Community IT Innovators Nonprofit Technology Topics

When do your licenses renew? What kind of free or discounted licenses do you have? What are your options? Microsoft announced in the spring of 2025 that after July 1st two classes of nonprofit discounted licenses would be changing. Steve Longenecker, Community IT's Director of IT Consulting, explains how the license discount and donation program is changing at Microsoft, and how to form a plan of action before your renewal date in this podcast with Carolyn Woodard.Steve reviews the history of the Microsoft donation and discount programs for nonprofits and how they have changed over the years. Microsoft's office suite is of course one of the industry standards and very reliable, reputable, and very affordable for nonprofits who qualify for discounts and donated licenses. Steve then reviews the two types of licenses that are affected, and our advice for each.Some Key Takeaways:Check your licenses through your Microsoft admin portalCheck the renewal dateCheck the license typesIf you are currently using Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses you were getting 10 free licenses. Any licenses over the first 10 that you are using are being billed at a discounted nonprofit annual rate. When your licenses renew after July 1, 2025, NONE of them will be free.Microsoft says that your 10 free licenses will be automatically rolled over into discounted nonprofit licenses on your renewal date.You don't need to do anything to make this happen, and your staff using the licenses will not see any interruption in their services.Your finance team needs to be aware that on your renewal date, your payment method on record will be charged an annual renewal fee for ALL your Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses. Make sure your payment method is up to date in your account before your renewal to avoid problems with the rollover.If you are currently using free nonprofit Office 365 E1 licenses for some staff, those also will roll over to discounted licenses on your renewal date after July 1, 2025.Because Microsoft 365 Business Basic licenses are very similar to Office 365 E1 licenses, and are free for qualified nonprofits for up to 300 licenses, we recommend procuring Microsoft 365 Business Basic licenses and unsubscribing from Office 365 E1 before your renewal date. Changing licenses can be done at any time before your renewal date, so you can go ahead and do it now rather than risk rolling over to paying for E1 licenses.Steve walks through the steps he likes to take to change these licenses over for our clients. It is not difficult but not automatic.For further clarity or support, contact your IT provider, IT staff, or Microsoft account manager. _______________________________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.

Are you worried?In part 1, Nura and Carolyn covered introductions, policies, and resources on three main categories you may be worried about - cyber, data, and staff safety. In part 2, they go over budgeting for IT when your budget may be up in the air, what to move into the "nice to have" and what needs to stay in the "must have" column, resources on how to stay mentally healthy under stress, and how to make a plan to move you and your nonprofit forward with confidence in your priorities. Where does your IT fit into this new world? Is your IT strategy flexible, and have you revisited your IT planning, performance, and policies? As you examine your finances, what IT is essential and where can you afford to pare back without hurting your productivity and morale? Do you have some smart savings opportunities lurking in your IT budget that could help your organization in this moment? Is your cybersecurity up to date and do your staff know how to protect your organization and data? Perhaps most importantly, how are your staff coping with all this stress?What are the top steps to take NOW to adapt your IT quickly to the new nonprofit sector reality?Join Senior Consultant Nuradeen Aboki who answers your questions about priorities, strategy, and next steps. Nura has been in nonprofit IT for decades and has enormous experience helping our clients' executives strategize priorities and cut through the noise to the essentials. This is a perfect opportunity to get guidance and reassurance.The current situation for the nonprofit sector is highly changeable and changing fast. Every day there's a new worry turning up around your mission, your funding, and your future. What you are doing matters. Don't burnout with worry but don't leave your organization vulnerable either. Learn what Nura recommends and leave with a plan for your next few months and the resources to help you sort out your nonprofit IT essentials for these challenging times.As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience. _______________________________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.

Are you worried?The current situation for the nonprofit sector is highly changeable and changing fast. Every day there's a new worry turning up around your mission, your funding, and your future. Where does your IT fit into this new world? Is your IT strategy flexible, and have you revisited your IT planning, performance, and policies? As you examine your finances, what IT is essential and where can you afford to pare back without hurting your productivity and morale? Do you have some smart savings opportunities lurking in your IT budget that could help your organization in this moment? Is your cybersecurity up to date and do your staff know how to protect your organization and data? Perhaps most importantly, how are your staff coping with all this stress?What are the top steps to take NOW to adapt your IT quickly to the new nonprofit sector reality?Join Senior Consultant Nuradeen Aboki who answers your questions about priorities, strategy, and next steps. Nura has been in nonprofit IT for decades and has enormous experience helping our clients' executives strategize priorities and cut through the noise to the essentials. This is a perfect opportunity to get guidance and reassurance.In part 1, Nura and Carolyn cover introductions, policies, and resources on three main categories you may be worried about - cyber, data, and staff safety. In part 2, they go over budgeting for IT when your budget may be up in the air, what to move into the "nice to have" and what needs to stay in the "must have" column, resources on how to stay mentally healthy under stress, and how to make a plan to move you and your nonprofit forward with confidence in your priorities. What you are doing matters. Don't burnout with worry but don't leave your organization vulnerable either. Learn what Nura recommends and leave with a plan for your next few months and the resources to help you sort out your nonprofit IT essentials for these challenging times.As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience. _______________________________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.

A week in the life of the On Site Support Team - what do they do?We're inordinately proud of our On Site Support Team (OSST), who work with clients who need IT help in person, particularly at the nonprofit schools we serve in the DC area.So many of us work remotely - but many nonprofits do work that can't be remote, and many of them need IT support at the office or workplace. For those clients, Community IT is proud to employ a team of customer service professionals that travel on site to keep IT running smoothly and answer questions in person.In fact, all our On Site Support Team members have achieved HDI Customer Service Certifications. Listen to this presentation, meet our team, and learn about a typical week filled with teamwork, expertise, partnerships with our clients, and love of helping people that goes into providing excellent IT support service. _______________________________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.

New auditing requirements SAS145 require nonprofit auditors to consider IT risks in addition to financial risks and mitigation. Learn from Darren Hulem, cybersecurity guru and senior manager in risk advisory at GRF CPAs and Advisors on the new requirements and how they may impact cybersecurity at your nonprofit.Darren also explores and describes other cybersecurity threats that are targeting nonprofits, and best practices to defend against them. Darren is a certified ethical hacker and certified information systems auditor.SAS145 is a statement on accounting standards that provides guidelines on a more holistic view of your risks and defenses that includes IT risks. This is a welcome move since for a decade at least IT risks have been growing in impact on financial crimes targeting nonprofits such as phishing email initiated wire fraud, account compromise, spoofing, and other financial compromises and crimes.Darren provides an overview of the types of risks he sees at nonprofits and some simple steps organizations can take to vastly decrease those risks.  _______________________________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.

Media expert and self-taught "AI Evangelist" Brenda Foster spoke to Carolyn about ways to help nonprofit staff explore and begin using AI tools to work smarter, calling AI your new assistant. In addition to serving as Vanguard Communications' Chief of Innovation, she is a communications researcher and strategic planner who has shaped direction and messaging for numerous successful national nonprofit and government campaigns. A former broadcast journalist, Brenda is a sought-after producer and speech, script and media writer for clients and spokespeople that include celebrities, CEOs, farmers, caregivers, advocates and youth.Have you been dabbling in AI but don't really know what to try next? Are you worried about the impact of AI tools on your nonprofit but don't really know what questions to ask? Concerned about security? Have you set up your AI Acceptable Use policy yet? Brenda walks through these considerations and more, while firmly coming down on the side of enabling your staff - no matter your general tech-savviness - to learn to use the AI tools you want and feel comfortable with, to achieve your mission and decrease the "busy work." Listen for Brenda's "Five Questions to Ask" mid-episode, which distill her experience adopting AI tools at Vanguard and with their clients into questions to use to inform your philosophy, policies, training, and expectations around AI.  _______________________________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.

2025 Nonprofit Cybersecurity Incident Report: Keeping Your Nonprofit SecureCommunity IT CTO and cybersecurity expert Matt Eshleman delivered our annual report on trend lines and took questions live and online in this popular annual webinar. In part 1, Matt discusses the landscape and background of cybersecurity attacks nonprofits face now, goes over the lingo and acronyms, and introduces new trends in attacks and protections. In part 2, Matt discusses the data from 2024 and takes questions.Is your nonprofit prepared?Drawn from anonymized data from the calendar year 2024 of cybersecurity incidents across end users in hundreds of our small and mid-sized nonprofit clients, this report shows changes in attacks and emerging threats.Using this real and timely data, Matt walks through recommendations and outlines the practical steps your organization can take to prevent the most frequent attacks. He covers new threats and training best practices for your nonprofit staff around evolving cybersecurity issues, including a spike in online and in-person harassment, wire fraud, AI-enabled scams, smishing and vishing, adversary-in-the-middle MFA attacks, and other new and disturbing trends.You may also be interested in downloading the free Cybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofits Playbook to review a framework for focusing on your cybersecurity fundamentals, or using any of our free cybersecurity webinars and podcasts to learn more about specific protections you can take.As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.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.

2025 Nonprofit Cybersecurity Incident Report: Keeping Your Nonprofit SecureCommunity IT CTO and cybersecurity expert Matt Eshleman delivered our annual report on trend lines and took questions live and online in this popular annual webinar. In part 1, Matt discusses the landscape and background of cybersecurity attacks nonprofits face now, goes over the lingo and acronyms, and introduces new trends in attacks and protections. In part 2, Matt discusses the data from 2024 and takes questions.Is your nonprofit prepared?Drawn from anonymized data from the calendar year 2024 of cybersecurity incidents across end users in hundreds of our small and mid-sized nonprofit clients, this report shows changes in attacks and emerging threats.Using this real and timely data, Matt walks through recommendations and outlines the practical steps your organization can take to prevent the most frequent attacks. He covers new threats and training best practices for your nonprofit staff around evolving cybersecurity issues, including a spike in online and in-person harassment, wire fraud, AI-enabled scams, smishing and vishing, adversary-in-the-middle MFA attacks, and other new and disturbing trends.You may also be interested in downloading the free Cybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofits Playbook to review a framework for focusing on your cybersecurity fundamentals, or using any of our free cybersecurity webinars and podcasts to learn more about specific protections you can take.As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.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.

In today's interview, Carolyn talks with Tiff Parker, an IT Business Manager at Community IT. They talk about her background, how she got into a technology career, and what brought her to Community IT in this role. Tiff reflects on her early interest in GIS Geo Information Systems mapping, her years as an “accidental techie” at a nonprofit with increasingly senior roles and responsibilities as she gained experience and expertise managing nonprofit IT, and her move from nonprofit IT Director to her role now providing technical and strategic guidance to multiple clients. 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. To do this well requires an ongoing conversation with the client to continually understand their business needs, and then effective communication with client staff and leadership about the ways specific technology solutions can meet those business needs and how to budget for technology.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.“I'm an IT consultant and I work specifically with nonprofits. I help them leverage technology to meet their mission. …I really love working with the clients. I have a wide variety of all different sizes, different areas they focus on … I might see their name pop up on the news and think “Hey, I'm helping them with their technology.” It's that nice connecting feeling of helping other people accomplish their great work.”Tiff ParkerTiff 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.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.

What does the future hold for nonprofit technology from one of the giants in the industry?Ryan Ozimek, founder of Soapbox Engage and long time nonprofit IT thought leader, reflects on the trends and topics from this recent conference for the sector from Microsoft – particularly the embrace of AI and the potential of AI tools to impact the nonprofit sector.In its second year, the Microsoft Global Nonprofit Leaders Summit drew nonprofit sector and IT activists from around the world to discuss new tools, new partnerships, and new needs. Listen to Ryan Ozimek in conversation with Carolyn Woodard on his reflections on trends that were discussed and explored at this conferenceSome Key Takeaways:Big changes are happening fast – Ryan sees this era as strikingly similar to 1999 when we all got online on this new thing “the internet.”To prepare as a nonprofit: don't feel you have to dive in the deep end but be aware that in a short time we will all be swimming in this pool. Generational change is painfully evident in AI adoption.How does the nonprofit sector take full advantage of young people understanding new technologies especially AI, intuitively? AI is everywhere and will be everywhere. How can we use it best in our sector?How can our sector push AI tools to be better?Two and a half things for nonprofits to prepare to be able to find opportunities in this new world:Start with what problems we are trying to solve and fit the tech to that. Be prepared to be more agile and more nimble than ever before.AI agents can help you build the framework to describe your needs. Practice asking AI “what are the types of questions I should be asking you to help me solve my organization's problems?”It's important to deeply understand the tech savviness of your nonprofit. How ready are you for change? Opportunities are also coming at us really fast and not every opportunity will be a good fit.Last year at this summit the message was “Copilot is your copilot and it will help you with everything.”This year Ryan heard that multiple agents that specialize in certain tasks/things will be more helpful than a “generalist” AI. You will need to find the AI agent that can help do the exact thing that you need done. We will all need to learn to ask the right AI agent the right questions.What is the expected impact on nonprofit jobs? People will be able to be more productive, more able to help the organization meet the mission. Nonprofits will be augmenting their people with AI agents doing the grunt work. Think now about what you can automate. What is there that you have to have done that a person doesn't have to do? This will free your staff to better meet your community needs.Let's meet our missions better and bigger than we ever have, because the world has lots of needs right now. The nonprofit sector/social sector will have more and more challenges in the current environment – so making the sector more productive with AI will help it meet needs that are only growing. _______________________________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.

Ian Gottesman is CEO of a coalition of 200+ NGOs and 20 major IT companies working together to improve cybersecurity for the nonprofit sector (NGO ISAC). He has decades of experience in executive roles in nonprofit cybersecurity in a variety of organizations.In these challenging times for the nonprofit sector generally, many nonprofits are taking a harder look at their cybersecurity policies to better protect their organization and staff. Community IT recommends getting to a foundational level of basic cybersecurity, and you can download our free Cybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofits Playbook to learn what that means and how to put those basics in place. Three cybersecurity basics to think about: manage your identity, patch your hardware and software, and look out for phishing – train your staff. You will get 80% protection from just doing those three low cost things – why would you want to get 0%?When your cybersecurity basics are in place, Ian recommends strengthening your nonprofit data retention policy and compliance as your first next step. Again, this is low cost in terms of your budget, but will have costs to your organization in terms of staff time and energy. So let this challenging moment motivate your team to take on a sorting-and-retaining-or-deleting project.Some Key Takeaways:Cybersecurity Basics are not difficult and protect you from 80% of hacks.Manage your identity. Accounts must be protected, your staff should be verifying they are who is supposed to be logging in.Patch your hardware and software. The easiest way to do this is reboot – log out, restart, and log back in periodically. Your IT provider or internal IT staff should be patching as part of your cybersecurity strategy.Look out for phishing – train your staff. More than 90% of attacks start out tricking a user into clicking a link. For more information on anti-phishing training, check out this webinar on Cybersecurity Awareness Training Tips.Cybercrimes are crimes.Don't feel that you were responsible for your own victimization. Clicking on links happens. Huge companies fall for scams. Encourage a culture of openness and sharing around cybersecurity best practices and incident response planning.Make sure your nonprofit culture embraces a team approach to cybersecurity, and that everyone on your staff knows to tell someone when they see something suspicious or make a mistake, and who to tell. Holding cybercriminals accountable in every country should be a bigger goal for our governments and our laws. Nonprofit Data Retention Policy is a valuable project now.Remind your staff not to put in writing in any device or app something they would not want to be public about your organizationCreating and monitoring compliance with a nonprofit data retention policy does not require expensive tools but it does require the time and energy of your staff. Avoiding unnecessary reputational risks is worth it. Make sure your nonprofit data retention policy covers emails and messaging in addition to documents and files. _______________________________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.

Which platform would you choose if you were starting a brand new nonprofit tomorrow?Learn the differences, how to choose, and when to contemplate changing platforms in this webinar with Community IT Innovators CEO Johan Hammerstrom and Director of IT Consulting Steve Longenecker. Johan and Steve together have over 40 years of experience in nonprofit IT and have worked with hundreds of nonprofit clients as they made crucial decisions about their IT platforms.In part 1, we discuss the basic features of each platform, and acknowledging that most people working at nonprofits do not actually have a choice in platforms, we discuss the reasons one or the other may be a better fit for your organization if you had to choose. And if you are thinking of switching, we recommend you have a very strong business case for the switch, not just personal preferences, and that you practice very good change management if you find you must switch.In part 2, we discuss security, data retention, and the limited options for nonprofits that are not one of these two platforms. That is, there are many reputable third party options for ID management or cloud storage, but very few other options for basics like email, calendar, or the office suite of documents and spreadsheets. We then take audience questions and delve into managing a hybrid solution (and check out the previous webinar Managing Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 Together for more tips.)Microsoft VS Google WorkspaceEvery nonprofit organization must have IT tools and a platform. Google offers its Google Workspace suite at a discount to nonprofit organizations. Many new nonprofits use this suite of tools to start up their organization. For small, young, and growing nonprofit organizations, and nonprofits in the education field, this inexpensive suite of user-oriented essential IT tools is becoming a popular standard.Of course, there's a competing service provider also offering a suite of cloud-based basic business productivity tools, also at greatly reduced prices to qualified nonprofit organizations: Microsoft.We are often asked to give our opinion over which platform our clients should use. The answer is not as simple as you might think.As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.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. That said, we're obviously talking about two specific platforms in this presentation, Microsoft and Google – and we find that 99% of our clients are using one or the other, or a hybrid of both. Given that these platforms are widely used by nonprofits, it is in that context that we discuss the choices, advantages, and trade-offs that you could be facing as you choose a platform for your nonprofit.Many questions asked at registration or live at the virtual event will be answered in the transcript. Check back after the webinar for additional resources. _______________________________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.

Which platform would you choose if you were starting a brand new nonprofit tomorrow?Learn the differences, how to choose, and when to contemplate changing platforms in this webinar with Community IT Innovators CEO Johan Hammerstrom and Director of IT Consulting Steve Longenecker. Johan and Steve together have over 40 years of experience in nonprofit IT and have worked with hundreds of nonprofit clients as they made crucial decisions about their IT platforms.In part 1, we discuss the basic features of each platform, and acknowledging that most people working at nonprofits do not actually have a choice in platforms, we discuss the reasons one or the other may be a better fit for your organization if you had to choose. And if you are thinking of switching, we recommend you have a very strong business case for the switch, not just personal preferences, and that you practice very good change management if you find you must switch.In part 2, we discuss security, data retention, and the limited options for nonprofits that are not one of these two platforms. That is, there are many reputable third party options for ID management or cloud storage, but very few other options for basics like email, calendar, or the office suite of documents and spreadsheets. We then take audience questions and delve into managing a hybrid solution (and check out the previous webinar Managing Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 Together for more tips.)Microsoft VS Google WorkspaceEvery nonprofit organization must have IT tools and a platform. Google offers its Google Workspace suite at a discount to nonprofit organizations. Many new nonprofits use this suite of tools to start up their organization. For small, young, and growing nonprofit organizations, and nonprofits in the education field, this inexpensive suite of user-oriented essential IT tools is becoming a popular standard.Of course, there's a competing service provider also offering a suite of cloud-based basic business productivity tools, also at greatly reduced prices to qualified nonprofit organizations: Microsoft.We are often asked to give our opinion over which platform our clients should use. The answer is not as simple as you might think.As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.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. That said, we're obviously talking about two specific platforms in this presentation, Microsoft and Google – and we find that 99% of our clients are using one or the other, or a hybrid of both. Given that these platforms are widely used by nonprofits, it is in that context that we discuss the choices, advantages, and trade-offs that you could be facing as you choose a platform for your nonprofit.Many questions asked at registration or live at the virtual event will be answered in the transcript. Check back after the webinar for additional resources. _______________________________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.

Do you have a technology tool that just isn't working? How do you get at the root of the issue and find solutions?Sometimes IT staff and directors and executives get really into the cool details of their technology tools without considering the whole organization needs and tolerances. And sometimes executives and leaders want to change IT tools on a whim, where that IT tool is deeply embedded in the functions of the nonprofit organization, and the change impacts all the stakeholders greatly, but none of them were consulted. How can you reconcile those two aspects and do a better job of matching business processes and nonprofit IT? What are best practices in assessing your organization needs and matching them to the available technology tools, thoughtfully making the selection (usually in a hurry and under budget and staff constraints), and then implementing your tool with lots of communication and staff training?  CEO Johan Hammerstrom shares some of his insights and experience gained in over 20 years of serving nonprofits with well-managed IT. Don't ever look at a technology problem as just a technology problem.. If you zoom out enough, technology problems are always part of a larger business problem. It's really hard to make progress on fixing technology problems if you just have that very narrow focus on the technology itself. The more you can zoom out and understand the broader context for the technology problem, the more you can frame it as a business problem for the organization, the more effective you are going to be at addressing it. At the end of the day, it may seem to you to be a really big technology problem, but it may actually be a relatively small business problem. So trying to look at what constitutes the business problem around the technology solution will help you to get better perspective on how much of a problem this really is to the organization. You may be right that it is a huge technology problem, but if you look at the larger context and it turns out it's not a huge business problem, just let it go – because you're not going to get anywhere trying to change that.  Some Key Takeaways:Business problem aspects of nonprofit ITWhat's the price? What are the cost investments? What are the costs to inaction?Who are the people who are impacted by this technology solution?What was the decision process when the technology was chosen?What is the decision process to choose a new technology now?Sometimes staying with sub-optimum technology solution is the decision that best matches the business needs of the organization.Every “untouchable” ancient IT solution that only one person knows how to keep running actually CAN be replaced. Many vendors for server-based solutions – if they are still in business – will help you move that tool to their cloud-based subscription. If the vendor is no longer in business, that function can definitely be replaced – and should be replaced – with a modern, secure, solution.Your people are the most important component of your technology. Plan for redundancy.  _______________________________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.

Are your staff as ready as they can be for the next attack?Our cybersecurity training team manages hundreds of clients and shares our knowledge on what works to keep your staff prepared, not just scared.Matt Eshleman, our CTO and cybersecurity expert answers your questions on how to manage frequent, timely, and engaging training.Part 1 covers the cybersecurity landscape and types of threats facing nonprofits, our framework for how to think about cybersecurity and where staff training fits in your strategy, and the basic philosophy of security awareness training. Pt 2 gets into the details and examples of a typical cybersecurity training program, and Matt answers audience Q&A.Cybersecurity Awareness Training TipsWe often say that staff training is a foundation for cybersecurity protections. As the risks are always evolving, your training needs to be current too. Gone are the days when your staff could be adequately protected by watching an hour long video with a quiz once a year. But managing more frequent training is difficult. We will discuss the tool we use, KnowBe4, which makes it easy to stay up to date and administer training to all staff. There are other training tools out there that work for nonprofit staff – the most important tip is to commit to training and to prioritize it as a team. Your staff and leadership are your best defense of the organization you care about.In addition, with new auditing requirements SAS145 your auditor must assess IT risks to your financial processes – and it will be necessary to demonstrate staff cybersecurity training in your audits. Learn about these issues and more with our experts! If you've been putting off implementing a comprehensive cybersecurity awareness training regime, don't wait any longer. Join CTO Matthew Eshleman and host Carolyn Woodard to learn how to implement an up-to-date and flexible cybersecurity awareness training program this year.As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.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. There are multiple cybersecurity awareness training vendors with products that work for nonprofits. We will be discussing the tool we have selected and use, KnowBe4, which offers nonprofit discounts, but our insights and tips will be useful no matter what training program you are using, or if you want to create and run cybersecurity awareness training in house.Many questions asked at registration or live at the virtual event will be answered in the transcript. Check back after the webinar for additional resources. _______________________________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.

Are your staff as ready as they can be for the next attack?Our cybersecurity training team manages hundreds of clients and shares our knowledge on what works to keep your staff prepared, not just scared.Matt Eshleman, our CTO and cybersecurity expert answers your questions on how to manage frequent, timely, and engaging training.Part 1 covers the cybersecurity landscape and types of threats facing nonprofits, our framework for how to think about cybersecurity and where staff training fits in your strategy, and the basic philosophy of security awareness training. Pt 2 gets into the details and examples of a typical cybersecurity training program, and Matt answers audience Q&A.Cybersecurity Awareness Training TipsWe often say that staff training is a foundation for cybersecurity protections. As the risks are always evolving, your training needs to be current too. Gone are the days when your staff could be adequately protected by watching an hour long video with a quiz once a year. But managing more frequent training is difficult. We will discuss the tool we use, KnowBe4, which makes it easy to stay up to date and administer training to all staff. There are other training tools out there that work for nonprofit staff – the most important tip is to commit to training and to prioritize it as a team. Your staff and leadership are your best defense of the organization you care about.In addition, with new auditing requirements SAS145 your auditor must assess IT risks to your financial processes – and it will be necessary to demonstrate staff cybersecurity training in your audits. Learn about these issues and more with our experts! If you've been putting off implementing a comprehensive cybersecurity awareness training regime, don't wait any longer. Join CTO Matthew Eshleman and host Carolyn Woodard to learn how to implement an up-to-date and flexible cybersecurity awareness training program this year.As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.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. There are multiple cybersecurity awareness training vendors with products that work for nonprofits. We will be discussing the tool we have selected and use, KnowBe4, which offers nonprofit discounts, but our insights and tips will be useful no matter what training program you are using, or if you want to create and run cybersecurity awareness training in house.Many questions asked at registration or live at the virtual event will be answered in the transcript. Check back after the webinar for additional resources. _______________________________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.

A week in the life of the Help Desk TeamEver wonder what it takes to be a help desk analyst, or what our Help Desk Team does in a typical week? We're inordinately proud of our Help Desk Team, the first and usually only point of contact for most staff for most clients. Listen to this presentation on a typical week and learn about the teamwork, expertise, and continual learning that goes into providing excellent IT support service.“You all do such an amazing job, with such great positive energy, and we always get such great feedback from our clients about the service they receive from the help desk. It's really, it's so critical to all of the work that we do. So I just want to thank each one of you for all your hard work and your diligence.” Johan Hammerstrom, CEO _______________________________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.

Shauna Dillavou is the co-founder of Brightlin.es, a security firm working with the nonprofit sector to prevent vulnerabilities. She is a seasoned intelligence analyst with decades of experience working for the US government. She formerly was part of a team locating cartel associates by their online traces, and founded Brightlines to reverse-engineer that experience to protect vulnerable staff from online doxxing and threats to their personal safety. Unfortunately in recent years the threats against nonprofit staff have grown, making this service necessary and timely.We know nonprofits are facing challenges in a challenging time. At Community IT, when we think about and enact cybersecurity for our clients in the nonprofit sector, we generally are focused on protecting the organization, its data, its systems, and its finances, from bad actors. Those hackers are overwhelmingly interested in financial benefits: getting you to wire the money to their bank account instead of your real bank account. While some cyber criminals are interested in gaining insights into your advocacy area or your networks, a majority of cyber crimes against nonprofits are purely financial.But what happens when your nonprofit is involved in an advocacy area, a country, or an issue that has suddenly become controversial? Media attention turns to your spokespeople, your staff, your board, and your volunteers – anyone who has been associated with your organization's issue. Particularly online. It isn't long before that online attention can become threats against your personnel.“Doxxing” is a term for when an opponent releases personally identifiable information about you – your home address, phone number, your parents, your kids' personal information. Doxxing is meant to inspire terror and to shut you up. And sometimes the online rancor, coupled with personal information, can lead unhinged individuals to act on these online threats.In this interview, Carolyn talks with Shauna Dillavou, co-founder of Brightlin.es, a security company that works in the nonprofit sector to prevent personal vulnerabilities for staff who may be in the online media spotlight. With decades of experience in the intelligence community, Shauna co-founded Brightlines to provide resources to nonprofits, foundations, and others who face threats and escalation against their staff or spokespeople. In this podcast on anti-doxxing and nonprofit staff safety with Shauna Dillavou, learn the types of personal threats that are becoming more common, and the steps you should take to protect your vulnerable staff. Community IT is proudly vendor-agnostic and our podcasts and webinars cover a range of topics and discussions. Podcasts are never a sales pitch, always a way to share our knowledge with our community. Brightlines is one of many services that exist to improve the security of your staff, executives, and board members. This interview with Shauna Dillavou explores the parameters of the problem and gives general advice on steps to take if you or your staff are threatened online. _______________________________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.

In this interview from December 2024, Director of Marketing Carolyn Woodard talks with Ramunda Lark Young about her journey from growing up in Tulsa Oklahoma to working in Washington DC to founding an online Black bookstore during the 2007-2008 recession. In addition to a website where you can find curated lists of books to fit any interest, Mahogany Books now has 2.25 in-person stores in DC and hosts author events and a podcast.What did it take for Ramunda to believe in her vision of owning a bookstore where Black Books Matter, and how did she follow that vision to success? What does Ramunda do to stay grounded and mentally healthy, and what lessons has she learned on this journey about the importance of seeing ourselves celebrated in the communities around us? We know nonprofits are facing challenges in a challenging time, and we could all use a little inspiration. Join Carolyn and Ramunda for a few minutes to talk about books, entrepreneurship, and community.---Ramunda Lark Young is Co-Founder and Co-owner of Mahogany Books online and with 2.25 locations in Washington DC, including National Harbor, National Airport, and a new location in Anacostia. Unapologetically Black-owned, family-run and operated, Mahogany Books is a local independent bookstore that believes in social entrepreneurship. They take a leadership role in the African American community by promoting reading, writing, and cultural awareness as tools to improve self-esteem, self-love and ultimately our communities to enrich the lives of motivated individuals.With over 20 years of combined retail book industry experience, Ramunda has witnessed a variety of market highs and lows which helped develop a bookstore model capitalizing on technology while staying true to the independent community bookstore roots that define the core values of the owners. _______________________________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.

Expert Tips on Current Trends: Webinar 2025 Nonprofit Tech Round TableHow is your organization using AI? What policies do you need? What should you be worried about? Download the Community IT Acceptable Use Policy Template for AI Tools in the Nonprofit Workplace.Steve and Matt also share a veritable "grab bag" of new tools, new chips, and other new issues to keep an eye on that will impact the nonprofit sector using IT in 2025.  Join CTO Matthew Eshleman and Director of IT Consulting Steve Longenecker, moderated by Carolyn Woodard from Community IT, in a lively and specific discussion of all things nonprofit tech for 2025 and beyond.It's like listening in on your smart friends talking about stuff you need to know about but don't know who to ask.Kick off the new year with a new understanding of trends and practices that can help your nonprofit succeed. This is one of our most popular webinars and podcasts year after year for a reason. We don't believe a lot of lingo or jargon is necessary to understand what you need to know to manage IT.As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience. Part 1 covers our introductions, a discussion of hybrid work in the nonprofit context, and tips on new cybersecurity from our expert. Part 2 covers AI, a "grab bag" of new tech and new issues, and audience Q&A.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. Many questions asked at registration or live at the virtual event will be answered in the transcript.  _______________________________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.

Expert Tips on Current Trends: Webinar 2025 Nonprofit Tech Round TableIs the Hybrid/Remote Workplace here to stay or on the way out? Download the Nonprofit Guide to Remote WorkWhat is the new cybersecurity reality and what should you be doing now to better face the next threats?Download the updated Cybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofits PlaybookJoin CTO Matthew Eshleman and Director of IT Consulting Steve Longenecker, moderated by Carolyn Woodard from Community IT, in a lively and specific discussion of all things nonprofit tech for 2025 and beyond.It's like listening in on your smart friends talking about stuff you need to know about but don't know who to ask.Kick off the new year with a new understanding of trends and practices that can help your nonprofit succeed. This is one of our most popular webinars and podcasts year after year for a reason. We don't believe a lot of lingo or jargon is necessary to understand what you need to know to manage IT.As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience. Part 1 covers our introductions, a discussion of hybrid work in the nonprofit context, and tips on new cybersecurity from our expert. Part 2 covers AI, a "grab bag" of new tech and new issues, and audience Q&A.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. Many questions asked at registration or live at the virtual event will be answered in the transcript.  _______________________________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.

Set four intentions to make 2025 safer, saner, and more fun for your IT staff and your nonprofit.Now is the month to set intentions for the year ahead. We know nonprofits are facing challenges in a challenging time. Be intentional about setting expectations for yourself and your organization this year and you will take some of the stress off.Director of Outreach and podcast host Carolyn Woodard walks through four resolutions you can make to make 2025 easier on yourself. Put self-care first – set yourself up for mental and physical health so you can do the things your nonprofit needs you to doPut organization care second – up your cybersecurity to meet evolving threatsClean up! – do a spring cleaning of your files, data inventory, and subscriptions Do something fun – take a tutorial, come together as a teamKeeping these 4 New Year's Resolutions will make your 2025 safer, saner, less stressed, and more fun. We provide lots of the resources you need on our site – you just need to set your intentions and keep these priorities through the year.Some key resources:De-Stress! Self-Care for Nonprofit IT StaffCybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofits PlaybookSAS145 Auditing GuidelinesDKIM/DMARC and email deliverabilitySingle Sign On (SSO)MFA updatesFile Structure and Permissions Best PracticesData GovernanceSubscriptions InventoryBecoming a Learning OrganizationUsing an IT Skills Matrix for team buildingSkills Matrix Best Practices hosted by Build ConsultingReady to get strategic about your IT?We think your IT vendor should be able to explain everything without jargon or lingo. If you can't understand your IT management strategy to your own satisfaction, keep asking your questions until you find an outsourced IT provider who will partner with you for well-managed IT.If you're ready to gain peace of mind about your IT support, let's talk. _______________________________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.

If your organization uses Google Workspace you have access to Google Groups. Kind of like a listserv but so much better.What are Google Groups?If your nonprofit uses Google Workspace, you can use Google Groups to manage tasks via an email group, with granular controls and monitoring if you need it. Google Groups can improve security for email addresses like “donate@mynonprofit” or “info@mynonprofit” if that email directs to a group and is not its own account that's credentials could be hacked. Director of IT Consulting Steve Longenecker explains the ins and outs of using Google Groups and some issues to consider including Google's Fedramp certification if you are trying to use Google Groups with federal workers. Since few MSPs can help nonprofits using Google Workspace, please contact us if you have more questions we can help with. We know that so many nonprofit startups start using Google Workspace because it is easy. Some Key Takeaways:Google Groups works like a listserv, allowing multiple people to view and respond to group emails right from their inbox. No new tools needed like slack or discord. Keeping it simple can help your team or volunteers engage easily.Google Groups allows granular permissions and allows a manager to assign certain email threads to specific team members, so you can make sure all donation inquiries get a quick response, for example. Managers can get valuable insight into email thread status and team members can easily collaborate without checking and back-checking to see who is taking which inquiry.Google Groups can be useful in keeping volunteer groups organized and engaged. You can assign any email to Google Groups, making a partly external volunteer team more functional and making it easier for busy volunteers to participate, right from their inbox.Google Groups has many security features that make it preferable to listservs. And Listerv tools are becoming harder to find and manage. Everyone uses email – if you already use Google Workspace you have a listserv tool already available to you, for free, that has many features and security that listservs just don't have.Google Groups is relatively easy to set up and manage, and Google provides lots of helpful how-to tutorials and advice that are accessible to non-technical managers.If you are trying to use Google Groups with federal employees and encountering resistance, be aware that Google has Fedramp certification. This means your federal friends are allowed to use it from a security perspective.Google Groups is a tool you should consider if you are struggling to manage a team or volunteer group. It is easy to get started and easy to expand as you learn the capabilities. We know that few MSPs serving nonprofits are experts in Google Workspace. Community IT has developed expertise in Google Workspace support since we serve nonprofits exclusively, and so many nonprofits use this platform.  _______________________________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.

Welcome 2025! It's going to be a big year for nonprofit IT and as is our tradition, our senior staff weighed in with the biggest stories of 2024, the most overlooked trends, and what they will be keeping an eye on in 2025. We hear from Senior Engineer David Dawson, Director of IT Consulting Steve Longenecker, IT Business Manager Erik Solce, IT Business Manager Team Lead Norwin Herrera, Chief Technology Officer Matthew Eshleman, Senior Consultant Nuradeen Aboki, CEO Johan Hammerstrom, and Carolyn Woodard, Marketing Director and webinar and podcast host on what we are seeing in our sector.Please join us January 22 for a Nonprofit IT Round Table webinar with Steve, Matt, and Norwin where we will discuss new trends and risks in more depth and take your questions live. https://communityit.com/webinar-2025-nonprofit-tech-round-table/Thank you for joining us in 2024 and we look forward to sharing resources and learning together in 2025! _______________________________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.

Is your nonprofit ready to go server-less? What's holding you back from going to the cloud? Norwin Herrera is an IT Business Manager with Community IT and has decades of experience in IT and as a nonprofit IT consultant. In his work with clients over the years he has learned some of the barriers to moving entirely into the cloud, and gives some advice in overcoming that inertia. Starting with saving money, using a more secure and more current technology, and then throwing in convenience - moving to the cloud is the right move to make. If your nonprofit is hesitating, learn more about the cost savings, security, and convenience from Norwin.Norwin's IT Business Manager team and the Projects team at Community IT are well-versed experts in this type of large project. It can seem daunting, but with expertise and experience, Community IT can help you tackle what needs to be done to get off your server before it is obsolete, and move into a cloud-based platform.  _______________________________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.

Cybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofit Accountants, Hosted by Jitasa UniversityJoin Matt Eshleman, cybersecurity expert and author of the re-released Community IT Cybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofits Playbook, in a short presentation on how to use the playbook to protect your organization if you are a financial manager or accountant.In this video, you will Learn about the free downloadable Playbook on Cybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofits and how financial officers and accountants can utilize this Playbook Learn the most common scams and trends in cybersecurity for nonprofitsUnderstand the current cybersecurity landscape and the role of AI in new risksLearn tips for getting buy-in from stakeholdersUnderstand cybersecurity training best practices for nonprofit staffThis video is designed for financial professionals in nonprofits, from CFOs to accountants. This Cybersecurity Playbook covers issues and best practices important to any nonprofit staff and leadership; this video concentrates on the questions and issues relevant to financial staff, and is hosted by Jitasa University. You do not need to be an IT professional to find value in this playbook.Download the free Cybersecurity Playbook here: https://communityit.com/download-cybersecurity-readiness-for-nonprofits-playbook/ _______________________________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.

New nonprofit auditing requirements SAS145 now include IT and cybersecurity compliance. Are you ready?In 2022 the AICPA Auditing Standards Board (ASB) issued Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 145,Understanding the Entity and Its Environment and Assessing the Risks of Material Misstatement. The new standard became effective for audits of financial statements for periods ending on or after Dec. 15, 2023. For more on SAS 145 changes, read this article in the Journal of Accountancy.For the first time, SAS No. 145 now provides explicit definitions for the terms general information technology (IT) controls, IT environment, and information-processing controls. In addition, as IT utilization brings additional risk, the new guidance expressly defines risks arising from the use of IT.As audits proceed with the new guidelines, we expect a learning period for auditors, IT professionals, and nonprofit leaders. If you have questions about what the new requirements entail, you are not alone. Community IT has begun to field questions from our clients and their auditors about IT systems and cybersecurity controls. We will continue to share our insights and advice with our community as audits evolve to incorporate IT security.We're happy to see IT security requirements finally addressed in financial audits and look forward to helping nonprofit leaders and auditors better understand the interplay of well-managed IT with better financial security and protection from bad actors.Listen to CEO Johan Hammerstrom explain the changes to the guidelines in SAS145 that you will need to know whether you are in nonprofit IT, financial, or leadership roles, or an auditor looking for insights into the IT management side of the new requirements. Since the new nonprofit auditing requirements SAS145 impact everyone in nonprofits, please contact us if you have more questions we can help with. _______________________________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.

It won't be a surprise that AI is on everyone's mind. Matt also shared some thoughts on some year end cybersecurity tips and maintenance to ensure your cybersecurity practices – and permissions – are up to date.Nonprofit Cybersecurity expert and Community IT CTO Matt Eshleman offered these year-end cybersecurity tips.Do a permissions audit at the enterprise level – what are your defaults for sharing, and how are you training your staff to log in to various tools and subscriptions that can access your data? At a personal level, what are the safest ways to log on to your accounts? How should you be storing passwords? How are you setting your personal sharing and log in permissions? Reviewing these policies and practices – and actually going in to your systems and checking – is a good end-of-year cybersecurity task.Consumer Reports has good tools for people who want to reduce their data footprint. Matt also reported back from the NGOISAC Conference on the trends that the community is seeing. For more information on the NGOISAC cybersecurity community for NGOs and Nonprofits, use this link.AI companies are not spending nearly enough on safety as they rush to market their products. That puts it on consumers and organizations to know how to protect themselves.AI is increasing the ability of hackers, and in the arms race with protectors, a corresponding use of AI to block phishing and other hacks is playing catch up.Nonprofits are going to need to understand our new environment where not just emails will seem realistic but where voice and video fakes will be put in use. Finding old fashioned ways to verify that the person you are interacting with is a person will become more important as AI powers grow. _______________________________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.

If you find yourself with a little downtime, what should you work on?The Gala is back! If your nonprofit is focused on an end of the year fundraising event, you may find yourself and your IT team with a little extra time on your hands this December as the rest of your staff are pulled away from their desks and are calling the help desk less frequently. Carolyn Woodard reviewed our recent webinars and podcasts for advice on what projects you might want to start now to be ready to hit the ground running in the new year.Our list of 6 tips for nonprofit IT in December:1. Do you have an IT Roadmap? This is one of the most important planning documents you can have as a nonprofit IT professional and leader. We have resources on our site to help you get started.2. Think about policies and governance. This doesn't mean you have to write them yourself before January. But if you have an hour free, you can go through our checklists of the most important policies to have, and review your existing documents, and be ready to meet with your leadership team in the new year with advice and priorities ready to go.3. What is your AI policy? We created a policy template specific to nonprofits that you can download and adapt to your own organization's values and needs. As AI tools and issues come at our organizations faster and faster, make sure you are setting the policy rather than just accepting whatever happens.4. Map your data. The more AI tools come into use within our organizations, the more important permissions are going to become as those tools interact with our data. Not just with databases, but also with files, AI is going to find whatever it can find. Think about permissions, and training your staff, and how valuable your data is to you and to hackers.5. A fifth project we recommend is tracking your inventory, subscriptions and licenses. Once you have an inventory system in place – and maybe have discovered you can do a better job of tracking onboarding and off boarding, or where you can be saving money with an enterprise license rather than individual licenses – it gets easier from there.6. If you still have any time during your down time – we recommend you block off some time to take some tutorials. Did you know that learning a new skill and improving your confidence in new tools can actually lower your stress levels as an IT professional? If you haven't been making time for learning, and you have a little down time this December, why don't you see if you can get in the habit? During the regular hustle and bustle of your IT job you may not feel you have time to get started on any of these important projects, so make time when you have down time to think about what you are missing and where to start. Setting priorities is important too, and being realistic. Maybe one of these projects is plenty! Don't think you are going to finish any of these projects this December, or that you have to do them entirely on your own. But putting a little prep work in now can help you get them off the ground in the new year, with specific questions for your colleagues and specific goals and strategies. And won't that be a great feeling to greet the new year with!  _______________________________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.

Are you feeling burned out? Nonprofit IT can be exhausting. Learn how to de-stress to better tackle your job and help your nonprofit succeed.There is so much stress in managing nonprofit IT. There are conflicting agendas, tight budgets, and unrealistic demands. A lot of us have been burned by IT projects in the past that still give us nightmares. The tool was expensive, required a huge project to implement, took a ton of time, didn't work, everyone hated it, the training was terrible, and the vendor or consultants or your boss left you holding the bag. Some executives really do understand how crucial functioning IT is to your nonprofit – to your work life and to your ability to achieve your mission. But even if you are lucky enough to have a lot of leadership, IT management is still tough. It touches every staff member and even little issues can make your work unworkable. Don't get us started on cybersecurity fears.While you work on the big picture of IT management at your nonprofit, don't forget to work on managing your own stress and avoiding burnout. With all the recent research and attention paid to self-care in nonprofit careers we wanted to spend a webinar focused particularly on de-stress and self-care in nonprofit IT roles. Director of Marketing and recovering IT Director at large and small nonprofits Carolyn Woodard explores the latest research on the benefits of de-stressing and some tips on incorporating self-care in your nonprofit IT management routine.If your first reaction to the idea of self care is that you are too busy to put it on your to-do list, this is the podcast episode for you. _______________________________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.

Do you have an IT roadmap at your nonprofit? As a nonprofit leader, how can you design an IT roadmap to create value for your organization?On October 3, 2024 the Center for Public and Nonprofit Leadership partnered with Community IT Innovators to provide a workshop: Design an IT Roadmap to Create Value for Your Nonprofit.To fully utilize the power of IT to support your nonprofit, you need to have a plan. View the workshop video to learn the steps to create your own IT roadmap and incorporate IT strategy into your leadership and budget practice.To learn more about the Georgetown Center for Public & Nonprofit Leadership at the McCourt School of Public Policy check out their program here. The Center for Public & Nonprofit Leadership provides advanced education in leadership, public and nonprofit management, advocacy and philanthropy, with domestic and international applications. Their multi-sectoral approach, public policy orientation, and research focus on effective practices, ensure the breadth and relevance of the educational experiences we offer.They focus on four program areas, found on their website:Executive Certificate and Customized Programs available online and in person.Graduate EducationResearch that Informs PracticeLocal to Global Community EngagementThank you, Georgetown Center for Public & Nonprofit Leadership for inviting us to present to your alumni and to Hoyas For Others.This webinar is appropriate for nonprofit executives, managers, accounting, development, and nonprofit IT personnel – and as with all our webinars, it is appropriate for a varied audience.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.

Las mejores prácticas para organizar sus archivos en la nube para lograr seguridad y eficiencia.La organización de archivos en la nube es algo que puede parecer una prioridad menor, en particular con el aumento de las herramientas de búsqueda potentes y ahora con el auge de la búsqueda con inteligencia artificial (IA). Carolyn habló con el invitado Norwin Herrera, IT Business Manager Team Lead de Community IT, para responder a preguntas sobre por qué es importante crear un sistema de organización de archivos, tanto para una mayor ciberseguridad en el mundo de la IA como para la productividad y la eficiencia de su personal. Los consejos para la organización de archivos en la nube incluyen priorizar el proyecto, etiquetar claramente los archivos y crear políticas de gobernanza sólidas y capacitar al personal sobre sus expectativas en cuanto al etiquetado y el guardado de archivos.Norwin ofrece algunas razones para etiquetar con precisión sus archivos y defiende la necesidad de organizarse en línea. También ofrece consejos para lograr que su liderazgo participe en la definición de sus políticas de organización de archivos y vea las ventajas estratégicas de priorizar este proyecto. _______________________________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.

Best practices on organizing your files in the cloud for security and efficiency.Cloud files organization is something that can seem like a low priority, particularly with the rise of strong search tools and now with the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) search. Carolyn spoke with guest Norwin Herrera, IT Business Manager, to answer questions about why it's important to create a file organization system, both for increased cybersecurity in the world of AI, and for the productivity and efficiency of your staff. Cloud file organization tips include prioritizing the project, clearly labeling files, and creating strong governance policies and training staff on your expectations on labeling and saving files.Having a method and a system is important for safeguarding file access when you use AI tools to search accessible files. It's also important to create a file retention policy for your organization, and governance around file search. How can you save money by routinely saving what is important and removing old or misleading files to an archive or deleting them? In addition to spending your nonprofit funds to backup files that are no longer relevant, your staff will spend more time evaluating if the AI search tool has surfaced a relevant or irrelevant file. That staff time is also money. Norwin provides some reasons to accurately label your files and makes a case for being organized online. He also provides tips on getting your leadership engaged in setting your file organization policies and seeing the strategic advantages to prioritizing this project. _______________________________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.

Is your nonprofit struggling to understand cybersecurity fundamentals? Are you unsure what level of protection you need or can afford?In part 1, Matt discussed the cybersecurity landscape for nonprofits and some of the changes that prompted this update to the Playbook. In pt 2, Matt walks through the "foundational" suggestions and takes audience questions.October is Cybersecurity month! Community IT Chief Technology Officer Matt Eshleman walked through our revised Playbook on Cybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofits in a webinar designed to get your nonprofit prepped to face cyberliability insurance requirements and ever-evolving threats. Learn the Community IT approach to cybersecurity and how even small changes will protect your organization against threats big and small. 2024 Updated Playbook on Cybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofits – DownloadMatt shares updated advice on security improvements that provide protection against the most common attacks. You will learn about AI and cybersecurity, best practices in staff training, how to qualify for cyber insurance, and why you need written IT documentation and governance policies. Do you have an approach to compliance? Do you know if your staff are following your cybersecurity policies and procedures? With the rise of automated and realistic AI tools and more sophisticated methods of identity and email verification, your nonprofit can't afford not to prioritize cybersecurity. It may be difficult to qualify for business insurance if you don't complete certain checklists of cybersecurity precautions. But if you don't know where to start, it can be tempting to delay indefinitely.This Playbook gives you a simple structure to understand how to think about cybersecurity risks and costs for your nonprofit. Matt's presentation gives you tips you can put in place quickly and train your staff on immediately. You can download the new Playbook for free here.This webinar is appropriate for nonprofit executives, managers, accounting, development, and nonprofit IT personnel – and as with all our webinars, it is appropriate for a varied audience.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.Presenter:As the Chief Technology Officer at Community IT and our resident cybersecurity expert, Matthew Eshleman is responsible for shaping Community IT's strategy around the technology platforms used by organizations to be secure and productive. With a deep background in network infrastructure, he fundamentally understands how technology works and interoperates both in the office and in the cloud.Matt is a frequent speaker at NTEN events and has presented at the Inside NGO conference, Non-Profit Risk Management Summit and Credit Builders Alliance Symposium. He is also the session designer and trainer for TechSoup's Digital Security course.  _______________________________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.

Is your nonprofit struggling to understand cybersecurity fundamentals? Are you unsure what level of protection you need or can afford?October is Cybersecurity month! Community IT Chief Technology Officer Matt Eshleman walked through our revised Playbook on Cybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofits in a webinar designed to get your nonprofit prepped to face cyberliability insurance requirements and ever-evolving threats. Learn the Community IT approach to cybersecurity and how even small changes will protect your organization against threats big and small. 2024 Updated Playbook on Cybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofits – DownloadMatt shares updated advice on security improvements that provide protection against the most common attacks. You will learn about AI and cybersecurity, best practices in staff training, how to qualify for cyber insurance, and why you need written IT documentation and governance policies. Do you have an approach to compliance? Do you know if your staff are following your cybersecurity policies and procedures? With the rise of automated and realistic AI tools and more sophisticated methods of identity and email verification, your nonprofit can't afford not to prioritize cybersecurity. It may be difficult to qualify for business insurance if you don't complete certain checklists of cybersecurity precautions. But if you don't know where to start, it can be tempting to delay indefinitely.This Playbook gives you a simple structure to understand how to think about cybersecurity risks and costs for your nonprofit. Matt's presentation gives you tips you can put in place quickly and train your staff on immediately. You can download the new Playbook for free here.This webinar is appropriate for nonprofit executives, managers, accounting, development, and nonprofit IT personnel – and as with all our webinars, it is appropriate for a varied audience.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.Presenter:As the Chief Technology Officer at Community IT and our resident cybersecurity expert, Matthew Eshleman is responsible for shaping Community IT's strategy around the technology platforms used by organizations to be secure and productive. With a deep background in network infrastructure, he fundamentally understands how technology works and interoperates both in the office and in the cloud.Matt joined Community IT as an intern in the summer of 2000 and after finishing his dual degrees in Computer Science and Computer Information Systems at Eastern Mennonite University, he rejoined Community IT as a network administrator in January of 2001. Matt has steadily progressed up at Community IT and while working full time received his MBA from the Carey School of Business at Johns Hopkins University.Matt is a frequent speaker at NTEN events and has presented at the Inside NGO conference, Non-Profit Risk Management Summit and Credit Builders Alliance Symposium. He is also the session designer and trainer for TechSoup's Digital Security course.  _______________________________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.

Best practices on improving data security, making the case for creating the policies, and the impact of AI on data security.Carolyn speaks with guest Jeff Gibson from Build Consulting to answer questions about why data is important to nonprofits, how your data can get really widely distributed in different tools in different departments, and why it is important to do an audit and assessment to know what data you have. Do you know where your data risks lie? Do you know you are in compliance with laws and your internal policies? Do you have a data policy? What do you need to know about data governance for nonprofits?Jeff has over 25 years in nonprofit IT including as CIO Chief Information Officer, but recognizes that many staff at nonprofits work with data or use tools that create databases – but don't have a data background or expertise with database management. That can create holes in your cybersecurity that cause real risks for your organization. But it can be really difficult to see a need for specific data policies. It can be difficult to convince leadership to prioritize the time to do a data assessment and create data policies. And at small to medium sized nonprofits without resources for a compliance team, it can be hard to monitor compliance with your own policies and with legal requirements. Jeff shared his experiences and insights into these difficulties and offered some tips on making the case for the danger of unmanaged data. If you are feeling anxious about your data security policies, this discussion on data governance for nonprofits will give you ideas on how to move forward.  _______________________________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.

How do you track your subscriptions and licenses? Why is it important to know who has which subscription at your nonprofit? Many clients come to Community IT experiencing difficulty tracking IT inventory. In addition to tracking physical hardware, laptops, and devices, nonprofits also can find it difficult to track licenses and software subscriptions to cloud-based apps and IT tools. The rise in cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) models has led to ease of use. It is really easy to sign up for a subscription to many IT tools and platforms that can help productivity and benefit your nonprofit. But there are many advantages to tracking subscriptions, and disadvantages – financial and security – over leaving subscriptions and licenses up to individuals on your staff. Also make sure your nonprofit has strong practices for off-boarding staff and ending their subscriptions and licenses when no longer needed. Director of Information Systems and Technology Pat Sprehe joins Carolyn in this podcast to discuss the reasons your nonprofit should care about licenses and subscriptions, and how to go about managing the ecosystem from an IT and budget perspective. Among other duties, Pat manages subscriptions and licenses for Community IT staff and is well aware of the challenges and issues.Learn best practices to manage costs and ensure security for all your users, without stifling their entrepreneurship and self-management. With a little prioritization now, you can ensure your organization is protected from bad actors and can save on subscriptions and licenses. _______________________________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.

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 TemplateAs 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 TemplateAs 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 NonprofitsAs 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.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 NonprofitsAs 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.

Are you a new board member hoping to help your nonprofit navigate IT management? Do you know what you need to know about IT, cybersecurity, and change management as a board member? Where is your nonprofit on the scale of IT management maturity? In this podcast Marketing Director Carolyn Woodard, who has served as an IT Director at nonprofits in her career, shares best practices and her thoughts on the importance ofsetting prioritieshow to start designing an IT Roadmap from your prioritieshow to allocate budget, staff time, and staff energyunderstanding IT change management best practices and the staff capacity of your nonprofitsetting project timelines from your IT RoadmapFor more information on creating an IT Roadmap and to view the slides mentioned in this podcast, https://communityit.com/webinar-design-an-it-roadmap-to-create-value/ _______________________________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.

Whether or not your nonprofit faced Crowdstrike impacts, the aftermath of a national or worldwide incident is a great time to gather your cybersecurity team and run the exercise: what will your organization do during the next outage or cyber attack? Nonprofit Cybersecurity expert Matt Eshleman shares his thoughts in this podcast on the importance ofreviewing your incident response and business continuity plans regularly, practicing your response regularly – what will you do if a critical person is absent? involving stakeholders outside the domain of the IT team to weigh the recovery options and order of importance. Payroll first? Email? Securing a backup of your data?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 a deep background in network infrastructure, he fundamentally understands how nonprofit tech works and interoperates both in the office and in the cloud. 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 is a frequent speaker on cybersecurity topics for nonprofits and has presented at NTEN events, the Inside NGO conference, Nonprofit Risk Management Summit and Credit Builders Alliance Symposium, LGBT MAP Finance Conference, and Tech Forward Conference. He is also the session designer and trainer for TechSoup's Digital Security course, and our resident Cybersecurity expert.Learn how to recover better from a cybersecurity incident with some key takeaways from this podcast. _______________________________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.

In part 2, we discuss Single Sign On (SSO) implementation and roll out, and answer questions from the webinar audience. In part 1, our guests Steve Longenecker and Phil Oswald Christano define SSO and go over what it does and doesn't do. We discuss the unfortunate fact that each app interacts with SSO differently so you have to enable it for each app. However, if you use Google or Microsoft you already have some basic tools to implement SSO.If you have heard about Single Sign On (SSO) and wondered what it can do for your nonprofit, this webinar explains the concept and examines the ways that SSO can help your organization be more productive and work more safely online.Single Sign-On (SSO) is a pivotal security and usability tool for any modern organization. By enabling users to access multiple applications with one set of login credentials, SSO not only simplifies the authentication process but also enhances security. At the most basic level, when a user is logged in via SSO, they access the websites and tools they use for work through that SSO service. Those individual websites and tools are configured to trust the SSO-providing service. Organizations can set up a stand-alone SSO service like Okta or use an existing service that provides the functionality as an option, like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. We discussed all of these options in the webinar.  SSO allows organizations to focus their identity management efforts. It reduces the risk of password fatigue and decreases the likelihood of phishing attacks. SSO allows for improved governance around which applications users can access. User account provisioning and deprovisioning can be more efficient than when each application is managed separately. And SSO should also help staff work more smoothly without needing to pause to log in to tools and sites throughout the day. More details are available in our blog post SSO for nonprofits. With the evolution of AI fueling more sophisticated cyber-attacks, Community IT often recommends implementing SSO as another layer of protection. View or listen to this webinar to delve deeper into the benefits of SSO, understand implementation strategies, and learn how it can streamline your workflow, bolster security, and improve user experience.Is your nonprofit protected?As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience. You do not have to have previous experience with SSO or cybersecurity to benefit from this webinar. 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.

If you have heard about Single Sign On (SSO) and wondered what it can do for your nonprofit, this webinar explains the concept and examines the ways that SSO can help your organization be more productive and work more safely online.In part 1, our guests Steve Longenecker and Phil Oswald Christano define SSO and go over what it does and doesn't do. We discuss the unfortunate fact that each app interacts with SSO differently so you have to enable it for each app. However, if you use Google or Microsoft you already have some basic tools to implement SSO.In part 2, we discuss implementation and roll out, and answer questions from the webinar audience. Single Sign-On (SSO) is a pivotal security and usability tool for any modern organization. By enabling users to access multiple applications with one set of login credentials, SSO not only simplifies the authentication process but also enhances security. At the most basic level, when a user is logged in via SSO, they access the websites and tools they use for work through that SSO service. Those individual websites and tools are configured to trust the SSO-providing service. Organizations can set up a stand-alone SSO service like Okta or use an existing service that provides the functionality as an option, like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. We discussed all of these options in the webinar.  SSO allows organizations to focus their identity management efforts. It reduces the risk of password fatigue and decreases the likelihood of phishing attacks. SSO allows for improved governance around which applications users can access. User account provisioning and deprovisioning can be more efficient than when each application is managed separately. And SSO should also help staff work more smoothly without needing to pause to log in to tools and sites throughout the day. More details are available in our blog post SSO for nonprofits. With the evolution of AI fueling more sophisticated cyber-attacks, Community IT often recommends implementing SSO as another layer of protection. View or listen to this webinar to delve deeper into the benefits of SSO, understand implementation strategies, and learn how it can streamline your workflow, bolster security, and improve user experience.Is your nonprofit protected?As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience. You do not have to have previous experience with SSO or cybersecurity to benefit from this webinar. 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.

What do the acronyms SFP, DKIM, and DMARC mean, and why do you need to prove your email is legit?If you have been hearing these terms lately about your email or your cybersecurity liability insurance checklist, and don't know your DKIM from your DMARC, you aren't alone! Carolyn sat down with CEO Johan Hammerstrom to demystify the lingo and learn about the latest requirements for ensuring emails from your domain look legit to other inboxes, and how that helps protect your nonprofit now and in the future. Deliverability requirements are changing, so if you are in nonprofit leadership or nonprofit IT you will need to ensure your organization is in compliance. Listen to this podcast to learn the latest about this lingo, and then ask your IT provider or IT department about email protection and deliverability at your next check in.Johan Hammerstrom, CEO of Community IT, breaks down why you should care about these acronyms and what they can do for your nonprofit security. Do you want to make sure your major donor can receive that email thank you? Then get on the email protection and deliverability train and listen to learn all about new requirements and best practices. _______________________________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.

What does it mean to be a learning organization and how can you grow learning practices at your nonprofit?In pt 1 Karen defined a Learning Organization and explored struggles to embrace learning at your nonprofit. In pt 2 Karen discusses the categories of learning technologies that can help nonprofits organize their learning management, and gave us tips on implementing learning strategies at our organizations.Karen Graham has more than 20 years in senior nonprofit leadership, and a broad knowledge of trends and best practices in technology, leadership, and organizational development. Formerly head of Idealware, a research institution studying nonprofits' use of technology, Karen has long observed there are some nonprofits that have a strong internal learning culture, and she sees benefits to those who take knowledge management and sharing very seriously. She shared ideas on how to grow that learning impulse at your nonprofit and find funding for it and strategic value in it. If you are struggling with a learning management system or thinking about investing in one, we also talked about tech tools that help with knowledge management – but as we always say, the tech should come last, the clearly articulated business need should come first. Karen's presentation helps us think about why learning is so crucial to our organizations and how to invest in the idea of the learning organization. Is your nonprofit a learning organization?For more on the concept of learning organizations and the history of the term over the decades, we recommend this article from Harvard Business Review Is Yours a Learning Organization? (1 free article/month or by subscription.)As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.Community IT and Karen Graham Consulting are 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.Presenter:Karen Graham is a nonprofit technology strategist who loves helping people solve problems – from making their work easier and more enjoyable, to enabling their organization to more effectively achieve its mission. Her consulting work focuses on the intersection of technology strategy, leadership, and culture for mission based organizations. She has worked in a variety of roles in sector-strengthening organizations such as Tech Impact (Chief Advancement Officer), Idealware (Executive Director), MAP for Nonprofits (Director of Technology & Innovation), and thedatabank (Director of Business Development). She serves on the grant review board for the Shavlik Family Foundation and the board of directors for the Minneapolis Southwest High School Performing Arts Committee. Karen earned her MBA in Nonprofit Management from the University of St. Thomas.For an introduction to Karen's thinking on learning organizations, listen to this podcast Karen Graham on Learning from Build Consulting. You can also follow her on LinkedIn. _______________________________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.