Top 2015 Tech Trends

About this time of year, we like to take stock of what went on in the world of nonprofit technology over the last 12 months. It's fun to compare against TechSoup's 2015 Tech Predictions from the start of the year and Capterra's Biggest Nonprofit Technology Trends of 2015 from March. It appears that a fair number of these predictions (on mobile payments, cloud computing, collaboration tools, and crowdfunding) have actually come true.

It was a big year for TechSoup itself. We expanded this year to be able to provide product donations to pretty much any NGO in the world — 236 countries and territories to be exact. Here's our take on what 2015 brought in the areas of fundraising, software, hardware, mobile, cloud adoption, and security.

Fundraising

Some big new fundraising innovations happened last summer.

• Facebook, still the world's number one social media site, made available a "Donate Now" call-to-action button for all charities. The catch is that each charity must have its own online donation arrangement that the Donate Button links to. To catch your donors' interest, you can also take advantage of Facebook's interesting new automatic collage feature as well as live video streaming.
• TechSoup donor partner Blackbaud launched Raiser's Edge NXT, which is its new online fundraising and relationship management software for nonprofits. Find out more about NXT in our launch announcement.
• The eBay Sell for Charity Mobile App also launched this year. It is a project of eBay Giving Works. The new mobile app is available for Android and iPhone. It enables users to designate a percentage (between 10 and 100 percent) of their sales to charity from their phones or tablets.
• Capterra reported that most nonprofit professionals would put more marketing attention on videos, images, and infographics this year. TechSoup's Ginny Mies agreed. She found that getting any sort of media coverage (both social media and mainstream) is the key to building an audience and increasing donations. The trick is to use images to make campaigns something people want to support. She liked the example of the sad adorable dog campaign on Nonprofit Quarterly.
• #GivingTuesday, the official annual day of giving, just happened on December 1. Blackbaud reports that online giving for 2015 went up steeply (by 52 percent over last year) as both the public and charities increasingly adopt the event. Blackbaud processed just under $40 million in donations on that single day.
• Finally, longtime observer of online fundraising trends Michael Stein commented on TechSoup's bold prediction on crowdfunding: "I'm observing how crowd-fundraising which also goes by the terms peer-to-peer fundraising and friend-raising has gained a strong foothold for fundraising campaigns. In 2015, I saw steady growth in the use of these platforms by fundraisers at public and private schools, small and mid-size charities, and community-based projects. The platforms I see used a lot include GoFundMe, CrowdCrux, Causes, Indiegogo, and One World Play Project."

Mobile

Nearly two-thirds of Americans own a smartphone; even the poorest of our poor have access to free cellphones. Christina Bonnington of Wired claimed back in February that in less than two years, a smartphone could be your only computer. Meanwhile, Emily Peck of The Huffington Post spotted a trend in July that a number of high-profile executives, celebrities, and politicians have been reverting to old school flip phones to deal with their cellphone addiction. What else happened in 2015?

• Batteries on phones and tablets got better in 2015 — 8 hours is now common for phones, and nearly 15 hours is now possible with phones like the Huawei Ascend Mate 2.
• Prices dropped on full-featured smartphones like the $180 Motorola Moto G. The thing is even waterproof. Also wireless carrier contracts are on the way out now that we have legal phone unlocking and jailbreaking. Carriers like T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint are all abandoning the two-year contract.
• Passwords became less important (on some mobile devices) with the arrival of fingerprint and biometric security. New phones from Apple, Samsung, Motorola, HTC, Lumia and the rest of the major manufacturers all have biometric security now.
• The previously hot tablet market dramatically cooled off in 2015. If your organization needs tablets, good ones are available at very low cost these days.
• There is one exception. Sales of 2-in-1's have been brisk. The Microsoft Surface Pro Tablets pioneered the 2-in-1 form factor that provides the portability of a tablet with the full functionality of a laptop. All major computer makers have them now.
• Smartphone screens continued to get bigger, but how long can that trend last?
• Mobile payments arrived in earnest with Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay. They all use NFC (near-field communication) technology that allows two devices placed close to each other to securely transfer payment information. This, of course, has big implications for nonprofit fundraising. Already, nearly 10 percent of donations come through mobile devices.

Security and Privacy

Yes. It's not your imagination. Our online security and privacy is getting dicier each year — 2015 was no different. TechSoup donor partner Symantec estimates that nearly a million pieces of malware are released every day.

As usual this year, there was quite a bit of publicity out there on what each of us personally should do to protect our personal privacy and be secure online. We should make our passwords long and strong, keep our software updated, and all the other stuff they list on StaySafeOnline.org.

There's not so much out there about how we can protect our offices. I like Techboomers' post, A Nonprofit's Guide to Antivirus Software and Malicious Program Defense. Another good resource is the FCC Cybersecurity Site for Small Business.

TechSoup's 2015 Top 10 Products from midyear pointed to Symantec Endpoint Protection as our most requested donation. Find information about more of the product donations TechSoup has for keeping the malefactors at bay for your organization.

Adoption of Cloud Services

Adoption of online services went in to a higher gear in 2015. Where software companies lead, we must follow. The majority of our more than 90 donor partners now offer Internet-based software donations and discounts on TechSoup.

Here were our major donated product launches this year (two major ones in the cloud):

• Adobe Creative Cloud — the newest versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and a dizzying array of additional Adobe desktop and mobile apps for a single monthly fee.
• Microsoft Office 2016 and Microsoft Windows 10 — the latest Microsoft flagship products.
• QuickBooks Online Plus — for organizations that need a lean accounting system and reliable online backup for their critical financial data.
• TechSoup Boost — TechSoup's monthly subscription offer for members who want access to special offers, including donated products with no admin fees. Box has been a very popular no-fee donation on Boost.
• Autodesk Design Suites —  State of the art design software for buildings, products, and entertainment animation. This was a very popular launch.
• We had several more product launches in 2015. Find them on our TechSoup Announcements page.

In our 2015 Tech Predictions, TechSoup's Chris Delatorre was prescient that there would be increased interest in online document storage and collaboration. Our new donor partner Box got off to a brisk start. As online data storage costs steadily decline, it made more sense in 2015 for nonprofits to store their data and programs on the Internet. Box is now available through the TechSoup donation programs in 27 countries and has quickly become one of our top 10 donation programs.

Remembering Rick Cohen

One last thing. I'd like to remember the great Nonprofit Quarterly national correspondent, Rick Cohen.

He died on November 16th at the age of 64 of a pulmonary embolism.

The Washington Post remembrance called him the Columbo of the nonprofit world. He was one of our great ones. We'll miss him.

Image 1: TechSoup

Image 2: Motorola

Image 3: Eleanor Cohen

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