord: Understanding our Dependence on Surveillance Capitalism session at the 2025 Nonprofit Technology Conference to learn more about the political and security reasons to consider transitioning off of Big Tech, the challenges to these transitions uncovered by our research, and some practical steps that nonprofit organizations can take to overcome them. Finally, we invite you to visit our website at https://progressivetech.org/ and sign up for our newsletter.

The post How nonprofits can off-ramp from Big Tech appeared first on NTEN.