Are Nonprofits Terrible Tech Clients?
I've been at South by Southwest Interactive for the last few days. It's like Hollywood for tech celebrities! I had the chance to sit in on some very interesting and forward-thinking panels, and hear amazing folks like Chris Brogan, Jeremiah Owyang, Tara Hunt, Chris Heuer, and our very own Beth Kanter say some really smart things.
Unfortunately, I missed the session where a panelist said (paraphrasing here) "Nonprofits are a pain to work with." With a little push-back in a private conversation later, the panelist went on to say that the problem was that nonprofits demand more than most clients, while expecting to pay less. In short, we want stuff for free.
Damn right we do!
I'd like to point out that nonprofits have clients, too: the people we help -- our stakeholders, donors, and funders. And they almost always demand that we work, in some sense, for free.
Most funders won't pay admin costs. Donors expect increasingly large percentages of every dollar to go straight to program. We're not supposed to spend money on rent, phones, or, god forbid, computers. We're not supposed to hire the staff that keep our nonprofits humming -- the bookkeepers and admin folks. And we're not supposed to pay very much to anyone.
That's the culture we live in. I don't like it. I wish our culture believed that nonprofits should be well-staffed and have adequate infrastructures. But that's not where we're at right now.
So yeah, we ask for free stuff -- because we're expected to work for free, too.
You statement so very true. It amazing how the non profits are struggling to provide access to technology resources on budgets that don't support their own internal administrative infrastructure. The funding communities should begin to factor in to program budgets the Total Cost of Ownership not only for administrative technology but also for computer access programs. Currently, the only solution that I hear about are to create sustainable programs that use technology for the purpose of creating revenues. Nonprofit have desire to be competitive in the area of technology but lack the ability to apply those cost to program dollars in away that support the technology infrastructure that is required to deliver meaningful services. Thus the technology divides continues to grow larger not only from individuals underserved communties but also for small to medium organizations that working towards socal change. If there is a fundamental belief that social changes begins at the grassroot level, how does this lack of technology due to lack of funds, affect the social change movement???
Holly: What you've described is reality. In some circumstances, when a great service provider has an affinity or the nonprofit's cause and delivers high-quality services on the cheap, it works out. But I've seen plenty of examples when a nonprofit actually hurts itself and its cause by pinching pennies. Service providers have bills to pay and payroll to meet and will tend to throw resources and energies at clients that pay what the services are worth. It's not about whether nonprofits SHOULD ask for stuff for free, it's about whether doing so actually benefits the organization and the communities it serves in the long run. I would argue that in some cases it does not.
Holly,
In all fairness, in the conversation I had with her in private, she did also say that nonprofits were a pain because they were so passionate and she got sucked in ..
I had wanted to get the question out there in the room in public, but so many people asked questions. Anyway, thanks for the great response!
Holly,
I couldn't agree more with this post. I actually think it is time to totally quash the bogus idea that nonprofits are in ANY WAY more difficult, less effective, or less important than our for profit counterparts. The reality is that if we are to actually solve the problems that face our world today, the social sector is where it will happen. Money has value. Peace and love are valuable.
I couldn't agree with you more, Holly. And what always gets to me is that even when an organization has found a way to provide up-to-date technology to an adequately-sized staff and is happy to do so, they are looked at from the "outside" as wasting money or taking away funds from projects, etc. It is unfortunate and one of the incorrect perceptions of nonprofit work that really needs a culture shift in order for more successes to take place in the sector.
I agree, Holly--nonprofit culture, and the external culture in which nonprofits operate--has crazy perceptions of how nonprofits actually work. Aren't we all super-people who can be effective/innovative and get by without general operating funds? Although I think part of this comes from funders and foundation-funding culture, that's only part of the picture. I'm reminded of this every time a peer outside the sector asks, suprised, "Oh, you get PAID to do that?"
Here's to working to reposition the sector and to garnering public support for the work we do. I hope this can be part of our conversations with our staff, board, donors, elected officials, clients, and even those vendors/consultants perplexed by nonprofits need to work on the cheap.