According to the NetChange survey of technology use by nonprofits, most organisations struggle with their digital technology programmes. Only 11 percent believe their organisations’ approaches to digital are highly effective, and about 40 percent have significant internal issues with their technological platforms.
“Nonprofits are leaving significant impact on the table as a result,” stated an article by the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
For over 30 years, TechSoup Global—which was originally founded as CompuMentor—has helped these organisations adopt the technology needed to scale their operations and increase their impact.
To date, TechSoup has affected over one million nonprofits and NGOs around the world.
The nonprofit tech organisation offers software, hardware and technology services; informative resources to learn more about technology, such as webinars, forums and articles; and in-person community programmes, including the TechSoup Global Network in 236 countries and territories and the NetSquared programme to encourage community organisers to host tech-for-good meetups.
According to Tech Startups, TechSoup works with over 100 tech companies to provide technology donations and charitable offers to NGOs and nonprofits everywhere—the only global philanthropy programme to accomplish such a feat.
“Technology is not inherently good or bad, but when it is lacking, it can affect an organisation’s ability to secure funding and ensure that its services reach the communities it is trying to serve,” TechSoup CEO Rebecca Masisak told Philanthropy News Digest in 2018. “We live in a world where it is necessary to have a well-managed and effective digital presence to be found, and where data that is digitised is also the data that is used to drive decisions, including funding decisions.
“Unfortunately, the acceleration of technology innovation means these organisations are being left further and further behind and are invisible to a global community that, increasingly, goes online to connect.”
TechSoup has now received a $2.5 million grant through the VMware Foundation to expand its services and double the number of organisations it can impact.
“At VMware, we’re committed to strengthening the operational capacity of nonprofits, supporting their digital transformation, so they can meet their important missions,” Jessamine Chin, director of VMware Foundation, said in a statement. “We are thrilled to partner with the experts at TechSoup, an impactful organisation that works with more than one million nonprofits globally, and provides solutions for a more equitable planet.”
These funds will support TechSoup’s $11.5 million Growth Capital Campaign, a programme financing five new initiatives to help NGOs and nonprofits use technology to transform their organisations and communities—particularly with cloud technology.
So far, over $8 million has been committed to funding the Growth Capital Campaign.
“As organisations around the world migrate IT operations to the cloud, we need to ensure that the nonprofit sector also benefits from this foundational shift in the way we use technology,” explained the TechSoup CEO in a statement.
“VMware’s digital transformation initiative and support of TechSoup will help us build a cloud-first future that enables civil society organisations to do more with the resources available to them, expand the impact they have on their communities and capture many other benefits of digital strategies for impact.”
