Nonprofit's Technology Needs Grow as Its Programs Grow

As the nonprofit Interise gears up for exponential growth in new cities, its technology needs are increasing as well. Developer David Clark joined Deborah Elizabeth Finn for Data Collaborative's Strategic Technology Planning Session on how best to  address the challenges ahead. These challenges include how to most reliably deliver online learning as well as automation of its client survey feedback. The latter is currently done by hand. Not only will automating the process free up staff time, it will also allow for more sophisticated analysis and presentation of outcome data. Since Salesforce is in place for its CRM, that platform was discussed a possible solution.

Deborah's recap included the following in her own words, "... automating client feedback is currently a pressing need, but is part of a larger need for Interise to show that it is succeeding in its mission. Quality assurance of the trainings is an intermediate goal, and the satisfaction of the trainees is one proxy measure. The ultimate goal is to foster small businesses in order to create new jobs in economically fragile communities, and it will take other kinds of quantitative measurements to show that Interise is succeeding. And they are succeeding! I know that intuitively, but it's the number of new jobs in the target communities that really count, and Interise needs the tech infrastructure to be able to show those numbers."