Technological advancements continue to develop at an exponential rate. Where it was once considered great if someone could conduct a Google search, now they expect instantaneous results and accurate information. The ever-increasing demands on technology have been pushing budget limitations for many organizations that would otherwise invest in the latest computing equipment and software.
In order to find budget-friendly technology resources as a non-profit, consider outsourcing to a managed service provider. In addition to budget friendly technologies, managed service providers can take care of business needs such as design, hosting and management so your organization’s focus remains where it should be – on mission.
Maintaining budget conscious practices may help you stretch your dollars even farther by helping you avoid budget draining plans without sacrificing quality or efficiency. If you do not have the budget for typical options such as leasing office space, consider co-working spaces which is a fairly new office sharing trend that can be budget friendly. Service providers offer several budget friendly technologies including:
Cloud-Based Technology
Many companies are moving away from maintaining their own information technology infrastructure to running their businesses on cloud-based services. This gives them more budget flexibility and reduces overhead by not having to maintain expensive hardware and software. Fortunately, a managed service provider can assist you with this transition so your business benefits achieve maximum ROI.
Virtual CIO
Many nonprofits have relied upon a full time CIO or even a part time person working about 50 hours per week for years now. However, some budget-conscious companies are turning to a Virtual CIO service instead. This is an affordable budget friendly technology providing everything a typical CIO would offer at a fraction of the cost.
Content Management System
If your budget only allows for basic web hosting, you can still get budget friendly technologies and capabilities such as online collaboration and file sharing by using a content management system. These budget friendly technologies allow for common website functions like blogging, photo galleries and document sharing while minimizing costs associated with hiring web developers and information managers.
Managed Service Provider
Outsourcing to managed service providers provides budget-friendly technology solutions such as ongoing support services so you do not have to hire additional help when computers or other hardware break down. They will also take on some of the budget and administrative burdens of budget friendly technologies such as those discussed above.
As with any budget, the key to success is planning. You can improve your budget-friendly technology resources by developing a budget forecast for next year and reevaluating it on at least an annual basis. If your needs change, you may want to consider budget friendly technologies that were not in line with your needs previously but now match up. Put together a plan for how to use these budget friendly technologies especially if they are not already being used so you can see immediate benefits from them without wasting money due to lack of preparation or understanding of the capabilities available through budget friendly technology options. By outsourcing some responsibilities to managed service providers, you will have more budget flexibility while still allowing your budget friendly technology resources to help you receive more budget for missions.
