 Good morning everyone and Karen Welcome to this week's Very exciting techsuit connect Just before we before we start today. I have some compulsory slides that I must share with you Which just talk about what techsuit connect is all about so Let's share my screen and just go through this thing So welcome to the South Australia and NT chapter of techsuit connect We So Kat and I are your local techsuit connect event organisers In case I haven't said techsuit enough you'll notice that this is a program of techsuit Techsuit is a Non-profit that helps other nonprofits get implement and use technology effectively And techsuit connect is a global meetup of tech for good global network of tech good meetups So the idea is connecting the IT and the digital sector with the nonprofit sector to try and Get good social outcomes for all The techsuit connect global network is truly global. We have 128 cities in 41 countries Different sort of engagement rates in all of those groups, but A definite global network and if you've been on to our Facebook page You'll notice that our our lead Eli occasionally shares These sessions from other groups Just to try and share some some global knowledge So the values here at Techsuit connect we welcome everyone we put community first So we're here to support each other We build stronger nonprofits and technology is one of the tools that we use to do that We invite participation and we believe everyone has something to learn and Something that they can teach and contribute and we also treat each other with kindness and respect We always are on the lookout for people to help with Techsuit connect whether that's helping us run events Whether it's helping us promote the events to boost your tenants over time Whether it's the welcoming cruise. So this very important job that I'm doing right now Anyone can plan an event Just message the message the Facebook page or reach out to Kat and I and we'd be happy to take on volunteers Now in Australia if you haven't heard of Techsuit You might have heard of connecting up connecting up is essentially the the Techsuit partner or the Techsuit agent in Australia and The program that Techsuit and connecting up the most well known for is their technology donation discount program Which is part of what we're going to be talking about today It's about being able to get technology through Donations from these tea providers Rather than paying for retail whack for your software Which is one of the ways that we can extend your budget quite a bit further Now if you need any technology help in between these Techsuit connect events you can jump on forums. Techsuit.org And find answers to pretty much any digital type question And that's an international audience. They have a lot of a lot of US centric organizations The sponsors for this chapter of Techsuit connect are refuel creative Which is my business and create your change, which is Kat's business Okay, so today's guest really important guest today is us. Um, it's us And When we were planning out the the schedule for the year We felt like getting into tax time was a really good time to to start to look at a topic like this and I found historically that lots of nonprofits kind of don't know what normal is And they would and they need a bit of a guide on what normal is and What they should be looking at So I have some slides that I've got from Talking about some case studies But I think if we can start with opening up any questions that you might have If we can start to fill up the the chat and the the Q&A so we can get a bit of an idea of What you're looking to get answered today Um, I'll just start my slides again anything else you want to cover before I get into it. Okay Nope, I'm good to jump in especially to answer any questions that may be coming up. Awesome. All right so So let's talk about your IT budget in non-profit not-for-profit And in particular how we can look to leverage Different programs that are available to benefit your organization So we have some common IT problems that most nonprofits have There's some reasons why things have changed and why we're talking about how we can lower our cost of ownership over our technology We'll talk a little bit about software and systems that are very common computers and hardware Even your IT support and then a couple of case studies moving forward So What is your problem? I'm gonna ask Ask those on the call, but these are the these are the common issues that we find when we talk to nonprofits Um cost is generally the biggest issue that comes across Um, but people have issues with computers. They have issues with With backups or they have issues with backups that they don't know that they have until they go use the backups Yeah downtime Even IT support Most nonprofits don't have the luxury of having in-house IT Um, and even those that do have in-house IT Depending on the size of the organization quickly find that The in-house IT runs out of capacity So these are the most common issues that we've encountered over time But feel free to let us know if you've got any others that you want to chat about so Let's talk about what's new here and what's what's changing with budgets So, um There is new technology that's available to help with the cost effectiveness Of our technology. So the biggest thing there is a lot of this pay per user type licensing So that allows us to scale our pricing up and down to suit our funding agreements So if you have a program that, um It comes to the end the staff's contracts have come to an end You're not stuck with this investment in additional licenses that you need for those people We can drop those costs back down until we get a new funding agreement and we can boost that back up Can I ask a question Ryan? Sure So I know a lot of programs have gone to like a cloud based format and want a monthly subscription For example, say microsoft office, okay um What is the benefit of have having an ongoing subscription versus just buying the program outright? So say spending three hundred dollars for the program versus 39 dollars a month So the the big difference is the the capital investment So three hundred dollars for a single license of office isn't really that bad And then we're going to talk about how you can get it for less than that later But if you had to buy a hundred licenses at three hundred dollars ahead That's a very large capital expense So if you have the option of paying that as a As a one-off you may or may not have the The funds do that So if the options they've presented to you that you could buy those hundred licenses at two dollars a month That becomes a lot more affordable for those organizations Is I know people have asked me about that in the past and Had the feeling it's like, okay, you know, I understand that it may be Less in the short term, but after a certain point it actually costs more than buying it outright That's definitely true But if you look at if you look at it from the perspective of an organization that does Let's say an IT upgrade every five years So In the in the first two or three years, they're getting their software updates on their software and You know, they're getting Two years is about the tipping point. So if you if you obtain Microsoft Office as a donation through Connecting Art And you paid let's say 50 dollars ahead for your license um And then you looked at the cost of buying it through The Microsoft Office 365 nonprofits program Two years is a basically the amount of time you need to get payback So if you're one of those organizations that keeps their licenses for two years The cost model is pretty much the same Okay, thank you. There is there is some flexibility for the individual users You know the office online licenses are Multi-device for each user So they can put it on their tablet. They can put it on their home computer and things like that um, but in terms of The the licenses through Connecting Art their paid device and they have to sit on the device um But the big thing that we find is if you're an organization that holds your licenses for longer than that You will achieve cost savings from buying the licenses outright But that comes at the cost of productivity Um, because you end up being on a You're you're basically a version behind on office at that point. Right. Okay. You're not necessarily getting the updates You should if you're not doing your um, if you're not doing your it upgrades every Three years you're going to start to find that performances has decreased the um people that are Using your computers are less efficient and effective So you're losing money in all these other ways Um, and that brings me to my second point there about decreasing downtime Um, if you've got one of those it environments that's lumbering along and it's you know, four years old You probably are experiencing quite a bit more downtime than you otherwise would Um, so the the paper user model we find You know, there's there's productivity benefits There's feature benefits which increase staff collaboration and productivity Um, but it's just that capital investment Um, you know, some organizations might have got a grant so that they could put a new server in And they got this whiz bang flash $25,000 server Um, but then when it comes to three years later in that server's end of life The organization may not have the same funding that they had at the time So they can't afford or they've got less staff. So they can't afford to replace that server Um, so moving to the cloud makes a lot more sense there You know, and then um, the new technology la enabling increased staff collaboration and productivity. It's really empowering what we're talking about here in terms of Before we started the recording we were talking about work from home and Um, you know flexible options to to work in different locations Um, there's lots of different opportunities to do that. I um On cloud type technology um, so that's I guess the The new technology that's available that helps us to decrease those costs Um, but off the back of that as well. There's also new it support models that have become available um, you know, some of us are used to having the the it provider that comes in and they do a Um, you know, it's an hour here or an hour there Um, or they they're charging you in your 15 minute blocks And when you're on that kind of it support model people get worried about whether they can or can't ring the it provider You know, can we afford to do this? You know, we haven't budgeted for this ad hoc issue um So these new support models are more around like per user or per device based it support So um, the the principle is You you might pay $50 per user per month For your it support which might seem might seem like a bit of a bit of money But it's basically a guaranteed amount that you're spending every month Knowing that that provider is maintaining your environment Um, and basically if the it provider is doing their maintenance Correctly, and they're keeping your Your system well maintained They may not have to do very much work every month Um, if they're not doing a good job Um, then you're probably on the phone constantly to them and they'll be losing a lot of money out of the out of the deal So it's it's kind of it's a win-win for both parties because They have a they have a vested interest in making sure your environment is as good as possible But you also know that you're not going to have any Budget surprises along the way It's sort of like it insurance almost. Yeah, absolutely Um, that's a that's a good way to do that. I'm gonna steal that And so and then the the other thing there is that there's substantial cost savings to be had So you can get a lot of your technology as donations There's a lot of it providers or a lot of software companies now that providing discounts as well Um, almost everybody provides some form of non-profit Donation discount or incentive All you've got to do is ask so Let's look at The alternatives to your server So the two most common or alternatives here are Microsoft Office 365 and Google G suite and If we look at this in terms of what has the most usage in nonprofits Office 365 has been the the favorite in the nonprofit world And the reason for that is simply my fifth dot point there about the data stored in Australia And that provides a lot of a lot of certainty and reassurance to a lot of organizations Um, but if you look at the storage limits office 365 also gives you more storage Um, and we generally find that if you're transitioning from Office desktop apps Then office 365 is a bit more familiar to users as well Now is G suite the same as google workspace? Uh, yeah Because I think yeah, I think they just updated the Yeah, but they're still both names are still out there at the moment. So we'll use both Um The feature set is very similar I think the the biggest difference to me other than the data being stored in Australia is That microsoft office if you use the pro plus add-on You get a copy of the desktop version of office Um, which is all connected in with the cloud and all pretty handy Um, but using that desktop license gives you a bit more familiarity Um, and I gotta say a hundred percent of the nonprofits that we've worked with have used pro plus to Keep that desktop that familiar desktop usage Um, google is great and google is what we use here at refill um But it doesn't have that same familiarity in terms of the desktop software But as you'll see there both of them are available for free as donations from microsoft or google respectively Um, and then microsoft have got some paid upgrades that you can do Google are the same they've got some paid upgrades, but most organizations have got google Haven't felt the need to pay for those updates Yeah, I think for a non-profit just straight up doing it is like six dollars a month per user For what? For google for google workspace I actually just transitioned to that with my business and i'm still trying to figure out how to get it all set up And I think it's like six dollars a month. Yeah, it's eight dollars eight dollars a month now thing um, and we are on the The business plan so we get unlimited storage But in turn in exchange we pay 17 dollars a user a month Yeah, um, yeah, I'm just me so it's an whole I get to me I think if if I had to um If I could get both of these for free, I'd probably be using officer six five Yeah, um, but since we have to pay We went down google route Yeah, and just want to check in and make sure that people remember if you have any questions Feel free to put them in the chat and we are happy to answer those as we go along And so these here really see them as being alternatives to your your traditional in-house server So traditionally your server in the in the dark and dingy room in the back of the office Um, does your email it does your file storage? Um, and you know it might do a couple of other apps that you're using Whereas these are basically taking that same load off But they're taking care of the the backups and the data storage They're providing you with all of that space for for free, which is a definitely a big win So and if we look at products donations and discounts now I've talked about connecting up here Um, both cat and I both used to work for connecting up back in the day Um connecting up as a non-profit they run donation programs And as a non-profit they essentially run as a social enterprise So when you get a software donation from them They charge you a small administration fee on that donation program to make sure that that's sustainable um The uh, the software is all new software. Um, you know, it's not secondhand It's not old versions or anything Anything obtuse. It's the the current versions and all up to date Um, and they also do new and refurbished computer and networking hardware, which will help you Lower the um cost of new hardware if you need to um With larger organizations though Um, what we've typically found is the larger organizations have a bit more buying power Um, and you might find that you actually don't you can get things new hardware. You can get cheaper through Your vendor are pretty much the same price as connecting up So definitely shop around a little bit. Um And see what you need But the other thing is vendors direct so cloud software providers will often give discounts Um, we have a big list that's coming soon to our blog um, but generally just ask the question um There's an enormous number of providers that if you ask the question they will provide something Even if they don't have an official donation program Um, for example, we do a lot of work with HubSpot. They don't have a nonprofit program um, but we're always able to To leverage our relationships with HubSpot to get the main nonprofit price on that Now does vendors direct only do non-profit stuff? So vendors when I say vendors direct I mean going direct to somebody like Hootsuite or HubSpot or refuel or You know, whoever it might be um And you can always just do a google search and to come up with the list that we've got coming out I've literally just done a bit of a dive around. So what do they use? Okay, I don't know nonprofits use mailchimp. So Let's do a google and find out if we can you know get a mailchimp nonprofit discount. Yeah Okay, thank you And Karen's all over that look at her that she loves asking for discounts Um, you know, a lot of these providers actually love Providing the discount seeing how the nonprofits and and how their systems are used for social good. So It's definitely no issue with doing that Yeah, it makes them look good. Plus. I think they get attacked right off for it too. Oh, I'm sure I'm sure they get something Yeah, it's a win on all sides So just as a bit of an example here. I wanted to show some common product examples Um Comparing what you would pay retail for some of these programs versus what you would get as an nfp rate Um, and so if we look at something like office 365 So the we mentioned before that that was zero dollars But if you had to buy that retail the same plans about 32 dollars a month Um windows 10 pro to 50 dollars retail Through the nonprofit program. You can get that for about 18 you know the Example cat gate before with office. That's about 200 retail 38 non-profit and so we often find that organizations like if they don't know that these programs exist They will go to like antivirus is a really good one a small organization go to office works and buy the one for 100 dollars Um through the nonprofit program. They can get that for six Um, so you can see there like if the savings stack up very, um It's asked Zero there actually has nothing to do with connecting up Um, but I put that in there just to demonstrate that as a as a third party vendor. I guess They do provide a special price for nonprofits Um, and they basically got a 25 percent discount For your nonprofit Um, so though that Chart there that um table there basically covers what most organizations would be after to get started um, and then Yes, that discount is for all versions can Um, even the the big good ones Um, they've got a uh zero for an on profits page on their website. You can ask from them So if you can get that kind of saving some of those are per month some of those are per user You know, it changes your it budgets quite dramatically and significantly decreases what you're spending on your it You know and as some examples of other providers that are providing discounts Offer do 50 off which is social media tool Um campaign monitor offer 15 off their email tools Canva do a free work account? Um, so you can have multiple staff in there and you can have people making the social um, the social assets in canva Um, survey monkey, which is very popular is 25 off um, facebook workplace Um, you know, there's a whole range of different discounts available out there for different purposes Um, particularly with your social media and your marketing people as well Yeah, I I know what you're saying there on hootsuite 50 can still be very expensive for more than three users Um, there are other providers out there. So sprout social do a non-profit discount as well I don't know what that is off the top of my head, but they do do one um buffer is potentially a good option, but it's not quite as good at listening as Uh hootsuite But yeah, it's uh, it's a tough pill to swallow, but there are a few other alternatives out there. So it's about Doing some research and seeing seeing what you can find that might fit the bill Particularly with the cloud though with most of these providers, they'll do a Free trial anyway, you know seven fourteen thirty days, whatever it might be So you can give it a go and see if it works for your organization all right um We'll come back to software if we've got any other questions. I want to talk briefly about technical support And this is what I was talking about before with with the new models and the old models So the old model might have been an hourly rate for a lot of organizations. It was an hourly rate So you pay for what you use But really if you think about it the it company has no incentive to fix the root cause of the issue If they do fix the issue They will basically earn less money for for doing that um, but you also get your budgets to blow out because all of a sudden a Server issue happens when you least expect it that causes massive problems for your organization So this is what I talk about that new model where I've kind of called it all you can eat Because it's kind of the whole, you know, when I was a kid we used to go to Sizzler And that was the best thing ever because I had the Sizzler brand Um, and it was all you could eat So basically it's a fixed price per user per month and your users can call as much as they like with most of these providers So that actively incentivizes the it company to keep things running smoothly because they don't want you calling all the time You know, you don't want to be calling all the time either because you want to know that you don't have to Um, but you've got budget certainty. You know that you're spending For a 10 a 10 user organization. You might be spending 500 dollars a month on IT support If you call that twice, it's probably basically the same amount as you would be paying an hourly model Um, but you know that you've got that IT provider doing your updates for any systems making sure that you're all good All right, their their success and their financial viability of your relationship is based around them providing a A good environment for you to work in So I want to talk about a couple of case studies now just looking at old models versus new models and how they work so Let's look at a the small community organization So let's say that community organization is volunteer based Um, they don't have very many resources They're probably using some free gmail accounts Which is which is fine But then when that person leaves as a volunteer, no one knows the password and everybody loses access to the email Um, they don't have any organization computers. The staff will use their own Which is great until something terrible happens Um, and there's no file storage for volunteers on the committee. They just use their own computers and they do that that way Um, now this is a very very common environment And I worked with an organization last year that was in exactly this boat Um, and unfortunately the person who was there it committee members slash volunteer passed away certainly Um, and he was using all his own computers um He had all he was the only person with all the passwords Um, and this became a huge issue for the organization to try and take back Ownership of their data and and be able to use things accordingly So Let's talk about how we so we did this with that organization um We implemented office 365 enterprise e1 plan. So the free plan They used email and SharePoint for that example Um, they had some training with their staff Um, and then after that they actually didn't need any support for a period of time So they just didn't opt for they weren't large enough to opt for the support model So basically that that cost them $1,200 to move to office 365 And then to get the training in that But that's a once-off cost and then ongoing. They've actually got no costs And they're a small enough organization that their support requirements were were non-existent And that's a really common scenario with organizations moving to the cloud We're kind of emphasizing the fact here that you can still get it to support There are different models that you can get it support through But we find that a lot of organizations will hire dramatically less support once they move to the cloud Because microsoft are doing the maintenance on your your office 365 servers Microsoft are doing the security patching and the updates on your your email server So it definitely does change that conversation quite dramatically Now let's talk about the northern territory council of social service Um So they came to us with a bit of a problem their their it costs were escalating and really they didn't know why The it provider hadn't properly explained to them why the costs were increasing Um, but they had a remote server type environment that they they had with their it provider um And they also the northern territory council social service have a darlin office and an ala springs office So the ala springs office had really poor connectivity to the server in darlin um, and so there was high Degree of dissatisfaction with the environment ala springs Um, so really the organization wanted to do something about Uh Now um in the case of antique cost they did a office 365 readiness assessment with connecting up an influx change Um In their case they had no internal it management resources So I agreed to To be their contract it manager to oversee the project and help them get to the other side But Refuel credit is not a not an it provider by any stretch of the imagination Um, but I really liked the organization and had the knowledge to help them. So decided to do it Uh, the it provider implemented office 365 enterprise e1 uh and transitioned them from a uh a hourly model with a server and server management To an all-you-can-eat model And because the organization wanted to maintain that link with the it provider the it provider was quite negotiable in that process They handled the migrations. So they got some work out of that Um, new computers were purchased where where required there were a few that weren't required but most of them were And then the organization had office 365 and windows 10 training And change management so they could properly use the new environment Now this process in the end from start to finish probably took about three months including planning implementation and training and change management So let's have a look at the it budget here. So in this case, they had a remote desktop server Malpain Server 16 grand a year for that Um, they moved to office 365. So no costs their it provider was using trend of $1,000 a year at the retail rate Um, and we switched them over to nought internet security through the connecting up program for $34 And then finally the it support so they'll paint $18,000 a year for an hourly rate model of it support which was actually A lot of that $18,000 was spent on issues with the remote desktop environment So that remote desktop environment was expensive to start with but then the additional support requirements were huge um So afterwards their user model was five and a half thousand per year So their it costs going through this process dropped from 38,000 a year to five and a half thousand a year Wow So they saved $33,000 in the first year Wow Now that's that's a huge saving but when you think about that saving um, one of the one of the things that a lot of organizations have said to me Well, okay, that's great. But how much does that actually cost to do that? So you can see down the bottom there. They went through the entire process with their migration their training their new computers their monitors And we did buy office standard at that point So we bought retail and we bought nonprofit copies for each computer So there was um, 12 and a half thousand dollars worth of once off costs um Required to save 30 33 thousand dollars a year So it they got payback in four months So for them they were absolutely ecstatic um and that environment also But just with even with the the per user model of support We we simply got to a point where They questioned whether they even needed it because they weren't using it um, which is which is actually a great A great place to be in um So they've managed to get that biggest saving on the rotating environment and they're still considering what to what to drop back further So even though the the cost of doing like a 12 000 upgrade might seem like a lot that money's already been spent over the course of a financial year um And in a lot of cases that money would be saved over the course of the financial year the same financial year that you're doing the upgrade So it's actually not as expensive a process as it might look like So the outcome here like I said limited use of IT support They had very very few support calls once the initial migration was complete And they had their training and they had no idea of what was going on um Significantly increased uptime and collaboration. So there were no server disconnections which meant that the team were able to To get more involved And they had real-time document editing which is a massive saving for policy work reporting Any document where multiple people in the organization would be working on it? Um, obviously the significant cost savings. That's huge Um, and then the additional the improved scalability. So if the organization gets more funding They're able to add staff at a little to no cost um So they're able to grow a lot better than they otherwise would be And there is a question. How was the training delivered? So in this case the training was delivered face-to-face um Even though they were in two different cities They took this as an opportunity to piggyback off of Other planning meetings that they would usually have So everybody was in Darwin for the week and we did the training face-to-face These days, um, if I'm delivering training for this kind of thing Most of it would actually be over zoom um, and I actually prefer doing it over zoom because at the end of the training We can provide the organization with a recording You've actually got a function in office 365 called office 365 video You can put your recording in there for new staff um, because new staff are the ones that really need to be across How the system works? um Yeah, I so Karen, I reckon my next case study might actually resonate with you because if you're migrating to SharePoint There is going to be some change management and support or some support required there um In the first case what we would really need to do is understand How you want people to be using SharePoint because it's a very flexible system that way And then once you've worked out how you want people to use it then we can train the The rest of the team in in how to do that Um, which brings me to my next example. So the YWCA of Darwin um, this This organization was across about six offices, but they had their server in one office Their internet connections were woeful The phone system existed in one office, but not in any of the others um, the IT was very dysfunctional and So dysfunctional that they did a survey of their staff to work out what the biggest Satisfaction dissatisfaction was in the day-to-day work at YWCA, you know where they where they've been paid enough was a Clients they're working with whatever it was And all of them the majority of them rated the IT problems as being a higher priority than their pay packets um They had a server due for replacement. They had a large capital expense required to do that So they knew that they they weren't sure they wanted to do that um, their IT support was it was ad hoc the costs were just going up by the day um Because they were an organization with about 80 staff Um, they were having 30 hours of staff downtime per day across that 80 staff They have people in 24 hour offices. So 30 hours per day You know, if you can fix that and give an additional 30 hours of productivity into the organization per day, that makes a huge impact Uh, and they knew that there was a problem and they really needed a solution badly so They did an IT audit Uh, and then looked at an implementation of the audit recommendations Um, and this case study is a little bit self-serving because I did the IT audit Um, but I think that the case studies still sound So they transitioned to a new IT provider who had an all you could eat types of support model Um, that new IT provider did the server migration So move them over to office 365 share point And in their case we use as your active directory as well Just to make sure that they could log into all the computers and and passwords were centralized They had new computers deployed across the organization shared computers with desktops and Managers computers were laptops The entire organization in shifts had office 365 training So we would do a half day at one office with half the staff And then the second half of the day we would do with the other half of the staff So they would basically roll that over And then significant internet upgrades in every office. So every office went with Telstra managed nbn Um, so that we could start to implement the phone systems across the organization now If you've been shopping for it components recently This probably looks quite expensive Um, and it kind of is But first thing is they had no more downtime after they did this this project And using office 365 They were able to sync their documents and if the internet went down the staff could still work Whereas the old environment if they weren't in the main If they weren't in the office with the server Which was actually in one of the officers with the least amount of staff Um, they couldn't work at all The staff of satisfaction with the IT went up quite dramatically And they had a lot more budget certainty because they knew How much they were going to be spending on IT every every year Now I haven't really talked about how much this project cost because They didn't want me to Um, and it also was quite an expensive Project just due to the sheer number of staff Um, but if you consider that the saving Um It actually came out to being roughly what they would spend in 12 months on IT Um, they replaced every computer at the same time. So they had that spare hardware ready to go um And uh, obviously they saved that 30 hours per day So that's additional resourcing for their their services, which was probably a better outcome Um as part of that So there are a few ways that you can get out to to transition on this journey So the first one we suggest is you just talk to your IT provider if you've got one So ask them about a a flat rate or you could eat style support Um, ask them if they know about the donations that that you can get as a nonprofit Um, and ask them if they've got any experience with Office 365 or G Suite My firm recommendation is if you're happy with your current IT provider Work with them to find a suitable solution Um, sometimes these kind of relationships sour over time because You know, the IT provider is not evolving and not providing the right level of support So we need to kind of adjust it accordingly Get independent advice um The connecting out office 365 readiness assessment through info exchange is a good way to Get a bit of a baseline um The northern territory government offers a business growth program So you can have an in-depth IT audit conducted on site by a A consultant who can assist And my recommendation there, which might sound a little bit self-serving but Always look for a consultant who is not an IT provider Um, and the simple reason for that is I've seen a few audits from people who are IT providers And they recommend a solution that only they can implement You really want a third party that's neutral That's not angling for the business at the end of the at the end of the audit process If you need an IT manager then hire one And I know that that sounds a bit silly, but um You can engage consultants like like us To assist with your project and that doesn't actually have to be as expensive as you might think it is But it's also advantageous in that you've got the expertise you need when you need it Then you just turn it off with no long-term like melodies Um, we also find now increasingly that good IT providers Will offer a virtual cio type role And they are then invested in working with you to get the most out of your IT environment Um, so that can be quite a good model. And that's generally part of your IT management So it's not an additional cost Something definitely that should be asked of the IT provider to see how they can help Um, the other option is a short-term project officer with IT experience Um, so again, that might be a good option for some organizations where they need somebody for a six month contract to walk them through this process or a three month contract um, they get in there they get the job done and um With and after that they they move on to their next contract so I talk about these couple of models more from the perspective of lots of organizations think that an IT manager is beyond their means Um, the one other model that I haven't got on this slide is that some organizations have started hiring shared resourcing IT managers So if you have an IT like if you have an IT manager need and you have a couple of friendly organizations nearby You might actually be able to hire Hire an IT manager that's then shared between three or four organizations You each get you know a day a day and a half a week Um, and that might be a very good model for for some organizations so, I mean That's why that's why I say that you know, it is actually affordable Um, ask for your nonprofit discounts um The project office is a good option because it will take up a lot of the IT person's time this kind of project um at YWCA the IT person was the CEO So it took up a lot of her time um in the case of NT cost they had a um Uh a operations person who it was part of their role Um, but that takes them off of their day to day if they have to focus on this IT process So having somebody who can come in is is beneficial And the same thing with the consultant the cost of the consultant may be justified through the reduced staff time You may also be eligible for a nonprofit discount on that as well all right so Why my last point here before we we move on is um I want to really sort of emphasize here that this can be done Has been done. I've given you two case studies um There is a cost to move like anything, but The return on investment can be had as little as three to six months So you can actually afford to do To do it and to do the costs involved Um, there are huge benefits to be had in terms of cost saving staff satisfaction and staff efficiencies And you can find help to see you through the process You can do it So, um before I hand over to cat, we got any last questions on the IT No, it doesn't look like it Are you for your bit cat? Okay. Well, unfortunately, I don't have pretty slides like Ryan did did because I'm just I ran out of time But I do have some notes to go over I know we're getting close to the end of the time. So I won't take up too much with this but we wanted to Look at not only how to wrap up and set yourself up With software and technology at the end of this financial year But also to have a look at things and see how it's going for next financial year Things like review your mission statement the end of financial year is a really great time to look at What are we doing and what do we want to be doing is our mission statement still current? Does it still reflect the desires and motivations of the organization? Are you documenting your activities in a way that sell your mission? Because the mission statement isn't just something that lives on the website It's a living organism and it needs to grow with your Organization and part of what we do with that mission statement is use that to find people To help support us in what it is that we want to do especially as a not-for-profit Looking at your donor management. Are you creating new relationships? Or are you only supporting and cultivating the current ones? Do you have an idea of who your ideal donor is? If not, can you define them or do you need help doing that? As all businesses and nonprofits technically are a business You need to know who your ideal client is and if you don't know who that is it can be a real struggle to find donations and support A great place to start doing that is with your board What does your board actually? Are the members of the board making donations themselves? Are they networking on your behalf and the behalf of the organization? Are they even hosting networking or fundraising events on behalf of the organization? So how involved are they and how committed are they to living the values of the organization? And then finally looking at marketing Does your marketing efforts reflect your values and mission? Because mission doesn't always equal Financial dominations meaning people don't give money just because they sympathize with what your organization does I mean how many times do we see the Videos and the commercials for the children who are starving in Africa And as much as we sympathize with that and we want to see that end We don't always necessarily instinctively reach for our wallet right that moment So what are those things that you can do that it will connect people to your values and mission? That will make them want to support your organization even more strongly Look at your current outreach efforts Are you currently doing to reach out into the greater community and be part of the greater community? And how do you stand out and stand apart from other similar? Not-for-profit organizations who do similar things to what you do And that comes back to that ideal donor that ideal client In your marketing because the more specific you can get to what you're Doing saying and who you're targeting the more effective your efforts are going to be A few things to keep in mind to look at going forward and To see where are you doing great? Do you feel like you're hitting those targets? Or where could you maybe even use a little bit of help and support? So That's pretty much it from my end of it and we're bringing it in on time So ryan, I don't know if you're still there since we're But just want to make sure if anybody has any other questions That we have that we can answer before we wrap up And otherwise just want to thank everyone for joining us today Hope you found some value and some things that will help you wrap up this financial year and be excited going into next financial year All right. Well, I think Karen looking at the questions. I think we're all good and we're all done But yeah, anything else comes up. Let us know on the facebook page and Make sure you tune in next month We've got a full schedule for the rest of the year. So keep an eye on the page and you know what our topic is next month I don't Well, I'm looking very prepared at the moment Yes, no, not not sure All right, that's okay Keep an eye on the facebook page and you'll find out what the next event is and Um, make sure you register early Yep, definitely Thank you. Actually, um Maximize your impact how evidence-based design can help increase your productivity and well-being while working from home Hey At 4 p.m. On july 14th Okay, great All right. Thank you everyone. We'll see you next time