Agenda

Chris Powers, Co-Founder, MyCovidResponse and ReciproCity

In early 2020, MyCovidResponse was formed to help get resources to those most vulnerable to the pandemic. Through a collaborative effort between community leaders, regional agencies, and grassroots organizers, they built a system that coordinated >50,000 food deliveries, thousands of masks, and hundreds of vaccines, and thousands of connections to essential services since COVID-19 began. Hear from these 2020 Technology Innovation Award recipients on their approach for going from zero to serving thousands of people in one month though a combination of partnerships and technology.

Héctor Maldonado-Reis, Associate Director, Delaware Data Innovation Lab

“Have you harnessed the power of your unmeasured data? The Delaware Data Innovation Lab leverages open source, publicly available data in order to provide state legislators, community organizers, and citizens of the state of DE with insights on the eviction filing crisis during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hear how The Lab merged publicly available information, experimented with 3D data displays to effectively communicate our discoveries, and moved the state conversation around the eviction moratorium towards additional data projects aimed at delivering solutions that can further enhance renter security.”

Adam Eads, Senior Program Manager, TechSoup

Kaitlyn Salazar, Director of Strategic Partnerships, Tapp Network

John Robinson, Technical Consultant, Tech Impact

In early 2021, TechSoup began working with cohorts of nonprofits to build greater digital resiliency through a holistic approach providing the tools, skills and confidence an organization needs to not just survive but to thrive in a post-pandemic world. Supported through a generous grant from the Truist Foundation, this program allows organizations to benefit from TechSoup’s vast ecosystem of tools, partnerships and educational opportunities to dramatically accelerate their digital transformation journey.

Rebecca Shavlik, Shavlik Family Foundation

Debbi Lindenberg, The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation

Responding to the pandemic’s impact on nonprofits, some foundations increased funding for technology tools and tech capacity building. In this session, several funders will offer their perspectives on whether this was a one-time response or a bigger shift in attitudes about technology support, how nonprofits can frame requests for technology capacity and infrastructure funding, and where might exist opportunities for collective efforts.

Dalbin Osorio, CWIN Program Manager, Montgomery County Collaboration Council

How often are you evaluating whether the services you provide are truly reachable to your target audience?  Are you reviewing the data you collect to make informed decisions, even if it is illustrating tough realizations?

Hear how Montgomery County Collaboration Council came to the difficult understanding that its target communities were not taking advantage of their services because of obstacles in their path and how the pandemic helped push them to re-evaluate how to use technology to increase their access to these emerging communities.

Debbie Amaral, CEO, Mystical Valley YMCA and Jenn Taylor, Founder, Deep Why Design

How do we use technology to help people have a better, more respectful experience in the emergency food system?  Debbie Amaral asked this question to herself and the many small agencies she collaborates and formally launched Your Market to directly address the barriers we face to solving them more broadly in our sector. In this talk, Debbie is joined by Jenn Taylor to talk about the partnerships, approaches, and lessons learned on their journey to build a shared data system that addresses our 3 key goals: shopper dignity, better data, and an easy-to-use and sustainable system for the smaller pantries that often get left out of these conversations.

Darrell Booker, Corporate Affairs Specialist, Microsoft

You’ve done the basics when it comes to securing your tech – Multifactor Authentication, complex password requirements, setting up backups – but what now? How can you monitor and track your technology environment for nefarious activity to help you stay ready and prepared for the worst? Hear from Microsoft expert Darrell Booker who will walk you through five actions you can setup today to keep a proactive stance on your security.

Logan Herring, Executive Director,  Teen Warehouse

Will Weatherly, Technology Director, Choose Well SC

Hear what prompted Choose Well SC to design and create their own Private Login Portal for partnership & collaboration amongst the 150+ Organizations and Sub-Grantees that they lead and manage in the South Carolina statewide coalition initiative. Learn key lessons and challenges they experienced, focusing on the keys to motivating and incentivizing adoption of the new technology by their Members.

Many organizations think that by using cloud systems and automated backups, they are all set to recover from a disaster should one happen, but it takes much more than that to be prepared. In this workshop, we will explain why having a written and updated Disaster Recovery plan is important to your technology environment and define the elements that go into creating a successful plan. Then, we’ll walk participants through questions and assessments to help complete a disaster recovery form. Once forms are completed, Tech Impact will use that information to produce and send a personalized written Disaster Recovery Plan in a Word.doc format.

Takeaways:

• An understanding of important Disaster Recovery Plan elements
• Assistance in completing the Disaster Planning form
• A review by a Backup and Recovery Engineer who will evaluate the information collected and generate a personalized Disaster Recovery Plan for your organization’s use

Clear, concise policies governing the use of technology can help protect your nonprofit against the risks of scams, malicious software, and bad data handling practices. Do you have guidelines in place to ensure appropriate staff use of social media, constituent data, and/or donor information? How do you manage staff use of phones or computers that mix personal and work data?

If you don’t have written policies in place, your organization may face bigger risks than you think. In this workshop, we will explain how to identify the risks associated with current technology use, common policy types organizations should consider having, and important elements that should be included to ensure appropriate expectations are set. Then, we’ll walk participants through a policy builder form and once complete, you’ll leave with a personalized technology policy for your organization.

Takeaways:

• Understand which kinds of tech policies your org should have and know basic components every policy should include
• Assistance in completing a personalized Technology Policy  needs assessment form
• A review by an IT Business Analyst who will evaluate the information collected and generate a personalized Tech Policy document*

*Organizations that require the inclusion of special considerations (i.e. HIPAA or other regulatory requirements) may need additional elements outside of this particular document

Building a dashboard is easy, but understanding what data to use and how to best present it is a challenge many organizations miss. Using the build of an Annual Report as an example, learn about best practices and how to get started visualizing data for your organization.

This workshop will focus on the steps organizations need to take before they begin the visualization build including drawing out your report, identifying key performance indicators (KPIs), and documenting where the data for each metric lives. Designed for leadership members, development staff, or any other team member looking for visualization tools, this workshop does not require technical expertise.

Takeaways:

• A template customized by you during the workshop that can be used to create an annual report or other program dashboard
• An understanding of various use cases and their different needs including program impact, fundraising, board reports, and annual reports
• A review of best practices when creating visualizations for your organization, both internally and externally
• A listing of tools that can be used to create and maintain these reports

Your organization has been collecting data and reporting on metrics, but now you are ready for another important step – how do you start using this data to make informed decisions related to operations, programs, and services? In this workshop, we’ll cover how you can use existing data to make decisions rather than what you guess or hope is the right decision. We’ll walk through exercises looking at your data to identify areas of your organization where you have information that can be used to provide better directives.

Through examples and activities, organizations will leave with better understanding on what data they have or could be collecting, questions that can be answered with that data, and how to design processes by involving the right people.

Takeaways:

• A new lens on reporting within your organization
• A template created by you to be used to make decisions related to data you already have
• An understanding of ways nonprofits can begin the process of using data for better decision making in operational capacities

Danica Pascavage, Outreach Manager, TechGirlz

Technology is powerful and can make any organization more efficient. But do you find that your volunteer relationships become more disconnected the more tech you implement? Have you noticed that as internal processes are more efficient, getting volunteers to deliver programs becomes more complicated? Hear how a tech education non-profit has built processes that utilize technology to streamline and strengthen volunteer relationships and create more effective program delivery.

Haftan Eckholdt, Chief Data Officer & Chief Science Officer, Understood for All

Why do so few nonprofits have a data science capability? Data science lets organizations improve every aspect of decision-making. It identifies new opportunities and adds context to every decision, whether strategic or tactical. Drawing from vast experience, Understood’s Chief Data Officer will show non-profit leaders why they need data science, how to design a data science team, and how Understood is using data science to help people with learning and thinking differences.

Jack Showers, Nonprofit Research Analyst, Fundraising KIT 

Employee burnout presents significant challenges for the nonprofit sector. Besides negative psychological, social or physical consequences, burnout disrupts workflow and leads to exorbitant turnover. As a result, the sector faces a cycle that undermines social impact. But there’s an (artificial) answer! In this session, you’ll gain understanding of burnout and turnover, learn to affordably and effectively integrate AI into your workplace and save time for every day processes, and learn how to invest in your staff to create a sustainable, humane workplace.

Charles Vincent, Executive Director, Spur Impact

Millennials and Gen Zers, or those roughly 20-45, are fundamentally shifting philanthropy. While national data has historically said one thing about young professional giving, the analytics from Delaware, particularly from its statewide giving day, tells a very different and interesting story. Learn how and why some nonprofits are leaning into the next generation and why this post-pandemic investment matters.

Vinay Mullick, Managing Director, UpMetrics

In the era of digital transformation, access to data has increased but investment in data capacity has not increased at the same rate. As a result, the ability for nonprofits to truly capitalize on this resource is limited. In this session, we will review why it is so important for your organization to prioritize storytelling as a means of communication with stakeholders and steps to take with your data today to form a compelling narrative. The result will be an improved ability to inspire action in donors, board members, volunteers and more.

David Deal, Ebony Walton, and Nabavi Oliver,  Downtown DC Bid

The Downtown DC BID utilizes Salesforce and other software for program management, constituent engagement and fundraising. The question that arises is when to use Salesforce versus when to use other software.

Nabavi Oliver, Director of Administration, and Ebony Walton, Senior Operations Administrator, are joined by David Deal of Build Consulting, the BID’s part-time CIO. where they’ll share examples, business and technical factors, and lessons learned which will be helpful for nonprofits for whom this is an ongoing question, especially technology decision makers.

Maddie Grant, Digital Strategist, Author, PROPEL

Maddie Grant, digital strategist and author of several books about the future of work, shares key insights from her latest white paper: The No BS Guide to Digital Transformation: How How Intentional Culture Change Can Propel Associations Forward.

Stephanie McKee, Chief Technology Thought Partner, Apparo

The pandemic forced nonprofit to reconsider the ways they support the community. Apparo will share their case study that demonstrates the lasting power of virtual service delivery that they plan to sustain beyond COVID. Learn about their shift to remote delivery, the adoption of virtual technology, and the successes they experienced including increased reach and frequency.  Nonprofits will take away insight into pandemic-related shifts that they may want to consider sustaining in the long term.