A knowledgebase for leaders in nonprofit organisations, on issues related to software technology and its use in community programs. It is based on our experience of working in many such community programs for dozens of organisations over years.
Affordable technology is available, but there are other issues to be tackled to allow for in-house data analysis in nonprofits
Making the community health and hospital systems data available to each other holds promise to improve health outcomes for the community member/patient. If you are planning or considering doing something like this, this article may help uncover certain issues beforehand and may help you make the right decision.
More and more nonprofits have to think about, how should they get the software developed for themselves. Should they outsource or have in-house teams or do something else? We go through the challenges in each of the approaches and what are the sustainable options.
The term open source often invokes fear in nonprofit organisations about whether it implies a lack of control over data and software behaviour. It is mistaken with open data, open API, free-for-all software. In this article, we explain open-source software from basics from a customer experience standpoint.
As mobile devices get increasingly used by frontline workers the question of what is the best device for such usage gets frequently asked by nonprofits to technology advisers. In this article, we discuss various factors one should consider when procuring these devices for frontline workers.
Creating personal health records is a noble idea. But it is difficult to implement even for governments. We explain why is it difficult.
Nonprofits face risks of wasted resources, inability to evolve with time, and obsolescence in the long term. Open source products offer a low-risk route allowing nonprofits to thrive in using technology.
Choosing the right technology strategy is crucial especially for resource-constrained contexts. Software platforms are an important part of the strategy and one should choose the bespoke application route after eliminating the platform option first. The excessive and incorrect usage of the term platform has also not helped here. We get into all these issues here to help you make the right choice.
Field teams in the social sector projects enjoy working with their communities, servicing community members, meeting their own program targets - but they do not particularly like the idea of entering data into an excel, paper, or a data entry system (aka MIS). Someone having to follow up with the field team to provide data is quite common. Why does it happen and how to solve it?
Community program using software technology are never fully paperless for cost, infrastructure and anthropological reasons. In this article, we discuss the issues related to designing systems focussed on solving problems and not simply with the goal of going paperless.
About technology and nonprofits publication
The list of topics to be covered in this publication is as follows. The articles already published have been linked. Please feel free to suggest additional topics in the same theme by contacting us - if we understand enough about such issues.
- The architecture of community program organisations and their data systems (this is a foundational article hence slightly abstract)
- Designing systems that use paper and technology together
- Why your community and field team procrastinates data reporting?
- What is the difference between a software platform and a bespoke solution? How should I choose?
- Open-source products offer a technology evolution path and help avoid risks in technology projects
- Factors to consider when procuring mobile devices
- What does it mean to use open-source software?
- The challenge of building software teams in social-sector organisations
Health specific articles
- Why it is difficult to implement a useful national personal health records system?
- Challenges in implementing electronic health records in the hospitals
(Icons thanks to icons8, word cloud thanks to Monkey Learn, image resizing done using ReduceImages)