Community IT Innovators Nonprofit Technology Topics

How can your nonprofit avoid common headaches with the free Google Workspace implementation as you grow? 

So many small nonprofits start out using the free Google Workspace platform you can set up and administer yourself. Google makes it easy! But as you grow from a one- or two-person nonprofit to a larger team you may be wondering if Google Workspace is professional enough, and whether it can handle more complex IT needs. And what ...

Ethics, AI Tools, and Policies. How is Your Philanthropy Using AI?

Part 1 of this podcast introduced basic AI concepts and definitions and gave some practical examples of nonprofits very intentionally using AI  to further their mission. It ended with results of a poll of the audience members and discussion on how nonprofits are using AI tools - individually, organization-wide, and/or to perform their mission.

In Part 2, Sar...

Ethics, AI Tools, and Policies. How is Your Philanthropy Using AI?

Community IT was thrilled to welcome two respected leaders, Sarah Di Troia from Project Evident and Jean Westrick from Technology Association of Grantmakers, who shared their informed perspective on AI in philanthropy to share this AI Framework with our audience. You will not want to miss this discussion.

As society grapples with the increasing prevalence of...

How to Protect Your Inbox and Your Sanity

Are you getting more unwelcome email lately? From junk emails, to annoying advertising, to malicious phishing, it can feel like the tools that keep our inboxes spam free aren’t working as well lately.

Johan Hammerstrom, our CEO, answers Carolyn’s questions about email safety. 

How do you know which unsubscribe links are legitimate, how do you flag spam, how do you report ph...

Do you know if you are in technology debt or investing at the right level in your nonprofit IT?

Senior Consultant Nura Aboki sat down with Carolyn Woodard recently and discussed his work as a senior consultant and the strategic responses he sees as the most successful across his clients. You can benefit from these tips no matter the size or technology comfort at your organization. Assessments can help you determine the IT ...

Join Matt Eshleman, a cybersecurity expert, in a short presentation on AI, new AI tools for nonprofits, some use cases, things to watch out for, new cybersecurity fraud and scams enabled by AI, and ways to protect your organization. 

In this video, you will learn to

• Learn about AI and what nonprofits need to know about AI
• Use cases for AI at your nonprofit
• New cybersecurity fraud and scams enabled by AI and how to prevent becoming ...

Guest speaker Tim Lockie from The Human Stack in a workshop focused on smaller nonprofits struggling to manage IT.

In pt 1, Tim describes the tactical issues nonprofits face in trying to work with tech tools. In pt 2, Tim walks through the different mis-alignments that leadership and "boots on the ground" staff can have, and ways to overcome them. He gives a roadmap of where to start and how to keep going.

Guest speaker Tim Lockie from The Human Stack in a workshop focused on smaller nonprofits struggling to manage IT.

In pt 1, Tim describes the tactical issues nonprofits face in trying to work with tech tools. In pt 2, Tim walks through the different mis-alignments that leadership and "boots on the ground" staff can have, and ways to overcome them. He gives a roadmap of where to start and how to keep going.

Excerpts from CEO Johan Hammerstrom's appearance on a panel hosted by NXUnite on strategic nonprofit tech decision making.

Full video and transcript available on our site: https://communityit.com/panel-dialing-in-being-strategic-about-nonprofit-tech/

Nonprofit organizations often grapple with limited resources and outdated technology, limiting their ability to make a difference.  In today’s fast-paced digita...

Today Carolyn interviews Jenny Huftalen, Director of Client Services on her new role and long history with Community IT. 

Jenny has been providing Account Management services for Community IT’s partner organizations since 2007. Now as Director of Client Services, she is responsible for ensuring those partner organizations are receiving the right combination of IT support services that meet their organizational needs and go...

How to Communicate to Create a Great Relationship

Community IT gets this type of question a lot from nonprofits in our community: My MSP doesn’t talk to me about what they are doing and why their rates have gone up. How can I talk to them to understand what they are doing, when I don’t have a technical background?

Johan Hammerstrom, our CEO, addresses communication issues, consolidation and private equity acquisitions in th...

Part 2 explores cybersecurity, Google Workspace v Office365 for nonprofits, and hybrid work considerations.

In Part 1 our panel discussed AI and the impacts of new AI tools and considerations on nonprofits. We also released a free new AI Acceptable Use Policy Template for nonprofits.

Join CTO Matthew Eshleman, Director of IT Consulting Steve Longenecker, and IT Business Manager Team Lead Norwin Herrera, moderated by Caroly...

How is your organization using AI? What policies do you need? 

Join CTO Matthew Eshleman, Director of IT Consulting Steve Longenecker, and IT Business Manager Team Lead Norwin Herrera, moderated by Carolyn Woodard from Community IT, in part 1 of a lively and specific discussion of all things nonprofit tech for 2024 and beyond.

Part one focuses on the impact of AI on nonprofits, including a free new AI Acceptable Use Policy ...

In today’s interview, Carolyn talks with Bill Evans, who is retiring as CFO after 14 years.

After a long career at Verizon where he held both operations and finance roles, Bill realized he was ready for a new challenge, and started looking around for a nonprofit where he could assist with his finance expertise as a CFO. Community IT is a 100% employee-owned business, an ESOP, and the job opening that turned up at the moment when he ...

Robin Harris is a Cloud Technologies Specialist at Community IT. She primarily works with clients who are moving files into SharePoint, from a server, from another cloud-based file sharing service like Dropbox or Google Drive, or creating a file sharing database for the first time.

Today she shares some tips from her years of helping many clients who have faced this daunting task, and helps us break it down into smaller ta...

What topics should we expect to be important next year? 

In a New Year’s Eve tradition, Carolyn asked Community IT senior staff to weigh in on the most important and/or under-reported tech stories that impact nonprofit technology. While many of these stories are not under-reported, widely reported mainstream tech stories often have particular or unexpected impacts on the nonprofit sector. We’re following many of them this year.
...

Matt Eshleman, Community IT CTO and cybersecurity expert, sat down with Carolyn recently to discuss what he's hearing about and expecting from AI in the upcoming year. In his role as CTO he interacts with all of our clients and also plays a foundational role in adopting new technologies internally at Community IT. 

Carolyn wanted to know what questions clients have, particularly about the ways AI impacts their cyberse...

Carolyn Woodard sat down with Senior Consultant Nura Aboki recently and asked “What’s the most pressing question you are seeing from your mid-market clients around nonprofit IT needs?”

Nura quickly answered: Policies.  

Astonishingly, many larger nonprofits he works with either don’t have basic IT policies for Acceptable Use and Business Continuity, or they have outdated policies that don’t adequately cover our new hybrid e...

In today’s interview, Carolyn talks with Erik Fernandez, who is an IT Business Manager at Community IT and has been with us for nine years. 

IT Business Managers are a unique aspect of account management at Community IT. They have senior technical expertise but also business and strategic knowledge. ITBMs function as a general strategic IT advisor; a liaison between our clients and our internal department at Community IT. ITBMs advi...