"For (NGOs) that were not yet on the digital journey, this meant the need for a significant, 'emergency' digital transformation - often unplanned," notes the global development platform Devex. Another milestone in the last year and a half has been the emergence of artificial intelligence, which brings a whole new range of opportunities for simplification of the work processes. Making good use of digital technology saves organizations' time and money, and digital competencies also play an important role in resilience to the disinformation that NGOs have long faced. Even so, many NGOs are not yet exploiting the full potential of digitalization
Barriers to digitalization
Limited financial resources for the purchase of appropriate hardware, limited knowledge and experience with digitization among managers and staff, and sometimes even a complete lack of IT departments or administrators are the main obstacles to digitization in the context of the Czech non-profit sector. Another significant factor hindering the introduction of new IT tools in organizations is the reluctance of employees to use new tools. This finding emerged from a State of Digitalization in Czech Nonprofits Survey, which was conducted in 2023 among a total of 634 non-profit organizations from across the Czech Republic.
"Today's world is driven by process automation and artificial intelligence, but NGOs often do not have even basic digital infrastructure in place," says Radka Bystřická, director of the VIA Association, which conducted the survey in cooperation with the OSF Foundation.
The findings of the survey also largely coincide with the research published at the end of 2023 in the journal Nonprofit Management and Leadership, which was based on in-depth interviews with twenty nonprofit organizations from Germany, Ireland and Malaysia, among others. The digitization of nonprofit organizations from different parts of the world is therefore often hampered by very similar problems.
Pathways to promote efficient use of technology
Based on the data from the VIA survey, the first pillar of support for digitization of non-profit organizations is clearly financial support. Approximately 40% of participating organizations identified the acquisition of new software licenses and services and the purchase of new hardware as investment priorities. Moreover, managers often lack a basic understanding of the topic: strengthening digital management competences is therefore another important area to focus on when trying to improve the effective use of technology.
More than a quarter of the NGOs in the survey expressed interest in developing a digital strategy and an innovation map. However, it is not possible to develop a digital strategy without getting a basic overview of the current state of affairs. Therefore, the third pillar of digital transformation for nonprofits was to analyse the current state of technology used to enable the organisation to identify tools that can help streamline processes, services, and communications. One of the ways to assess the current state of affairs and identify priorities can be a digital audit, which is offered in the Czech Republic by the VIA Association as one of its services.
Digital audit
"A digital audit is essentially a detailed review of the IT in an organization. It includes not only software and hardware, but also how people in the organization use technology. The audit has two main phases. First, we use questionnaires and interviews to find out all relevant information about the organisation and its internal processes in relation to IT. Then we prepare a detailed report that includes the current state and specific suggestions on how to improve everything," says Jana Olejníková, one of the digital auditors.
According to Radka Bystřická, the digital audit is the starting point for any reflection on how the organisation actually wants to use digital technologies. In the normal routine, there is often no time left to think about better use of digital technologies. That's why the interviews alone can act as a catalyst for change, which NGOs sometimes embark on even before the audit is complete. "And that's great, because the ultimate goal of an audit is to kick-start digital momentum in an organisation," says Bystřická.
A digital audit not only provides the organisation with an analysis of its digital infrastructure and how it supports work processes, but also identifies where problems or slowdowns may be occurring. In addition, the audit will provide specific solutions that can help the team save time and energy.
Inefficient internal communication via email is one of the common problems among many NGOs. This can often be sped up and simplified by moving to Slack or MS Teams, for example. Many organisations are also underutilising the potential of electronic signatures, automation or project management applications. Non-profits also often underestimate the importance of setting up security policies, which only a third of the organisations that took part in the State of Digitalization in Czech Nonprofits Survey had developed. Moreover, this has barely improved compared to the data from the 2021 survey.
Some organisations have also experienced the theft of access to social media profiles or the misuse of sensitive information shared on Facebook Messenger. Therefore, in addition to specific suggestions to optimise administration and improve work efficiency, the digital audit also focuses on cybersecurity. Ultimately, organizations also become more resistant to misinformation or any other attempt to damage their reputation.
Benefits of digital audit
Agora Central Europe, an organization that promotes civic participation and youth work, has recently undergone a digital audit as part of the Digital Activism Accelerator. "The result of the audit is a kind of summary of what we use and how we look at it individually, and then the recommendations that come from that. I thought it was nice that the audit findings reflected the way our team operates without regard to digital tools. It also took into account the setting of our rules and principles of collaboration. It wasn't just about which tools we don't use that would make our work easier, but also about the fact that some people find communication unnecessarily lengthy, for example," said Magda Podsedníková, who works in project management and lecturing at Agora CE.
The digital audit helped the organisation not only to realise what could work better, but also to sort out ideas about the overall functioning of the organisation. After the audit, Agora CE implemented the use of Trello, a project management application, among other things, to make it easier for the organisation to process tasks from meetings.
Another benefit of the whole process, according to Magda Podsednikova, is that when changes are suggested by outsiders to the organisation, the team can be more open to them for various reasons. "There are people in the team who have already been using some of the tools. I even think that they may have tried to implement some of them at some point, but the team was not generally inclined to do so," she adds.
Harnessing the full potential of digital technology
Digital auditing enables nonprofits to find ways to streamline processes, improve security and better leverage the latest tools to successfully fulfill their mission. As a result, harnessing the full potential of digital technology and working more efficiently helps organisations increase their overall impact.
Moreover, according to Radka Bystřická, the basic steps to digitalisation can often be relatively cheap and simple. Given that organisations often lack a basic overview of the possibilities offered by current digital technologies and the time it takes to fully assess the state of digitisation, it is more practical for organisations to use the support of external consultants to guide them through the process.
"For many people, just using tools like MS Bookings, which we use for audits, or transcripts from Teams is a great experience. Today, many organisations are embarking on AI trials, which is great. But sometimes all it takes is a better knowledge of using basic tools like Outlook, Calendar or Google Mail and miracles happen," concludes audit consultant Olejníková.
Author: Kateřina Pavelová
Background illustration by: rh2010
This piece was published in partnership with VIA Association
