We love them, we hate them, but we keep making them.

In new research from YouGov, about one quarter (26%) of people report having New Year’s Resolutions for 2019. As for the specific resolutions people are making, the most popular one is “exercise more” (59%) followed closely by “eat healthier” (54%) and “save money” (51%).

But according to podcast HowStuffWorks.com, 35 percent of us who make New Year’s resolutions break them by the end of January. And only 23 percent of those who make a resolution will see it through to completion. Can this year be different?

With each new year comes the promise of a fresh start, the chance to introduce new habits and stop bad behaviors holding us back. Whether in our personal lives, for many individuals and organizations both stumbling out of a holiday-induced haze of either overindulgence or (for those in the charity sector in particular) over-work, January provides the opportunity to set the course for what will be the year to come.

It occurred to me though that many of the resolutions we make as individuals can be equally beneficial in our professional lives and for our organizations. Consider the most popular resolution: exercise more.

Commit to Good Data Hygiene

What about the health of your organization? What about the health of your data? Many of the standard health clichés apply. If you put garbage in, your mouth or your database, you’ll get garbage out. Excess weight creates an additional burden, to both your knees and the systems on which your organization relies.

If it seems like a stretch, an attempt to create a seasonal blog post out of thin air, it shouldn’t. The impacts of poor data hygiene are significant:

• According to Forbes, 84 percent of CEOs are concerned about the quality of the data they’re basing their decisions on.
• Gartner measures the average financial impact of poor data on businesses at $9.7 million per year.
• MIT recently reported the cost of bad data can add up to an astonishing 15-25% of revenue.

The thing is, while individual people have the luxury of trying on a New Year’s resolution and failing only to try again another year, organizations aren’t that lucky. In the nonprofit sector, resources are limited and every penny counts. The financial impact of poor data hygiene is terrible on its own but poor data can also lead to higher risk. There aren’t always do-overs and new habits need to stick to make a difference.

Embrace the New Year as an opportunity for a fresh start! Whether you’re looking for a total data makeover or the life-changing art of tidying up your database. Check out our webinar, New Year, Fresh Start: Clean Data for Big Results, as we explore ways to kick off the year with optimized data designed to deliver the results your organization is looking including:

• The real impact of poor data on your organization
• How to identify and understand the root cause of bad data quality
• Practical tips and techniques to get your data healthy – and keep it that way

Watch On-Demand: New Year, Fresh Start: Clean Data for Big Results

The post Make a New Year’s Resolution to Clean Up Your Data appeared first on Personify.

It’s the start of a new year, a blank slate filled with opportunity and fresh perspectives.

Right?

While 2019 affords nonprofits the chance to adjust their technology strategy to improve on what may not have worked as planned, the latest trends in digital transformation for the year ahead reflect some particularly hard-won lessons from the past few years, on both the business and technology sides. Taking the time to understand how these insights came about can help nonprofits avoid making the same painful, expensive and time-consuming realizations.

In the year ahead, we predict that nonprofits will scale-back Big Bang rhetoric in favor of a results-driven, iterative approach to innovation and renewed efforts around operational efficiency.

Prediction 1: From bottom-line delivery to top-line strategy.

Although the way in which nonprofit technologists navigate the path ahead may change, there’s no doubt digital transformation will continue, decentralizing IT and turning CIOs into business executives. Indeed, 84 percent of CIOs at top-performing digital organizations report their role has substantially widened beyond IT, with innovation and transformation being their prime responsibilities, according to Gartner’s CIO Agenda report.

The new paradigm is shifting success measures from bottom-line delivery to simultaneously driving operational efficiencies and supporting top-line data initiatives for improved acquisition, engagement and retention. Per research from IDC, by 2020, 80 percent of IT executive leadership will be compensated based on business KPIs and metrics that measure IT effectiveness in driving business performance and growth, not IT operational measures.

Heightened expectations necessitate a need for a complete view of organizational performance from a single pane of glass. Systems and their respective data sets must be integrated, and central data repositories should facilitate easy access to reporting with drag and drop data visualization, self-guided business discovery tools and easily accessible dashboards to deliver at-a-glance measures of progress against a nonprofits strategic goals – whether or not they live in the IT department.

Prediction 2: Discovering untapped revenue opportunities.

Professional societies offering company member benefits. Trade associations offering individual memberships. All associations looking to fundraising, advocacy, volunteers – typically more charitable/philanthropic business models/strategies. Fundraising organizations offering “membership levels” with member benefits. Nonprofits applying traditional models, like moves management, in new ways to deepen engagement in other programs.

Growth is often at the top of the strategic priorities lists that CIOs are working to help their organizations achieve and 2019 will be no different. Many nonprofits, especially with a membership focus, continue to explore opportunities to boost non-traditional revenue streams. For example, according to ASAE, in 1953 associations received 95.7 percent of their revenue from membership dues. In 2018, that number fell to 41.4 percent for trade associations and just 34.2 percent for professional associations.

Organizations are looking to extend their message and increase the value of their member benefits, but the infrastructure and applications must be in place to support organizational agility while maintaining a good constituent experience. As pressure to drive non-traditional revenue continues to build, we believe that 2019 will see an even greater emphasis on integration of systems, creating centralized data for improved member experiences and quick identification of new opportunities.

Prediction 3: Artificial acuity for long-term vision with immediate value.

While a continued area of focus, artificial intelligence (AI) has yet to fully realize early expectations for revolutionizing nonprofit technologies. Even recent Gartner has acknowledged that, through 2020, 80 percent of AI projects will remain alchemy, run by wizards whose talents will not scale in the organization.

Compelled to curtail IT spending, improve enterprise IT agility, and accelerate innovation, IDC also reports 70 percent of CIOs will aggressively apply AI to operations, tools, and processes by 2021. Personify expects this trend to extend to the nonprofit sector, with 2019 seeing a highly-focused application of this technology in meaningful ways, delivering immediate value by solving business issues in real-time. For example, predictive analytics may help nonprofits proactively identify retention risks in their database while the introduction of chatbot may streamline operations, improving staff efficiency and the acquisition of new members.

Prediction 4:  Engagement made seamless.

As consulting firm Bain & Company recently observed, “Managing interactions, or episodes, as part of an integrated journey is one of the top three most effective customer (member) techniques.”

Research conducted for the retail sector by Aberdeen Group reports, organizations with the strongest omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain an average of 89% of their customers, as compared to 33% for companies with weak omnichannel strategies.

OK, but what does this have to do with nonprofits?

Today, exposure to technology is ubiquitous. The consumerization of IT continues, with greater demand from constituents for more integrated experiences that mirror what they see in other areas of their lives. Why can’t the nonprofits with whom they engage be more like Amazon? Or Netflix? Or LinkedIn?

Personify believes 2019 will see omnichannel trends long-influencing the retail sector emerge in the nonprofit space, creating immersive experiences that blur the lines between in-person and digital interactions, regardless of geography. Whether interacting with a national organization, a chapter, a global association, local office streamlined technologies deliver unified experiences will help drive expansion, engagement and retention.

Prediction 5: Honest conversations today, innovation tomorrow.

It is, very frankly, the elephant in the room.

Technical debt is incurred when the more expedient option is taken during the technology development process over the smarter, better choice for the longer term, but which often takes more time and resources to realize. It is also an off-balance sheet liability that’s growing and has not been accounted for as it should be to stakeholders.

With limited resources, the technical debt of associations and nonprofits has been steadily accumulating in organizations for almost as long as they’ve had their existing platforms in place. Fragmented customer databases, systems that haven’t been upgraded in recent memory, time-consuming operational manual processes that should long ago been automated, etc. when viable alternates such as exist pose risk to digital transformation and future success. Per research from Cisco, companies are spending 90 percent of their budgets keeping older IT systems up and running, leaving little for new digital development. What’s more, outdated systems create a fragile foundation upon which to build modern business systems and processes.

In 2019, we believe that organizations will finally take steps to understand, and remediate, technical debt as organizations prepare for long-term growth. While a “rip and replace” of existing solutions may be impractical, recognizing the potential harm existing systems cause, committing to the exploration of the potential cost benefit provided through new technologies and creating a plan to grow beyond the limitations of technical debt are essential for success in 2019 and beyond.

The post 5 Nonprofit Technology Trends to Watch in 2019 appeared first on Personify.

We’ve all done it. From using Google docs at work when Sharepoint is the approved document sharing tool, to using Dropbox instead of the approved storage solution, the use of “Shadow IT” is a growing issue in today’s associations and nonprofit organizations. In fact, Symantec found that organizations typically have 1,232 apps on their extended network, most of which were adopted without IT approval or oversight. And, 72% of IT executives admitted that they were unsure of how many Shadow IT applications are being used in their organization.

Whether it’s a personal preference for specific tools or a lack of training or access, staff tend to use the tools that make them feel the most comfortable, despite the effects this can have on an organization.

User comfort with certain products comes in many forms including familiarity, ease of use, speed and accuracy. Employees can feel frustrated and overwhelmed with the task of learning how to use a new tool and the training and learning curve that often comes with it. While some technology can seamlessly be integrated into organizations, other times users may feel the burden of these new processes. This can push employees into using Shadow IT – turning to their preferred free or low-cost tools instead of solutions provided by IT.

Unfortunately, these tools or programs might not always be the most secure and can leave data skeletons in your association’s closet – from critical member data to employee information – that are vulnerable to threat actors. Gartner predicts that by 2020, a third of successful attacks experienced by enterprises will be on their shadow IT resources. When employees choose to use tools outside of what IT supports, it creates more weak points for the organization’s security. If your organization’s security team isn’t aware of all the additional tools being used, they cannot effectively protect employees and the association against potential threats.

When it comes to Shadow IT, what you don’t know can hurt you. Here are a few ways today’s associations can mitigate the challenges it brings.

Employee Training

To better safeguard your constituents’ (and your own) data, it’s imperative that everyone from senior leadership all the way down to new hires are on the same page. Employee training on cybersecurity best practices is crucial in helping to protect an association’s assets – especially when Shadow IT is in play.

By educating employees on how and why Shadow IT can be detrimental to an organization, as well as common threats to look out for, companies can better safeguard against those threats. For example, a single phishing email to an unsuspecting employee or a Google doc holding intellectual property that falls into the wrong hands can be harmful to an association. Ongoing employee training helps to strengthen both their knowledge of potential threats and the use of best practices to avoid them.

Build Trust and Ensure Open Communication

Open communication is key to tackling Shadow IT in any organization. Security teams should work to build a relationship of trust so that employees feel empowered and knowledgeable about the tools at their disposal, and have a way to address solutions that are not easily remedied by a tool within an association’s technology portfolio. This goes beyond training to create an ongoing dialogue with employees in your organization.

Instead of seeking out Shadow IT offenders and punishing the actions, provide avenues for employees to flag necessary tools that fall outside of IT’s purview so that they can be evaluated and tracked, instead of creating a continued unknown risk. If IT is aware of tools in use that are not sanctioned by the organization, they can ensure these digital skeletons in the closet don’t come back to haunt you or your association.

Turning Threats to Opportunities

Shadow IT isn’t all doom and gloom. Identifying the use of Shadow IT can have a positive outcome for your association. In fact, it can help organizations reevaluate technology and better prioritize tools and their investments. Are your employees often turning to Dropbox to store and share larger files? Perhaps it’s time to invest in enterprise document storage. Do your employees rely on Google Docs to share information? Microsoft Teams might be a logical next step for secure collaboration or an enterprise agreement with Dropbox or Google might, in fact, be the best fit.

No matter the outcome, training, communications and ongoing dialogue are key to minimizing the risks that Shadow IT can bring and helping associations stay secure in today’s threat landscape.

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