Tech Accelerate is a free, comprehensive assessment about technology use and policies designed to help nonprofit staff with decisions, planning, and investments. For more than a decade, NTEN conducted sector-wide research into how the nonprofits invested in technology — from staffing levels to technology budgets — and surfaced the key indicators of practices and policies correlated with effective organizations.
Why did we create Tech Accelerate?
We wanted to offer a more dynamic way for nonprofit staff to access the data and benchmarks that help them make better-informed decisions. A static report was useful for informing staff and boards about the general trends and practices of the sector, but we knew there was more we could do to support organizational leaders in making important decisions and investing in the right places.
In 2018, we launched Tech Accelerate as an online assessment tool with custom reports and benchmarking. Today, Tech Accelerate is the most robust assessment across an organization’s technology practices and policies used by organizations around the world.
How does it work?
We’ve designed Tech Accelerate to offer a single comprehensive assessment that offers multiple options for analysis and application. Organizations have used Tech Accelerate reports to apply for grants or support fundraising, inform strategic planning or budgeting, build a technology roadmap, and more.
You can work on your assessment alone or invite colleagues to create accounts and collaborate with you. Your answers can be changed until you are ready to submit. Once you do, you’ll have access to your custom report and benchmarking tools. Your assessment data will be added to the dataset but will never be sold, and it will only be shared or disclosed as being yours if you choose to share it with a funder, consultant, or partner.
How does Tech Accelerate evaluate adoption and risk?
To support organizations better meeting their missions through more informed technology investments, we offer two different ways to understand your technology adoption when you view your report.
Tech Adoption Score
The Tech Adoption Score was developed in NTEN’s decade of research prior to building Tech Accelerate and is used to provide a categorical evaluation of an organization’s adoption. As such, this score only appears for an overall score and for each of the four categories; it does not apply at the question level. The four-part Tech Adoption Scale includes:
Struggling
You are struggling; you have a failing infrastructure, and your technology time and budget generally go towards creating work-arounds, repairing old equipment, and duplicating tasks.
Functioning
You keep the lights on; you have basic systems in place to meet immediate needs. Leadership makes technology decisions based on efficiencies, with little-to-no input from staff/consultants.
Operating
You keep up; You have stable infrastructure and a set of technology policies and practices. Leadership makes technology decisions based on standard levels according to industry/sector information and gathers input from technology staff/consultants before making final decisions.
Leading
You’re innovators; you recognize that technology is an investment in your mission, and leadership integrates technology decisions with organizational strategy. Technology-responsible staff are involved in overall strategic planning. You explore new tools and approaches to ensure your technology is up-to-date and is serving the needs of your organization and community
It is important to note that organizational budget, staff size, mission, and location are not indicators of where an organization may be on the scale.
Risk assessment
Each question has custom parameters based on the topic and technology it is about that are specific to organizational, constituent, and/or security risk. We use risk as the focus at this level because it can help organizations best identify priorities for needed investment and make decisions about where there will be significant impact even if the budget or capacity is limited. There are three categories of risk that appear, including:
Low risk
You are in a good position. This indicates that while you may still make progress, changes, or investments in this area, you are unlikely to have notable issues given your current status.
Medium risk
You should consider what you can do. This indicates that there’s room to improve here, and, depending on how much is on your priority list, this may be an area for near-term investment.
Significant risk
You need to prioritize change. This indicates an area where the organization, constituent data, and staff success are vulnerable and immediate prioritization of improvement is needed.
About NTEN
NTEN is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization creating a world where missions and movements are successful through the skillful and equitable use of technology. We build transformative power by connecting people who are putting technology to work for social change.
We build their individual and collective capacity for doing good by offering expert trainings, researching effective approaches, and providing places where relationships can flourish. We relentlessly advocate for the redesign of the systems and structures that maintain inequity. NTEN’s amazing community is made up of nonprofit staff, volunteers, board members, funders, consultants, and vendors from all walks of life.
Learn more about NTEN's programs and community.
