This is a guest post by Eamon Stack, CEO of ENCLUDE, which is TechSoup's NGO partner organization in Ireland. ENCLUDE provides hands-on technology solutions and software donations for Irish charities. Eamon is a software engineer who is skilled in helping charities migrate to various cloud solutions that are appropriate to their IT staffing and budget.

He has spent much of his career doing front-line community development among deprived communities in Ireland and Latin America, mostly with the Jesuit Order. He co-founded ENCLUDE in 2006 to address the challenge that most Irish nonprofits are on the wrong side of the digital divide.

Foundation Nepal: A Case Study

A few weeks ago, Sylvester (my colleague) and myself developed a cloud computing solution for a charity based in Galway, in the beautiful West of Ireland. The charity was Foundation Nepal and typical of a mission driven charity, its founders (Nicky and Amber) were the two main movers in the organization. 

Foundation Nepal was founded five years ago after Nicky and Amber went on a visit to Nepal. They were both financial accountants at KPMG and were on a walking holiday when they were confronted by the chronic poverty they encountered in the rural villages of Nepal. There were appalled at the plight of women and children. They knew that they had the skills to change this awful reality and they started to work the moment they returned to Ireland.

The quality and impact of the work at Foundation Nepal has attracted the attention of Irish Aid and many funders and they have grown to a staff of 8 in three years. However they reached an unexpected ceiling to growth; as they expanded their operation, they used the technology they were familiar with, Hotmail, Google, Word, and Excel. But as they grew, these tools frustrated their ability to scale - this ICT was not fit for purpose.

After a short conversation with ENCLUDE they were able to identify an affordable solution - they need to build an appropriate ICT support at three levels:

1. To build a solid foundation with Windows 7 and Office 2010 on all desktops and laptops - all donated via the TechSoup donation program
2. They needed to sort out their communicatons: email, instant messaging, SMS, and phone, with Microsoft Office 365 (70% discount); and
3. Most importantly they needed an integrated solution for project and client management, financial management, and document management.

After five days of work with ENCLUDE, Amber at Foundation Nepal presented the new solution to her colleagues. The new cloud-based integration joins the organization's website with a new Salesforce CRM database, which in turn integrates with Microsoft Outlook email in Office 365 and an accounting system using Charity accountsIQ. She demonstrated how Windows 7 automatically logs into her email, instant messaging, and the organization's new Microsoft SharePoint intranet. The new system was easy to use and mostly cloud-based and so is much easier to maintain.

Cloud computing offer charities like Foundation Nepal three things:

1. A single shared organization-wide ICT system that is scalable, secure, and accessible 24/7;
2. It removes the limit to growth - as it gives access to technology that us "up to the job" [fit for purpose]  and scalable;
3. It enables charities to achieve levels of efficiency and effectiveness which are expected nowadays - giving them tools that allow for impact assessment and reporting.

From a Nonprofit Leader Perspective

Why did Foundation Nepal find themselves in an ICT cul-de-sac? My experience is that nonprofit leaders feel poorly-equipped to make ICT decisions. Leaders are afraid - they feel intimidated to the heavily jargonised presentation by technology salespeople; and leaders experience the total lack of understanding of their mission and strategy by IT people. The big problem is not one of technology - it is one of trust.

It seems to me charities are crying out for someone to help. Someone who understands what they do and value; someone who will present them with real choices and not hundreds of options; and someone who will empower them to maximize their organizations resources to attain technology that supports their vital work.

Technology Leadership

Cloud computing offers a major opportunity to bridge the gap between charities and the ICT solutions they need. But technology alone is not the answer. I like to propose a formula:

T + T = T

Technology (cloud solutions) + Trusted Adviser (TechSoup partner) = Transformation of the ICT capacity of a nonprofit organizing.

When Nicky of Foundaiton Nepal saw her new system, she did not say "Wow!" In fact, she was quite familiar with the solution set from her work in KPMG. Her reply was "We should have had this system four years ago when we really got started." 

Those of us in the wider TechSoup Global network are in a key position to meet an urgent need for Charities.  The technology itself is not the fundamental block to the adoption of appropriate ICT solutions.  It is the lack of competent and trusted advisors to support charities as they adopt the solutions. Now is the opportunity to give Charities the trusted technology leadership they deserve, which they need to effectively deliver on their missions.

Photo: Foundation Nepal