Technology can be a daunting proposition for nonprofits. The concept of stepping back and looking at the way you’ve traditionally done things, then identifying what you can do better is intimidating — especially if the end of that conversation means incremental investment into the framework of your operation. You owe it to everyone who touches your organization — the employees who execute your processes every day, to your supporters whose assistance allows you to activate your mission, to your community of beneficiaries whose lives are improved by your efforts — to exhaustively examine ANYTHING that can tighten your operations and make your nonprofit more efficient and adaptable.
New and fresh technologies are emerging all the time and can help charitable organizations increase efficiencies, reach a wider audience, and lower overall costs. Much of this work lies in the automation of historically manual processes and workflows — parts of your business procedures that had always been done ‘by hand’ by a member(s) of your staff. Common examples: data entry, trafficking projects through planning-execution-reconciling-analysis workflows, document management, and financial operations.
Embracing these automation resources can help your nonprofit realize greater efficiencies, reduce mistakes caused by human error, give your workers more time to concentrate on other critical tasks, pay your bills (and get paid) more quickly, and reduce expenditures. In fact, a recent Salesforce Nonprofit Trend report found that ‘digitally mature’ organizations (ones that more fully embrace technology-based solutions) are twice as likely to see improvement in efficiency, and four times more likely to achieve their mission goals.
Here’s a deeper dive into all the ways automation can help you run a tighter (and more profitable) ship!
REDUCE MISTAKES CAUSED BY HUMAN ERROR
Humans are imperfect by nature; no one is immune to mistakes, no matter how experienced they may be. Errors result of a number of factors, including: a lack of (or insufficient) task training, pressure, lack of focus, being overloaded with responsibilities, fatigue, or complacency. While mistakes are to be expected, their occurrences are nonetheless frustrating — and can be costly, negatively impacting financial health, legal compliance, and an organization’s short- or long-term reputation. A recent survey of 1,000 participants across varying industries reported that 95% of cybersecurity issues involve human error to some degree….with 43% of these breaches caused by accidental or intentional insider threats, meaning many issues arise from user error instead of sophisticated hacking techniques.
Today’s automation tools are set up to accommodate a more thorough review of all details involved in running your organization. AI-driven algorithms can be leveraged to detect irregularities and abnormalities in your data — things that look like they might be erroneous — and alert your staff to their presence. If your data requires manual entry, automation can minimize errors that occur during the input process, ensuring that details such as stakeholder contact information, vendor names, invoice numbers, dates, amounts, invoice details, and payments are correct.
IMPROVED ORGANIZATIONAL EFFICIENCY
When you identify a way to complete consuming and repetitive administrative tasks that doesn’t take valuable hours away from your hard-working employees, you give them more time and energy to devote to focusing on the wider lens of your mission. Not only can machines perform tasks much faster than humans, but they can also be programmed to operate 24/7 if the project calls for it. When automation is introduced into an operation, the room for error is minimized to practically nothing, as technology is configured to operate within its given ‘rules’ — with no room for deviation. Automation software collects and analyzes data and be specifically programmed to ‘learn’ from human-led processes, giving it a foundation to respond a certain way and adapt accordingly should a similar occurrence happen in the future.
As we devise technology to learn how to increasingly perform automated tasks that have historically required human attention, staff on all levels (leadership, programs, development, marketing, outreach, HR) will be freed up to focus on more important duties as part of their jobs — and find time to work as a team to identify opportunities that can steer their nonprofit to greater success.
ENHANCED DECISION-MAKING
AI-led automation can help charities strategically comprehend their nonprofit environments as well as their audiences’ behaviors and donor preferences, and posture their programming, fundraising and outreach energies accordingly. The takeaways from automated data analytics can be measured in a number of different forms, with an end goal of executing tactics that will optimize their program, communications and fundraising strategies.
One of automation’s most impactful features can be leveraged from a development standpoint to help with donor segmentation — the process of separating your donor base into key subgroups based on commonly-held profiles such as location, age, income level, donation amount, donation frequency, volunteer activity, etc. (Note: only 20-30% of nonprofits adequately segment their donor list.) Armed with this segmented data, your development department can then work in tandem with your marketing department to craft specific messaging tailored to that segment’s unique characteristics. And as any marketing expert will tell you, the more your messaging resonates with the personal values and philosophies of its target audience, the stronger your fundraising results will be.
HEIGHTENED SECURITY & PRIVACY
With cyberattacks trending upward every year (2024 cloud environment intrusions increased by +75% versus PY, and malware activity such as phishing, social engineering, et al made up 75% of detected identity attacks in 2023 — up from 62% in 2021; both stats according to a cybersecurity study by National University), a focus on data privacy and trust is a non-negotiable. Forward-thinking nonprofits are underwriting attack and threat assessments to ensure the trust of its stakeholders and supporters, meaning that organizations of all sizes need to keep their data, networks and systems safe from the risk of undetected threats — and automation is the best protection available. Unlike a human, automation can identify, investigate and remediate an issue within a matter of seconds.
A wide-ranging security automation plan identifies threats to an organization’s security posture — a result of comprehensive security strategies, processes and practices, which enable enterprises to be resilient against evolving security threats. Your automation cybersecurity plan can be applied to repetitive security tasks such as domain blocking, compliance checks, audits, risk assessments, security patch deployment, anti-virus updates, data encryption and identity access management.
With damages that routinely amount in the millions of dollars and the complete wiping out of systems and networks, the risk of cybersecurity threats is not to be taken lightly. According to IBM’s 2023 Global Security Operations Study, companies of all sizes are ignoring up to 1/3 of all security alerts, and are spending a substantial number of hours ‘chasing the wrong dog’ (i.e. investigating false positives). Security automation enables your nonprofit to detect threats more quickly, use built-in AI and its algorithms to weed out false threats, gain sufficient context around the incident, and complete response and remediation to keep your proprietary information protected.
AUTOMATION REDUCES OPERATIONAL COSTS
- Customer Service: AI, machine learning and automated language processing functionality allow your CS activities to proceed largely independent of human interference; AI-powered ‘Welcome! May I help you?’ chatbots is one example that could greet your website visitors
- Marketing: Email campaigns can be automatically populated with content sent through either your CRM or other database programs; pre-populated targeted messages can be sent to segmented parts of your audience based on donor behavior (engagement frequency, giving frequency, average donation amount, and more); and ability to set up your system to send automatic emails after a form is submitted
- Development: Automated payment processing immediately facilitates correct and secure donations, with no labor or paperwork required to complete transactions — with nightly (or in some cases more frequent) automated deposits into the nonprofit’s account; automated processing of marketing-qualified leads to sales-qualified leads in the prospect pipeline; every detail for initiatives such as Raffles, Auctions and Special Events can be managed automatically as well
- Accounting: Invoice, ledger and cashflow reconciliation can save significant hours
- Human Resources: Entire new employee onboarding processes (including required documentation, trainings, and more) and employee review programs can be automated
- Information Technology: The more your processes become automated — whether within the four walls of a physical office or via a VPN network from home/satellite locations, the more hours that free up for everyone in your organization to plan for future projects and continued efficiencies
PAYMENT AUTOMATION: PAY (AND GET PAID) MONEY MORE QUICKLY THAN EVER
If you’d like to talk about your plans for automation and we can help make your nonprofit’s processes more nimble, efficient and secure please drop us a line!