Nonprofits, Go Digital Now!
Everyone I meet in the digital space would love to see their work having a positive impact on our environment and social justice. Why?
We all feel that digital has alienated us from real life over the past decades. Those decades were dedicated to enthusiastically push the limits of technology further.
But we forgot to put real people and their needs in the center of attention. That’s one of the reasons why human centered approaches to digital design and innovation have become extremely popular lately.
The fascination for what technology can do has has given way to a fascination for what technology can do to improve life on earth and elsewhere.
To many it’s a revival of pre-digital utopia.
And this time it’s real.
Besides the fact that most of the best digital practitioners out there would love to work for you, these are my to 3 reasons why you should start your digital transformation journey as a nonprofit now.
#1 The Mindset
Interestingly the mindset required for digital innovation and transformation has a lot in common with the one it takes to dedicate yourself to the mission of a nonprofit.
You need to be confident with the fact that you’ll be up against all odds.
Every other skill is worthless if you don’t have humility, courage and empathy.
Creativity is in high demand to solve diverse challenges on a daily basis.
It’s for adventurous and open-minded spirits. You’re always pioneering.
So this is reason #1 why you should go digital as a nonprofit organisation:
You’ve got the attitude.
#2 Embrace Failure, Find Purpose
There’s a lot of discussion of how important it is to embrace failure in digital transformation. The problem for profit-oriented organisations is that they have established a culture based on KPIs and ROI.
How should they measure the value of failure?
To answer this, every organisation has to find its higher purpose. Find the answers to questions like: What are we doing for humanity? What’s our WHY as an organisation?
Especially large corporates struggle to find a mission and vision statement their customers and employees can relate to. As long as organisations are just reframing their business model they must fail at this until they understand a simple truth:
“Profit isn’t a purpose. It’s a result. To have purpose means the things we do are of real value to others.” - Simon Sinek
That’s why Boeing and SpaceX have their Mars race. It’s about extending life on earth to uncharted territory.
Reason #2 why you are at an advantage as a nonprofit when going digital:
You don’t need to find your WHY. That’s what you started with.
#3 Stay relevant
Sustainable business is not about winning or losing. It’s about how to remain relevant. Countless successful multi billion dollar businesses have been disrupted in recent years. Why did they lose the trust of their customers?
Greed? Ignorance? Overweening sense of self-importance? Loss of market share? Growth stagnation?
Again purpose comes into play. Purpose driven organisations do not need to beat or swallow competitors in order to stay in the game. They don’t need to promise an unrealistic return of investment. And disappoint shareholders with poor performance.
While for-profits strive to stay relevant by any means, nonprofits paradoxically do the very contrary. They are realistic about what they can do in the face of the insurmountable challenge they’ve accepted. Then they work hard to make themselves obsolete.
Reason #3 why you should transform digitally with ease as a nonprofit:
Your relevance is beyond question.
Update - the next chapter is a recap on the discussion in the comments section on the article. Tries to answer a question and raise a few more.
But what’s in it for us as a nonprofit?
While nonprofits have a great answer for WHY in the sense of purpose they often don’t see why they should invest in Digital Transformation.
“Even if we could afford it doesn’t mean we should, right?”
“Just because we have a suitable mindset doesn’t mean we have the suitable organisation culture.”
So here it goes.
- Digital is where your future donors reside. The existing fundraising strategies might work well. Now. But even if your purpose will be relevant in 10 years from now, will you be able to reach your community where the are?
- The workplace of the future is digital. Approaches such as office everywhere/anytime are essential to improve efficiency and effectiveness of your operations. New digital tools allow you to develop new ways of working. It is exactly *because* you always want to squeeze everything you possibly can out of your limited budget as a nonprofit.
- "Going digital" is like saying "breathe oxygen". Instead asking “can we afford it?”, you should ask yourself “can we afford NOT to do it?”. How are you going to attract the next generation of digital natives dedicated to your vision?
Isn’t this true for every organisation? It is.
So what about for-profits and nonprofits join forces in this? For-profits could help nonprofits with funding digital innovation and transformation. Nonprofits can help for-profits to find their purpose.
How about developing a learning culture together?
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Readings
Check out these “pure” digital nonprofits: AVAAZ, Ecosia, Pineapple Fund - any you like? Drop me a line in the comments and I add theme here ;-)
Deip (thx Nikolay Syusko)
I move senior leaders from invisible to unstoppable in 6-12 months ?? Master public speaking & strengthen your Leadership Brand | Top Coach | Founder ThrivewithMentoring | Author WanderWomen
6 年Roland Rust thanks for this article. I have launched a non-profit called as Thrivewithmentoring.com which can benefit tremendously from a digital transformation and #frugalinnovation. Would ne fabulous to connect
COO, CIO, CTO, Coach, Trustee, NED - Helping organisations to realise value through change and technology
6 年Very much agree, working with an NFP at the moment and quite right that the WHY? Is already answered... But there is still a need to sometimes reconnect with it, bringing a real clarity to the purpose of the change. It really helps when there is an opportunity to bring beneficiaries who can retell what we do means to them.
Project, Program & PMO Expert | AI Researcher | Digital Content Creator & Instructor | Future-Focused Project Management Strategist & Speaker
6 年Organizations reflects the people that created them and work for them. Life and Earth just can achieve better conditions in the future if people achieve better levels of conscious. In my humble opinion, independent of a company be "for or non-profit", people that work for both must understand that to guarantee better life conditions in the future, they must think more about the others than themselves, so organizations will reflect this. It is not about work for free or all companies work to support social causes. It is about people around the world thinking how to better live using the tools that we have availabe nowadays to promote a better future. Each one can make part of this moviment independent of the hat that they are using in a certain moment. As customers, as professionals, as volunteers that we can be in different moments of our lives, we have the obligation to save the world. Organizations, Processes and Technology are just ways that we use to sustain life, since the beggining of our civilization and are being improved era after era, but People's essence are always the same. The big challenge that we are living nowadays is that People must be improved. Training and Education is the key!
Driving Revenue, Scaling Businesses & Building High-Performing Teams ? Sales Leadership ? Business Growth | Operational Excellence ? Husband ? Father of 4 ? INFJ
6 年#3, yes!