What do you need to do now to track your inventory? Why do you need to track inventory - and why isn't there a killer app for that yet?

A significant number of clients come to Community IT without any inventory tracking at all. Besides being a financial risk this is a clear security risk - especially if you have no system in place to off-board staff who leave your nonprofit but keep their laptop and access to private files and business subscriptions.

Why is it so hard to track inventory if you are a smaller organization (under 100 staff)? Listen to CEO Johan Hammerstrom share the three categories of inventory you need to track, and where that information probably lives at your nonprofit. With a little prioritization now, you can ensure your organization is protected from bad actors and can account for all your laptops. Johan shares these IT inventory tips to help our community avoid headaches and security risks.

Some Key IT Inventory Tips:

There is no perfect software or app to track inventory for smaller organizations. You will have to track it yourself, it cannot easily be delegated and philosophically probably shouldn’t be outsourced. A spreadsheet can work for smaller organizations.

Three categories of inventory you need to track:

• Equipment as an asset that the organization has purchased. Need to track it as part of financial accounting. Usually tracked by finance team.
• Who has that equipment been assigned to? Which laptop went to which staff member? This can also be tracked by the finance or HR team, or the IT team.
• Who is logged in to that computer? Who is the end user and which apps and licenses are they using (that the organization is paying for). Where is it located, how is it logged into the internet, who is the last person to log in to it? Your IT team will be able to track this.

You should cross reference these three categories and reconcile them periodically.

You need a standard process for off-boarding staff and recovering equipment from them/deactivating their subscriptions and access.

Managing subscriptions is a related issue, and is equally important for your nonprofit to track, both for financial reasons (paying for subscriptions that are not being used, or paying for individual subscriptions when an enterprise subscription would be easier/cheaper/have more features) and for cybersecurity reasons.

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.

Have you ever used a skills matrix in IT change management at your nonprofit?

In pt 1, Heather describes a typical IT Skills Matrix and how you create one, and responds to audience questions. In podcast part 2, she delves into identifying stakeholders and gives several examples of when and how to use a Skills Matrix to build and empower your team.

Do you know your super-users and early adopters? Your champions and ambassadors? Do you know who on your staff will happily and reliably use the tool exactly as trained vs your staffer who is always looking for new features and finding new shortcuts? Do you know who usually needs a little extra training and review sessions? Who is tech-hesitant, or even tech-phobic? How can you make your IT roll out a success for ALL your users? Can using an IT skills matrix make a difference?

Join Build change management expert Heather Ritchie in an interactive, free webinar to learn about this simple and effective tool. She shares a spreadsheet template, talks through real life scenarios and examples from her work, and explores the benefits and challenges of creating a staff skills matrix.

A skills matrix is also a useful tool to increase the value of training and enhance your conversations about professional development. Where are you investing in your staff skills? Where should you invest? Where do your staff want to learn and improve? What skills will help them and your nonprofit the most?

How can using an IT skills matrix improve new tech rollout?

Build Consulting download: IT Skills Matrix Template

As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience. Community IT believes strongly that your IT vendor should be able to explain everything without jargon or lingo.

Community IT is proudly vendor-agnostic, and our webinars cover a range of topics and discussions. Webinars are never a sales pitch, always a way to share our knowledge with our community.

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.

Have you ever used a skills matrix in IT change management at your nonprofit?

Do you know your super-users and early adopters? Your champions and ambassadors? Do you know who on your staff will happily and reliably use the tool exactly as trained vs your staffer who is always looking for new features and finding new shortcuts? Do you know who usually needs a little extra training and review sessions? Who is tech-hesitant, or even tech-phobic? How can you make your IT roll out a success for ALL your users? Can using an IT skills matrix make a difference?

Join Build change management expert Heather Ritchie in an interactive, free webinar to learn about this simple and effective tool. She shares a spreadsheet template, talks through real life scenarios and examples from her work, and explores the benefits and challenges of creating a staff skills matrix.

A skills matrix is also a useful tool to increase the value of training and enhance your conversations about professional development. Where are you investing in your staff skills? Where should you invest? Where do your staff want to learn and improve? What skills will help them and your nonprofit the most?

How can using an IT skills matrix improve new tech rollout?

Build Consulting download: IT Skills Matrix Template

As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience. Community IT believes strongly that your IT vendor should be able to explain everything without jargon or lingo.

Community IT is proudly vendor-agnostic, and our webinars cover a range of topics and discussions. Webinars are never a sales pitch, always a way to share our knowledge with our community.

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.

Tiff Parker is an expert in Google Workspace support, having used Google Workspace herself throughout her career and developing a practice as an in-house expert to our clients who use Google Workspace. Carolyn asked Tiff for her tips on features to use and things to know about Google Workspace at the office.

The takeaways:

• Know the difference between My Drive and Shared Drives, and set up Shared Drives for anything that you will want access to after a staff member leaves your organization. Step by step instructions to set up Shared Drives can be found in the Google knowledge center and can be done by “non technical” staff. Be thoughtful about creating the Shared Drives architecture and assigning access. Train your existing and new staff on your expectation for saving and collaborating on files using Shared Drives.
• Google uses the acronym “2SV” for second factor verification. Similar to Multi-Factor-Authentication (MFA,) you can use any authenticator (including Google’s) or have a text or call sent to your phone. Whatever you use, the important thing is to REQUIRE 2SV for any account that your staff log into.
• Use Google Groups to save money on licenses and make it easier for teams or committees to collaborate. You can set up Google Groups with a single email address such as “contact@yourdomain” and all the members can see and respond. Groups has a lot of great use cases at nonprofits.
• Google Calendar has an option for “rooms” that you can use for many resources you may want to be able to reserve, like projectors and other AV equipment if you are still using a physical office.

Thank you, Tiff, for these useful tips! If you have more Google Workspace questions, or have a great tip to share, get in touch!

Presenter: Tiff Parker joined Community IT Innovators as an IT Business Manager (ITBM) in October 2023. She brings over 17 years of experience working in nonprofit technology.

As an ITBM, she guides clients through implementation of effective technology investments and utilizing efficient IT services in direct support of their missions. She also assists clients with long-term planning, budgeting, and strategic goals.

The Community IT ITBM service provides an outsourced IT manager to clients at a reduced cost to hiring and having an IT manager on staff. These managers are a resource dedicated to matching technology solutions to clients’ business needs.

The ITBM makes recommendations on IT investments, training programs, maintenance, and licenses. They help the client be forward-looking, and act as a vendor-agnostic, trusted advisor with deep knowledge of the nonprofit IT software and platforms available. Because Community IT works in partnership with clients to manage long-term IT needs, the ITBM relationship with the client makes them a true asset.

Prior to coming to Community IT, Tiff was the IT Director for an environmental nonprofit where she was responsible for the overall vision, planning, implementation, management and support of their various information systems, data, policies, and processes. Tiff graduated from Virginia Tech in 2007. She holds the Microsoft 365 Fundamentals MS 900 certification.

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.

Senior Consultant Nura Aboki explores best practices on supporting one or two Macs when everyone else is on Windows laptops.

Nura and Carolyn discussed the ins and outs of supporting a few staff members and managing a few Macs, whether in a Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace environment.

The days of leaving your Mac users to manage their own devices are long gone – current cybersecurity risks require full management of ALL your end users. You might try to get all your staff on the same laptops, but Mac users really love their Macs and are reluctant to give them up. How can you best ensure their device is secure while letting them use the machine that makes them the most productive?

There are a lot of advantages to allowing Mac users to keep their Macs. It increases the pool of qualified talent you can hire, and can make your office more able to recover from cyber attacks by having a variety of laptops running different systems even if they are united on Microsoft or Google platforms.

Nura recommends starting with policy – even if you are only managing a few Macs, you are going to want to include those users in your Acceptable Use Policies. You’ll also want to document the expectations on your IT team or IT provider for their level of Mac support.

Second, do not leave your Mac users behind in terms of IT support. If you allow them, support them. If you are hiring for an internal IT team, ensure the ability to support Macs. And if you are hiring outsourced IT, be thorough in questioning their support agreement to manage a few Macs.

Finally, Nura gave us some ideas in three issues:

• on what one thing nonprofits could do to better support Mac users,
• what Mac users would do differently, and
• what Apple could do to better at the enterprise level in addition to the individual level.

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.

Does your organization struggle to match your IT to your actual business needs?
Learn how to right size your IT and get rid of FOMO.

In pt 1, Johan, Pat and Carolyn discuss Tech FOMO and the reasons nonprofits are susceptible to feeling it. They ask the webinar audience about their last new tech implementations and explore everyone’s current FOMO, AI. In part 2, Pat walks us through an IT decision making pathway (which you can download below) and Johan answers audience questions.

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is a natural human condition. And when it comes to technology, shiny new tools and platforms can seem very shiny. Add in tech giants’ large marketing budgets and vendors who pressure you to keep up with the latest and greatest, and you can feel like you constantly need to move to the newer, better solution to get the latest features, or you will be missing out.

What if you could escape the cycle of reacting to new technology marketing by firmly establishing a new tech decision making process based in your nonprofit’s needs, with flexibility and vision, that includes a mechanism to thoughtfully evaluate where you want to go with your nonprofit technology over time?

Join CEO Johan Hammerstrom and Director of Information Systems and Technology Pat Sprehe for this webinar to learn how to assess your nonprofit’s readiness for new technology. Give your leadership team practical tools to evaluate new technology wants vs needs.

Is your nonprofit suffering from new tech FOMO?

Free Download: IT Decision Making Cheat Sheet For Nonprofits

As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience. Community IT believes strongly that your IT vendor should be able to explain everything without jargon or lingo.

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.

Does your organization struggle to match your IT to your actual business needs?
Learn how to right size your IT and get rid of FOMO.

In pt 1, Johan, Pat and Carolyn discuss Tech FOMO and the reasons nonprofits are susceptible to feeling it. They ask the webinar audience about their last new tech implementations and explore everyone’s current FOMO, AI. In part 2, Pat walks us through an IT decision making pathway (which you can download below) and Johan answers audience questions.

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is a natural human condition. And when it comes to technology, shiny new tools and platforms can seem very shiny. Add in tech giants’ large marketing budgets and vendors who pressure you to keep up with the latest and greatest, and you can feel like you constantly need to move to the newer, better solution to get the latest features, or you will be missing out.

What if you could escape the cycle of reacting to new technology marketing by firmly establishing a new tech decision making process based in your nonprofit’s needs, with flexibility and vision, that includes a mechanism to thoughtfully evaluate where you want to go with your nonprofit technology over time?

Join CEO Johan Hammerstrom and Director of Information Systems and Technology Pat Sprehe for this webinar to learn how to assess your nonprofit’s readiness for new technology. Give your leadership team practical tools to evaluate new technology wants vs needs.

Is your nonprofit suffering from new tech FOMO?

Free Download: IT Decision Making Cheat Sheet For Nonprofits

As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience. Community IT believes strongly that your IT vendor should be able to explain everything without jargon or lingo.

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.

The pace of new AI tools and uses on the market is like a rocket. Does your nonprofit have questions about cybersecurity, opting out, or best practices when using AI?

Microsoft released a new AI Governance Framework for Nonprofits joining many institutions putting out guidelines and studying the impact of AI on nonprofits and the ways nonprofits are using AI. Many nonprofits are approaching AI very cautiously, or may not have developed policies yet to use AI securely. Or your nonprofit may have ethical questions about using AI at all.

How do you even attempt to opt out of AI tools that are packaged with an update of tools you already use?

How do you communicate with your staff the ethics your organization expects staff to use when using AI?

Nonprofit Cybersecurity expert Matt Eshleman shares his thoughts in this podcast on the importance of AI Artificial Intelligence at nonprofits. Some key takeaways:

• Understanding that you can use your organization values about using AI without opting out of everything.
• Opting out is difficult as tools you already use add AI enhancements and upgrades. It can be done but must be intentional.
• Cybersecurity concerns are valid concerns when using AI.
• Understand when an AI is public and your queries and its responses will be part of a public data set, and when an AI tool is private to your own organization’s data.
• AI for automation can be a very beneficial add to nonprofit productivity and ability to do more with less.
• Having someone or a team at your organization “own” training for secure and productive AI use is a good concept to embrace.
• Some nonprofits are very tech-savvy and will be exploring AI uses for mission use cases.
  • Almost every nonprofit is going to be using AI for increased productivity unless they plan to be vigilant and intentional about opting out.
• Pay attention to the tools and reputation of the vendors.
  • Larger organizations have a higher level of reputation to maintain and more resources to spend to get their AI tools right.
  • During this AI bubble where so many new vendors are rushing to enter the market, nonprofits should be intentional about vetting new tools and vendors before committing.
  • When updating existing tools, research and evaluate and understand the new AI enhancements, and communicate them to staff.
• AI will be transformative to the nonprofit and every other sector.

As the Chief Technology Officer at Community IT, Matthew Eshleman leads the team responsible for strategic planning, research, and implementation of the technology platforms used by nonprofit organization clients to be secure and productive. With extensive experience serving nonprofits, Matt also understands nonprofit culture and constraints, and has a history of implementing cost-effective and secure solutions at the enterprise level.

Matt has over 23 years of expertise in cybersecurity, IT support, team leadership, software selection and research, and client support.

Matt holds dual degrees in Computer Science and Computer Information Systems from Eastern Mennonite University, and an MBA from the Carey School of Business at Johns Hopkins University.

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.