Center for Association Resources

The Center for Association Resources supports mission-oriented organizations, assisting them in increasing relevance and accomplishing goals.

Creating a Technology strategy

Another in a series of articles related to association management selected from our reading list by:
Robert O. Patterson, JD
CEO/ Principal
The Center for Association Resources, Inc.

It is imperative for a non profit organization to have a good technological strategy, because in this day and age people rely on their technology. It is surprisingly easy for an non profit organization to create a technology strategy, and it can usually be done in 2 steps. One of the ways to create a functioning technology strategy is to create a website to help spread the word by leasing out a web domain, creating a newsletter from their website that one can use to tell their followers about upcoming fundraisers goals, as well as just letting their followers know that they can follow this newsletter.

The first thing that a non profit organization should do when they are creating a technology strategy is to create a website. This will be the building blocks of their technology plan and from here they can install many things that will help boost awareness and keep their organization alive! There are many ways to create a website, but the one that most non profit organizations should use is to follow a few steps. Usually the non profit will want to lease out a web domain (I suggest Godaddy.com) which will be the http of their site. This is the place on the web where they will store their information. Usually this dosen’t cost very much, and can be leased for around 5 dollars a month. Next thing they will want to do is get somebody who can help design their website. This will ensure that it looks both professional and also in this economy web designers are looking for work and will normally settle for less than usual, and they will be even more willing if its for a non profit.

The next thing to do is create a news letter in the form of an RSS feed. This “RSS feed” will be available from their website and will let people who are trying to follow their cause have a way to get information on your recent doings. This will require the non profit to update the feed fairly regularly, or at least when they want people to know what they are doing. Creating an RSS feed is a fairly complicated process, so we won’t go into to it in this article, however there is a link included in the sources which goes over how to achieve this. Following these 2 steps will help create a solid and useful technology strategy!