Technology 2.0: Developing A Data Management Platform

By Peter Campbell
Donors and regulators are holding nonprofits far more accountable for information. There are some nearly universal problems, such as your staff spending an inordinate amount of time entering and then locating and formatting information stored in assorted word documents, spreadsheets and databases.

Often donor data is stored in an online database with a complex and limited reporting interface. And the primary tool for communicating your outcomes and accomplishments, your Web site, lacks the substance and statistics that constituents are looking for to really understand and value your contributions.

With the dominance of the Web as a business communication tool, people expect more from your Web site than a mission statement and a donate button. If your technology systems can automate and regulate the flow of information inside and outside of your organization's walls, you can more efficiently and effectively serve your mission.

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Consider that:

• Your constituents are looking for ways to measure your mission delivery effectiveness.
• Anyone can search for grants and funding resources easily with Google. With more competition for funding, making your case depends on your ability to demonstrate how you'll use it.
• Grant funding comes with extensive reporting requirements, and any negotiated overhead needs to be justified and tracked.

In the corporate world, Wal-Mart, Amazon and others have proven that data management is critical to business success. Nonprofits are businesses and they operate in the same economy.

Traditionally, business information has been managed in isolated systems. A lot of system integration is done laboriously, by hand, even for typical tasks like generating payroll and tracking financial donations. To eliminate this wasteful labor and provide a clear window into your operational effectiveness, you need a data management platform. And, you have to have standards for the systems. These systems can be hosted outside of your offices, but you must avoid paying vendors to take your critical business information and lock it in a box.

The big questions that you should be asking when evaluating systems include:

• Is the application based on standards? Even if you aren't familiar with the acronyms, you can no longer afford to buy systems that can't be integrated. SQL, XML, SOAP - these are the key technologies used to integrate data systems.
• Is there an Application Programming Interface (API)? Can you, or a consultant, extend and interface with their application?
• Is there a developer community creating applications that you can share or purchase? Salesforce.com's AppExchange is a great example of an open support community creating the tools you need to work with their application.
• Are you in any way contractually limited in how you can manipulate and access your data? Many vendors will void warrantees if you want to make global updates to your data or integrate data from other systems into their database.

Taking your current data platform and growing it into one that will enable you to reduce duplicative data entry; increase the integrity of your data; and enhance your ability to report on your business. To fully control your information, who it is presented to and how, is a worthwhile pursuit that requires a rigorous adherence to standards. It also requires patience and a willingness to suffer along with some of those bad systems until you can get the good ones.

It isn't easy in what are often cash-strapped environments. But the pay off is success and survival. Managing information is one of the key challenges for nonprofits in the 21st century, and one of the most worthwhile strategies to pursue.

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Peter Campbell is a business technology consultant focused on assisting members of the nonprofit/social services community with revenue-generating projects and promoting organizational self-sufficiency. He can be reached via http://techcafeteria.com.

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