Set four intentions to make 2025 safer, saner, and more fun for your IT staff and your nonprofit.

Now is the month to set intentions for the year ahead. We know nonprofits are facing challenges in a challenging time. Be intentional about setting expectations for yourself and your organization this year and you will take some of the stress off.

Director of Outreach and podcast host Carolyn Woodard walks through four resolutions you can make to make 2025 easier on yourself.

• Put self-care first – set yourself up for mental and physical health so you can do the things your nonprofit needs you to do
• Put organization care second – up your cybersecurity to meet evolving threats
• Clean up! – do a spring cleaning of your files, data inventory, and subscriptions
• Do something fun – take a tutorial, come together as a team

Keeping these 4 New Year’s Resolutions will make your 2025 safer, saner, less stressed, and more fun. We provide lots of the resources you need on our site – you just need to set your intentions and keep these priorities through the year.

Some key resources:

• De-Stress! Self-Care for Nonprofit IT Staff
• Cybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofits Playbook
• SAS145 Auditing Guidelines
• DKIM/DMARC and email deliverability
• Single Sign On (SSO)
• MFA updates
• File Structure and Permissions Best Practices
• Data Governance
• Subscriptions Inventory
• Becoming a Learning Organization
• Using an IT Skills Matrix for team building
• Skills Matrix Best Practices hosted by Build Consulting

Ready to get strategic about your IT?

We think your IT vendor should be able to explain everything without jargon or lingo. If you can’t understand your IT management strategy to your own satisfaction, keep asking your questions until you find an outsourced IT provider who will partner with you for well-managed IT.

If you’re ready to gain peace of mind about your IT support, let’s talk.

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Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.

If your organization uses Google Workspace you have access to Google Groups. Kind of like a listserv but so much better.

What are Google Groups?

If your nonprofit uses Google Workspace, you can use Google Groups to manage tasks via an email group, with granular controls and monitoring if you need it. Google Groups can improve security for email addresses like “donate@mynonprofit” or “info@mynonprofit” if that email directs to a group and is not its own account that’s credentials could be hacked.

Director of IT Consulting Steve Longenecker explains the ins and outs of using Google Groups and some issues to consider including Google’s Fedramp certification if you are trying to use Google Groups with federal workers.

Since few MSPs can help nonprofits using Google Workspace, please contact us if you have more questions we can help with. We know that so many nonprofit startups start using Google Workspace because it is easy.

Some Key Takeaways:

• Google Groups works like a listserv, allowing multiple people to view and respond to group emails right from their inbox. No new tools needed like slack or discord. Keeping it simple can help your team or volunteers engage easily.
• Google Groups allows granular permissions and allows a manager to assign certain email threads to specific team members, so you can make sure all donation inquiries get a quick response, for example. Managers can get valuable insight into email thread status and team members can easily collaborate without checking and back-checking to see who is taking which inquiry.
• Google Groups can be useful in keeping volunteer groups organized and engaged. You can assign any email to Google Groups, making a partly external volunteer team more functional and making it easier for busy volunteers to participate, right from their inbox.
• Google Groups has many security features that make it preferable to listservs. And Listerv tools are becoming harder to find and manage. Everyone uses email – if you already use Google Workspace you have a listserv tool already available to you, for free, that has many features and security that listservs just don’t have.
• Google Groups is relatively easy to set up and manage, and Google provides lots of helpful how-to tutorials and advice that are accessible to non-technical managers.
• If you are trying to use Google Groups with federal employees and encountering resistance, be aware that Google has Fedramp certification. This means your federal friends are allowed to use it from a security perspective.

Google Groups is a tool you should consider if you are struggling to manage a team or volunteer group. It is easy to get started and easy to expand as you learn the capabilities.

We know that few MSPs serving nonprofits are experts in Google Workspace. Community IT has developed expertise in Google Workspace support since we serve nonprofits exclusively, and so many nonprofits use this platform.

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.

Welcome 2025! It's going to be a big year for nonprofit IT and as is our tradition, our senior staff weighed in with the biggest stories of 2024, the most overlooked trends, and what they will be keeping an eye on in 2025.

We hear from Senior Engineer David Dawson, Director of IT Consulting Steve Longenecker, IT Business Manager Erik Solce, IT Business Manager Team Lead Norwin Herrera, Chief Technology Officer Matthew Eshleman, Senior Consultant Nuradeen Aboki, CEO Johan Hammerstrom, and Carolyn Woodard, Marketing Director and webinar and podcast host on what we are seeing in our sector.

Please join us January 22 for a Nonprofit IT Round Table webinar with Steve, Matt, and Norwin where we will discuss new trends and risks in more depth and take your questions live. https://communityit.com/webinar-2025-nonprofit-tech-round-table/

Thank you for joining us in 2024 and we look forward to sharing resources and learning together in 2025!

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.