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

6. Planning for strategic tech projects

Objective: Give not-for-profit managers a practical framework for developing a strategic technology project plan. Help funders understand what to look for in a proposal or plan of this nature.

A strategic technology project uses computers or the Internet to help address a specific organizational problem or community need. For example, an organization might decide that the best way to improve service to clients is to increase cooperation between different program areas. In order to facilitate this, a single client database shared across the whole organization is needed. Similarly, an organization could be grappling with the fact that it is having a tough time attracting younger volunteers. In response, it has decided that it should increase its use of the Internet because there is evidence that the best medium for reaching youth is the Internet. Both of these are examples of strategic technology projects.

As with any major organizational initiative, strategic technology projects need a sound plan. A plan serves a number of different purposes – documenting the project vision and objectives, generating consensus amongst stakeholders, defining a technical approach, working out a budget. A strategic technology project plan also provides the raw material for funding proposals. In fact, a good plan can often serve as the main body of a grant proposal submission for projects like this.

As with organizational tech plans, the idea with a project plan is not to carve every detail in stone. Rather, the aim is to sketch out the overall goals and general approaches that will guide the project as it is implemented. What follows is an outline of the typical materials and sections that might be included in a strategic technology project 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.

Vision statement

A strategic technology plan should start with a big picture overview of what the project will produce (outputs or deliverables) and a list of the community or organizational impacts that it aims to have (outcomes). The following three sections might be included in the opening segment of the plan:

• Vision: A one paragraph description that describes the essence of the project. E.g. This project will use the web and e-mail to increase the number of youth we are able to engage as volunteers.
  
  
• Project deliverables: A list of things that will be produced through the project – a web site, an online calendar, a database, e-mail lists, a collaborative online event. Each item in the list should include an annotation or description so that readers can understand what each of the deliverables will be used for.
  
  
• Anticipated outcomes: A list of measurable objectives or community outcomes that will be achieved through the project. E.g. Increase the number of youth volunteers by 25% in year one and 100% in year two.

By the end of this section, the reader should have a clear picture of what will exist by the time the project ends and who will benefit from the project.

Needs assessment

As with any initiative, a strategic technology project should be based on concrete, demonstrable needs. The needs assessment section of your plan should include:

• Community profile: A brief description of who will benefit from your project. This may include: the community at large; clients your organization serves directly; or staff or volunteers.
  
  
• Statement of need: A list of specific needs or desires that the beneficiaries have. E.g. Young volunteers need ways to contribute in a manner that fits better into their work and social patterns. Online virtual volunteering may help with this.
  
  
• Research summary: A summary of the research that you did in order to develop your statement of need. This could include research that you did yourself (e.g. focus groups or online surveys) or research done by others (e.g. published studies and reports).

This information should act as a bridge between your vision and your project description by providing evidence that your approach is grounded in an understanding of community needs.

Project description

Building on the vision and needs assessment, a rough picture of how the project will be implemented should be included in the plan – the services to be built, the technology used, the people involved. Likely content for this section of the plan includes:

• Functions and services: An overview of what will be built, written or otherwise created by the project team. Examples include: web site or other technology functions; training sessions; community development efforts; new or edited electronic content.
  
  
• Technology approach: A description of the types of technology that will be used. This could be quite specific (e.g. the new online database will be built on top of our existing PHP and MySQL system) or just provide general principles (e.g. all tools used to develop this project should be open source).
  
  
• Delivery approach: Information about how the project will be delivered. This should include: staffing roles; project management approach; project governance; list of partners and partner roles.
  
  
• Marketing strategy: An overview of messages and techniques that will be used to market the project. Marketing should be thought of quite broadly as the process of letting people know about the initiative and getting them to use the systems put in place.

The material in this section will both act as a useful reference for the people implementing the project and will guide the development of an action plan and budget.

Action plan and budget

The plan should end off with an action plan and budget. For simpler projects, these two items can be combined into a single table something like this one:

Of course, a much more detailed action plan and budget is needed for larger projects. In these cases, the action plan and budget should be separate documents.