What Nonprofits Should Seek in an IT Provider
May 29th, 2018 by admin
While many of the technical needs at nonprofit and for-profit businesses overlap, there are still several key considerations for nonprofits looking for the right IT services provider. Nonprofits' motivations may be driven less by the concept of "spending money to make money" and more toward avoiding unnecessary costs so that the organization can focus more of its time and money on its message.
For nonprofits, working with an IT managed services provider can offer the following advantages:
IT Providers Help Streamline Technology Growth Alongside Nonprofit Growth
In many cases, growing nonprofit organizations struggle with keeping their infrastructure up to capacity to handle increased staff and workloads. Some nonprofits may find it easy to use in-house staff to set up and prepare new devices for new employees, whereas others may find an IT provider's assistance invaluable. Other businesses may find it very difficult to keep their network infrastructure providing reliable performance while the number of employee computers and mobile devices continues to grow. Infrastructure can become overwhelmed as your business introduces more devices. IT service providers can help keep a watchful eye on desktop and network management.
Protecting Nonprofits From Technology Threats
Nonprofits and for-profits alike need to make IT security a priority: Overconfidence in your organization's ability to protect itself and recover from cyber-attacks can be a major security threat in itself.
Though similar to for-profit businesses, nonprofits place a little less emphasis on targeted attacks because nonprofits aren't as likely to be working with the same level of financial assets or confidential information. However, desktop management, which involves keeping security software running and all applications patched, can easily fall behind if on-site staff doesn't actively monitor it.
IT services can ensure a nonprofit's computers are strongly protected from threats.
Additionally, hiring an IT services provider for help with disaster recovery and backup can help your business avoid otherwise catastrophic situations. Proper backup practices require continuous diligent work to minimize loss from events such as hardware failure and ransomware attacks. For nonprofits, it can be invaluable knowing backups are completed correctly without having to worry about it. Losing an hour's work by restoring data from a backup is a much more desirable prospect than losing entire projects.
Budgeting and Cost-Saving Help for Nonprofits
IT providers can also help nonprofits both stabilize and lower their budgets for IT expenses. Additionally, IT providers can work with nonprofits to only provide needed services and keep as many services in-house as the nonprofit desires. Nonprofits may pay extra attention to keeping overhead costs down, so outsourcing expensive, infrequently used services can bring in huge savings. Additionally, IT providers can offer a flat-fee subscription-based agreement so a nonprofit won't have to deal with as many possible "surprises" when determining its IT budget for labor and capital expenses. For example, a business might look to IT services to cover IT management, implementation, equipment, software, and maintenance while maintaining control of its own in-house help desk and customer service.
The IT providers at ATS can help your Bay Area nonprofit by fulfilling your IT needs at a lower cost. Contact us today to learn more.
Posted in: Managed IT Services