Most nonprofit organizations have their primary focus on enhancing their operational and technical efficiency. The main goal is to maximize impact and increase charitable giving. Many methods get explored to achieve the same. The latest digital tools and technology enable nonprofits to do more with less, the perfect solution to the needs of nonprofit organizations. This article focuses on the ideal digital maturity checklist for your nonprofit, to help you check and see if you are headed in the right direction.
Why is digital growth important for nonprofits?
It is true that nonprofit organizations have restrictions in terms of human, financial and technical resources. This further gives rise to the need for digital transformation in the nonprofit landscape. Digital tools were largely adopted by many nonprofits during the Covid-19 pandemic for survival and the practice carries on even till today. The more digital grows within a nonprofit organization, the more convenience it delivers to the nonprofit and its giving community. If you are a nonprofit looking for digital and smart tools that actually work for your organization, you can check out GiveCentral’s Smart Tools and find out how big of a help technology can offer you. For those who are already on a digital journey, this brief checklist is just the right one for you.
Security posture
For both you and your donors, security of information is very important. One question to ask yourself is – how secure is your organization’s digital information? Make sure that you are taking necessary precautions to safeguard your donors and all the data that you have stored. When donors contribute to your charitable giving, they are also giving you a lot of trust.
Email health
Next up on our digital maturity checklist is the health of your email. Consider the following:
- Are your emails reaching out to all the relevant contacts from your database?
- Which sender name are you using on all your emails? Does your email provider allow customization?
- Does your email provider offer you ready-made templates and customizable e-newsletter?
- Does your email provider use a feature known as BIMI – Brand Indicators for Message Identification that allows a display of your nonprofit’s logo next to the subject line and description? This is an important area as it creates room for branding.
Donation form
Optimization of your donation form is necessary and what’s even more important is checking if the form is properly optimized. Your donation form must include a checkbox asking donors to cover the processing fee, it should allow mobile/SMS log in and it should also offer different payment options such as PayPal, Apple Pay and cryptocurrency. Another important box to tick is the thank you page that appears after completion of the transaction – the content, image and language of the page.
SEO bits
Look into your technical optimization since Google places a huge priority on website performances. The faster your pages load, the quicker you will move up the search ranks.
- Keep a tab on your webpages to see if you’ve put in the proper tags such as alt-image, meta and OG. These are essential to search engines.
- The content on your website should be shareable on social media – make sure that you’ve filled out the right tags for the same.
Workforce
Your workforce too needs to be evaluated. Digital maturity is not just about technology but also about people and the culture you have enforced. How well equipped is your staff for charitable giving within a digital world? Do your people have the necessary skills and knowledge to be able to guide your audience/donors through all the digital processes? Where are you lagging and how can you improve? Find your answers and plan your next action depending on those answers.
Conclusion
As we become more firmly rooted in the digital age, it makes a lot of sense to consider a nonprofit technology assessment. The public is becoming more aware and with that, there is a huge competition between nonprofits to create a bigger giving community and supporters. Testing your organization against a digital maturity checklist is important because digital is the present and future of the nonprofit world. AI-driven insights and strategies stemming out of digital technologies are truly the way forward.
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