I'm an Executive Director now, so I have a new-found (and acute) understanding of just how complex that role is.

At a small organization like NTEN, a leader has to be ready to do just about everything, from fundraising to janitorial services. I'd been at NTEN for five years before I took the ED job, so I was lucky enough to know what I was doing -- mostly. But there are giant swaths of the job description I've had to learn from scratch.

Fortunately, the technology part wasn't one of them, but I can relate to the nonprofit leaders out there facing crucial decisions about technology everyday, and who have little idea how all this stuff works.

That's why we're so excited about our book, Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Leaders. The book was written by NTEN members for nonprofit leaders struggling to find technology sea-legs.

The book will come out in March 2009. You can pre-order your copy on Amazon or purchase a copy from us for only $30 with your NTC registration, starting next week. We'll drop it in the mail to you when it's released.

Flickr Photo: eszterHow much should you offer a new Help Desk Support Specialist? How many IT staff do organizations your size have, anyway? What are other nonprofits outsourcing when it comes to IT?

NTEN and The Nonprofit Times are making it easy for you to fill the gap between expensive benchmarking services costing thousands of dollars and going it alone. We’re surveying thousands of staff at nonprofits big and small to find out what it takes to make technology work for them and what qualified staff they need. In turn, we'll give you the hard numbers you need to invest in technology.

> Take the Online Survey (it's anonymous!)

If you make technology decisions for your nonprofit, please take this survey. Then pass it on to a colleague! This survey will find out:

Winning Workplaces, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to help small and medium organizations "create great workplaces," is presenting a conference next month -- and NTEN members are invited.

Technology staffing -- along with IT staffing investment benchmarks and strategies for the nonprofit sector -- is one of NTEN's core issues. Our origninal research on the subject is probably what caught the attention of Winning Workplaces: the conference will address issues of employment retention, strategy, and investments unique to smaller organizations.

Because you're a member of NTEN, you're not only invited to attend the October 14th conference in Chicago, you'll also get a $100 discount on registration:

Are you paid what you're worth?

It's an interesting question. I think most of us in the nonprofit sector -- especially on the tech side of things -- know that it wouldn't be too hard to walk out the door and find a higher paying job. But does that mean you aren't being paid what you're worth?

Last week, we had an interesting exchange on the NTEN Discuss list about this and other salary related questions. It  began with a simple ask (paraphrasing here): "My boss wants to pay a network admin $40k a year. That's not reasonable, is it?" This led to a discussion about what tech staff make in nonprofits vs. for profits.

The answer is, as far as I can surmise, about 25-30% less.

Flickr Photo: c2k2eHow much does a nonprofit webmaster make every year? Are nonprofits actually paying to train their IT staff? And is anyone out there actually planning?

In order to shed some light on these questions, NTEN and the Nonprofit Times teamed up to create the Nonprofit IT Staffing Survey. We're pleased to release the second, and final, report from that survey, "Nonprofit IT Staffing: Budgets, Salaries, Training and Planning." This report will tell you what nonprofit IT professionals are earning, how much nonprofits are spending on IT, and how they are supporting IT through training, planning, and evaluation.

> Download the report for free!

Staffing Information Technology is frequently a challenge for nonprofit organizations. Financial resources are typically limited, and hiring managers often feel overwhelmed and under-educated when it comes to IT. Determining where IT should fit into the organization, how many IT staff people are needed, and what those people should be spending their time doing can be difficult decisions.

In order to shed some light on these questions, NTEN and the Nonprofit Times teamed up to create the Nonprofit IT Staffing Survey. The results of this survey will be presented in three parts. The first report, "Nonprofit IT Staffing: Staffing Levels, Recruiting, Retention, and Outsourcing" focuses on the nature of IT staff and departments in nonprofits.

> Download the report for free!

Flickr Photo: jisc_infonetIn your leadership role, have you ever had to:

• Convince your board or leadership to invest in staff or training?
• Try to figure out how much to pay technology staff?
• Determine if your technology spending compares to other organizations like yours?

NTEN and The Nonprofit Times are making it easy for you to fill the gap between expensive benchmarking services costing thousands of dollars, and going it alone. We’re surveying thousands of staff at nonprofits big and small to find out what it takes to make technology work for them and what qualified staff they need. In turn, we want to give you the hard numbers you need to invest in technology.

> Take the Online Survey