Technology Grantmaking Toolkit: Practical tools for technology grantmaking in Canada's voluntary sector

5. Strategic technology plans for organizations

Objective: Give not-for-profit managers a practical framework for developing a strategic technology plan for their organization. Help funders understand what to look for in a technology plan.

Measure twice, cut once

Given the importance of technology in today's not-for-profit organizations, it is surprising that technology planning is not more common. A technology plan helps organizations identify their organizational communications needs, map appropriate technology tools onto those needs, and identify the resources they will need to transform vision into reality. In addition, a well-written technology plan helps organizations clearly communicate their technology needs to foundations, donors and the consultants or intermediary organizations that will help them fund and implement their technology vision.

Planning technology projects may seem intimidating at first, but the process is quite similar to other voluntary sector program planning processes. Successful technology plans will generally contain the following elements:

• A broad statement mapping technology needs against an organization's overall strategic plan
  
• An assessment of the organization’s current situation
  
• A description of needs and strategies in main areas of technology activity – basic infrastructure, technical support and training, web and online, strategic tech projects
  
• Estimates of the resources required to maintain basic systems and support, and implement strategic tech initiatives

A strategic technology plan is not a “cookbook,” documenting every detail of implementation. Technology changes quickly. The amount of time necessary to research and write down-to-the-part-number detailed technology plans often makes these plans obsolete by the time the organization is ready to implement them. We recommend keeping the plan as simple as possible, using it as a guide and framework for regular technology decision making rather than a prescriptive roadmap.

What's provided below is a description of what should go into a simple organizational technology plan. Links to more complex and comprehensive planning frameworks are included at the end of this chapter for organizations that believe they need more than a simple plan.

Note: A template for writing an organizational technology plan is available on the IMPACS website, and will also be posted on the VSI website. See: http://www.impacs.org/index.cfm?group_ID=2932

Connecting up to your strategic plan

As a starting point, a technology plan should look at the technology implications of an organization's overall strategic or program plan.

Obviously, an organization needs basic technology infrastructure in place in order to function. But what technology systems and support are required beyond this? An easy way to find out is to write out a list of major goals and objectives from your strategic plan and then ask: could technology help with this? This table provides an example of what you might write out:

As this information will provide a framework that will guide you as you fill in other sections of the plan, it is worth broadly consulting with others to gather input on connections between your strategic plan and technology systems. Board members, people from critical program areas, people from satellite offices, volunteers, consultants and program recipients may all have something to offer here.

Technology assessment

A technology plan should also include information about the current state of an organization’s technology. A simple way to prepare this sort of assessment is to run through the 'probes' outlined above in section three of this document:

• How frequently does the organization back up data?
  
• Does the organization have a high speed Internet connection shared by all staff?
  
• Does the organization have a process to ensure that database content is kept current?
  
• Can all necessary staff update and add content to your organization’s web site? How?

Other questions that you may also want to ask include...

• Does the organization have anti-virus software installed on all computers that is automatically updated?
  
• Does the organization have someone on staff or a paid consultant who performs regular maintenance on the technical infrastructure of the organization?
  
• What technology training is made available to staff and volunteers?

The answers to these questions will help to identify areas of strength as well as technology gaps. The plan itself should detail these strong points and gaps, with the idea that other sections of the plan will be focused on filling gaps.

Basic infrastructure

A technology plan should include information enumerating an organization’s everyday infrastructure needs – reliable computers, networks, software and support. These systems comprise the 'communications plumbing' that is as essential to an organization’s smooth functioning as telephones, copiers and fax machines.

Focused around issues like number of staff and office locations, an infrastructure plan should answer questions like:

• How many staff need full-time computer access? How many additional computers are needed for part-time staff and volunteer computer access?
  
• How many existing computers are more than three years old? More than two years old?
  
• How many locations does the organization have? Do all locations have a LAN, a printer and high speed Internet access?
  
• Are there areas where software upgrades and replacements are needed?
  
• What is the plan for providing technical support for staff and volunteers?

The main purpose of an infrastructure plan is to help an organization determine how much to budget for maintaining and upgrading its basic technology infrastructure (see later in this chapter). The information collected and gleaned from this level of planning is critical in annual budgeting and can be incorporated into fundraising proposals.

Basic technology infrastructure plans also help organizations think proactively about upgrading and replacing their technology systems before costly and disruptive meltdowns occur. As a rule, computers and the software they run should be replaced every three years.

Training and support

Technology systems are only effective to the degree that voluntary sector staff know how to use them to maximum advantage. Voluntary sector organizations tend to chronically under-invest in developing the technology skills of their staff members. The best way to reverse this pattern is to document training needs and then to allocate the budget necessary to address these needs. With this in mind, the training section of your plan should address challenges like:

• Providing ongoing training to deal with turnover of staff and volunteers.
  
• Defining baseline technology skill sets and a method for ensuring that relevant staff and volunteers have these skills.
  
• Creating a process for writing technology training objectives into staff members’ personal development plans or other annual planning/evaluation processes.
  
• Accommodating different learning styles by offering access to different kinds of training – mentoring, mini-classes, formal classroom training, self-paced online training. Most kinds of training can be found from outside training providers, which keep costs low and quality high.
  
• Promoting just-in-time learning by keeping a collection of up to date reference books and offering staff and volunteers a collection of technical support bookmarks that provide useful reference material.

It is important to remember that all training takes time and money. Training costs should be included in the technology plan budget, either as a standalone item or as a part of the TCO calculation.

Web and online

Most voluntary organizations now use web sites and other online tools to communicate with clients, volunteers and others. A technology plan should articulate both the baseline functions that the web site has and future plans for upgrades and promotion. Specific questions to answer include:

• Who does the organization's web site serve? What information and services are they seeking on the web site?
  
• What are the baseline functions needed to meet the needs of these audiences (e.g. a calendar of workshop dates or an e-newsletter)?
  
• What new features and functions need to be added to the web site in order to meet objectives outlined in the strategic tech goals section of the plan?
  
• What methods are used to regularly market and promote the web site?

Unlike infrastructure and training, the budget for an organization's web site should NOT be included as a part of TCO. Online communications should have its own line item (and possibly a number of sub line items) in the technology plan budget. The web site budget should include money for hosting, a webmaster (even if part-time), upgrades and marketing.

Strategic tech projects

As outlined in the next chapter of this toolkit, strategic technology projects such as a new online service for clients or a campaign to recruit more members online, should have their own technology plan and budget. This said, it is worthwhile to mention these projects in an organizations overall tech plan. All that is really needed is a short bullet list or table listing the strategic tech projects that are planned. High level budgets for these projects should also be included in the overall technology plan budget.

Budgeting and action planning

A technology plan should conclude with budget and action planning sections. The budget need not be complex. At the most basic level, a simple budget needs to include:

• Yearly infrastructure and training budget based on TCO calculation (e.g. number of workstations x $250/month x 12).
  
• Yearly web site budget including hosting, webmaster, upgrades and marketing.
  
• Rough budget estimates for any strategic technology projects that are planned.

In addition to the budget, a rough action plan outlining major milestones and deadlines should be included in the plan. This action plan can be used by managers and board members to check in on progress against the action plan.

Making it happen

As the information above indicates, creating a technology plan need not be a complex affair. It is just a matter of asking the right questions about your organization's tech needs, documenting the answers and making the appropriate budget allocations. Ideally, this process should be done every two to three years, with the plan working as a rough framework for technology decision making during the period that it is in place. The easiest way to deal with renewing a technology plan is to tie it into your organization’s regular strategic planning cycle.