Taking On Tech Governance

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Technology is essential to the success of nonprofits. Digital tools enable organizations to automate operations, access new audiences, reimagine programs, and assess their impact with greater clarity and effectiveness.

But the digital gap is widening. Only a quarter of nonprofits report having a defined strategy for transitioning to a digital workflow, and only about half of those have the resources to implement their strategy. It’s no surprise that nonprofits spend about $1 on technology for every $3 private companies spend, and yet we know that tech-savvy nonprofits are four times more likely to achieve their missions.

The good news is that purpose-driven tech industry professionals are eager to partner with their nonprofit peers to close this gap. On LinkedIn, for example, more than 400,000 US tech professionals have expressed interest in joining a nonprofit board on LinkedIn. But while this new generation of tech workers wants to leverage their skills and networks for good, few are actually engaged.

This represents a massive, untapped opportunity for organizations to use tech talent to drive better outcomes for their communities. As longtime practitioners working at the intersection of nonprofit governance, corporate social impact, and tech for good, Alethea Hannemann and Aaron Hurst, co-authors of this article and former colleagues at the Taproot Foundation, decided to partner with Okta for Good, led by Erin Baudo Felter (also a co-author of this article) to understand the challenges that nonprofits face in developing a tech strategy and using new technologies. In early 2023, we conducted more than 50 interviews with nonprofit leaders (including nonprofit tech experts) and tech executives to find a way forward. A clear signal emerged: Interventions at the board level can radically transform nonprofit engagement with technology in a way that forwards their missions, helps scale their operations, and allows them to develop a long-term vision for technology within their organizations.

A case in point is Lemontree, a nonprofit that connects people to food resources in cities around the United States. The organization originally provided meal kits to low-income families but discovered during the pandemic that free groceries and meals were readily available. “We realized that the vast majority of hungry people are hungry not because they lack food resources [but] rather because they do not have access to reliable information on where to find them. … We needed to solve an entirely different problem [and] provide accurate information on free food resources in a way that those looking for these resources could access,” said Alex Godin, co-founder and former CEO.

The organization needed technical expertise to build an online database that could aggregate and verify available data, and then get users to sign up for a text message hotline to access that information. Godin asked Rutul Dave, a tech founder and entrepreneur, to join Lemontree’s board in late 2021 and provide guidance to the quickly scaling organization. “The website went down; we said, ‘Rutul, how bad is that?’” Godin told us. “He said, B-plus. ‘We’re spending $5,000 a month on servers: Is that good or bad?’ ‘When do we need to grow our team?’ And so on. He’s helping us [understand] where we need to focus and not, where we might need to adjust.”

Godin also leaned on Dave to hire and coach a software engineer. As a small team, Lemontree couldn’t offer a lot of what motivates engineers, such as learning from peers and growing a team. Dave offered the mentorship someone might get at a larger company, as well as the kind of insights and learning that comes from a larger team. “Now you are getting mentored directly by a [chief technology officer] with tons of connections in the industry—someone even more impressive than you’d get in a ‘normal job,’” said Godin.

With Dave’s support, Lemontree built a tech strategy to help scale its operations to eight cities. In 2020, the organization served 1,500 people in total; by October 2022, it was serving 1,000 people a week. By late 2023, it expects to serve more than 3,000 people daily. An important part of its growth strategy was to develop an online tech platform in-house, which allowed the team to rapidly customize it for different uses. As Dave said, “When we released our corporate volunteering tool, Bloomberg signed up right away. The challenge became to take a product we had just developed to market and scale it across a company’s multiple locations and thousands of volunteers. You can do this a lot more efficiently if you have built your own software.”

New and Necessary Perspective

Historically, nonprofits have prioritized leaders with legal and financial expertise on their boards. But modern board design was developed long before technology was integral to business operations and decision-making, and today the lack of tech expertise is a glaring gap. Without tech expertise and counsel, nonprofit boards can’t effectively accomplish their legal responsibilities: duty of care, duty of loyalty, and duty of obedience.

While there are certainly some tech leaders already serving on nonprofit boards, most of the ones we spoke to felt valued more for their ability to leverage their tech networks for donations than for their technical expertise. Nonprofit CEOs often feel the same way; while they might have tech industry representation on their board, they aren’t taking advantage of their unique skills. For the most part, this is due to not having a clear model for tech board leadership. Tech leaders on boards aren’t sure how to start meaningful conversations about an organization’s tech capacity, or where the lines between volunteer, board, and staff should start and stop.

Nonprofit leaders need to have a recruitment strategy that sets expectations for a tech-focused board leader and keeps the rest of the board involved in the tech agenda. Tech-focused board members can’t solve every challenge, but when they are tuned into the nonprofit context and supported in a defined role, they can offer new and powerful solutions to some of the vexing problems nonprofits face.

A Framework for Tech Governance

Embracing technical governance under the direction of a tech-focused board member requires a common framework that helps nonprofit leaders and those running IT operations develop a long-term strategy. Based on our research, we identified four discrete areas where tech-focused board members can make an immediate impact and framed them as questions that a technology board leader can explore directly with the executive director or the CEO, or with their board. 

1. Risk management: Are the right security and privacy practices in place? Are we using tech ethically?

Risk management is a broad category, including privacy, ethics, and use of data and information, and it’s a big topic for nonprofits and social services organizations, which handle the personal data of thousands of customers. HERA, for example, is a mobile health platform that helps refugees navigate their local health care system in multiple languages, including finding providers and contacting emergency services. Aral Surmeli, the organization’s founder, told us, “I’m a physician and know nothing about the IT side of things. We need someone not to actually build the technology but to help us visualize how the infrastructure could help us move forward. We spent a couple months deciding if an app should be a native app or cross-platform—a huge decision with enormous implications for our model. Then our donor asked us, do you have cyber insurance? It sounded like a simple call, but we weren’t sure how to make the right choices to satisfy the requirements of key funders and partners. It’s a series of decisions with which we could use tech expertise as we grow, from minimum viable product all the way to architecting our next move.”

Surameli began working with Snegha Ramnarayanan, who had recently joined HERA’s board and had extensive experience in technical sales and product strategy. “Snegha has been superhelpful in working with me and our [chief technology officer] on creating the tech and product vision, helping us prioritize which tech issue to tackle first. Sometimes this is a balance between what a donor wants, what we can do, and more importantly, what is best for the population we work with.”

As a result, the organization now has international cybersecurity standards. “Our new tech board member helps us build our vision of the future and how technology—both the tools we use internally and user-facing—help us get there. This includes decisions on hiring, planning, [and] piloting different tech features.”

2. Tech planning: Are we using tech to maximize our efficiency, impact, and learning? Do we have a long-term tech roadmap tied to our business model and growth plan?

Nonprofit leaders want to invest in the right technology, but identifying the right moves can be difficult when they don’t have technical expertise themselves and are operating with smaller teams. This can be true even for tech-focused nonprofits that build tech products. Take God’s Love We Deliver, a nonreligious organization that provides meals to people living with serious illnesses. Meal production, delivery, and customer service were all supported by technologies, but in some instances, a new tech solution would have radically improved the organization’s processes. The tech stack was already so complicated and the IT team so small, however, that it was hard to figure out where to dig in.

Enter Monica Cirillo, executive director of technology transformation at Morgan Stanley. Then-COO of God’s Love, Alethea Hannemann (co-author of this article) met Cirillo through former colleagues just as Morgan Stanley was hoping to increase its support for nonprofits in the community. After an initial assessment of tech strategy and capabilities, Cirillo helped Hannemann elevate technology to the highest levels of strategy, making a strong business case for investment in tools and systems the organization badly needed, such as call center technology, as well as identifying areas where the organization didn’t need tech solutions, such as geo-fencing for tracking delivery staff hours. With improved call center data and processes, it cut the number of missed deliveries (originally 5-7 percent) down by half.

3. Tech resourcing: What tech resources do we need to achieve our goals? How can I leverage my network (including volunteers, candidates, software, and pro bono resources) to gain further support?

Nonprofit leaders need help figuring out how to use new technologies to accelerate their programs and how they will affect staffing. While often eager to engage pro bono for technology needs, leaders don’t always know how to scope or manage projects in this area. As Briane Cornish, founder of the microloan nonprofit FinEQUITY, told us, “We often get approached by big teams from great companies offering pro bono resources, and I know their support could be very useful, but I don’t always have time to figure out what exactly they should be doing.”

Though FinEQUITY does not have anyone with tech expertise on its board, it engages tech-savvy volunteers for internal systems and marketing efforts. It also leans on unofficial advisors for high-level advice. “These are tech founders who will answer my call when I reach out to them,” said Cornish. “I get to know their areas of expertise—for example, automation—and then reach out when I have questions I think they could give insight on.”

The Taproot Foundation, which focuses on pro bono services for nonprofits and social enterprises globally, has also found that tech-focused board members can help find right-sized pro bono tech resources and mentor staff who have tech skills. Due to generational changes, the most tech-savvy individuals in a nonprofit are sometimes in the most junior roles. A tech leader can mentor these team members to grow in a way that serves the organization and their own careers, leading to increased retention of tech talent. This includes pro bono volunteers who can offer advice and support change management even after a project has been completed.

4. Tech in the community: How will changes in tech impact our stakeholders in three to five years? How can we lead with tech proactively vs. reactively? How can tech innovation drive our mission forward?

Today nonprofit leaders are evaluating not only how tech relates to their organizations’ operations, but also how they can advocate for the responsible use of technology. Tech leadership can help on both fronts. “There is a huge opportunity to transform board-level discussions around the appropriate and effective application of AI that a tech-focused board member can help realize,” said Jim Fruchterman, founder of the nonprofit tech companies Benetech and Tech Matters. This is why he joined the board of Nexleaf Analytics, a nonprofit that uses technologies like remotely monitored vaccine refrigerators and data analytics to provide real-time, affordable data to under-resourced and hard-to-reach health facilities. The organization’s CEO and co-founder, Nithya Ramanathan, told us, "In addition to expanding our thinking on AI, we are leveraging Jim's experience in building and advising sustainable open-source software enterprises, as Nexleaf responds to increasing demand for more sustainably managed software for health ministries to manage their critical supplies in real time.”

As with other board roles, a technical board member’s partnership with the nonprofit’s staff can differ based on the size and technical maturity of each organization. For small nonprofits, the role could provide some staff augmentation if there is no technical staff. For medium nonprofits with small tech teams, they would serve as a mentor and support strategy development. For large nonprofits with more mature tech teams and a senior tech executive on staff, the board member’s role becomes more about advising on strategy and providing oversight. But in general, a designated tech board member should take responsibility for ensuring that conversations about technology are integrated into meetings alongside topics like finance; help source tech resources to achieve the strategic plan; and help track overall progress toward increased capacity, with a focus on driving deeper, long-term value compared to narrower pro bono engagements.

Operationalizing Tech Governance

Of course, while there’s a huge need for technical talent on nonprofit boards, not all tech professionals are a good fit. Essential competencies include internal and external consulting skills, a significant network of technology professionals, some competency in leading executive-level conversations, experience managing people, and a broad understanding of technology as it relates to an organization’s strategy and operations. Finding the right leader(s) for the board requires that nonprofit CEOs or board chairs take three steps:

1. Get Clear on Your Needs. Before searching for anyone with tech industry experience, spend some time understanding your needs and your current board membership, and how those might map to skills and expertise you think are missing. What is the right level of seniority and industry experience? What are areas of overlap with your current board members you would like to highlight or avoid? For example, if you’re small, lean, and growing quickly, you might someone with startup experience, rather than someone who has worked only with large enterprises. If your board is dominated by financial services or law firms, you could choose tech professionals from those industries for a culture fit, or look for a new industry to add a new perspective.

2. Recruit. Consider starting internally. If you have tech industry leaders on the board already, think about whether you can engage them differently. Talk through the tech focus with them to see if they see value the opportunity. With the right expectation-setting and support, activating a current board member might be better than recruiting someone brand new, since they are already familiar with the organization.

Next, look at the people in your network. Share the profile you created with your current board, leadership team, individual donors, foundations, corporate partners, volunteers, and community partners through targeted emails to people who might have connections to tech leadership or the tech industry. Ask peers who have tech board leaders how they recruited them and see if they have connections or suggestions for your search, and ask board members to search their first-degree network for tech leaders seeking a nonprofit board position. If someone fits your profile, it’s worth reaching out even if they haven’t flagged that they are interested in board service so that you can continue to build your network; they might know someone who could be a fit.

If you still don’t find the right person, you may need to use a recruiter. To address the increasingly critical need for technical governance, we have launched a new initiative, Board.Dev, where technology and nonprofit leaders, corporate partners, and social sector organizations can co-create a vision and roadmap for the use of technology at nonprofits. Board.Dev will support matching and training to ensure that the right nonprofits and tech leaders can find each other, while also providing a community of practice among tech leaders on boards to accelerate their learning.

3. Onboard. Set aside extra time to orient your recruit to your organization’s technology-related realities and aspirations. Share recent challenges or victories, as well as the results of any surveys or assessments you have done. Review your current budget together to highlight tech-related hard costs, such as storage or software, that you could offset with donations or discounts from the providers, and identify any areas ripe for tech investments, such as a call center or marketing task automation. It’s also a good idea for the tech leader to talk with staff members involved in your technology planning and execution. As noted, often the most tech-forward employees at a nonprofit are the most junior employees; they know the work and often have existing use cases or ideas on how to apply tech that managers or leaders may not be aware of. For example, a program manager might have started using the free version of an online project management tool. Discovering what’s already in use unofficially can show you where team members need support.

Building a Culture of Tech

However nonprofit leaders choose to make tech governance a topic within their organizations, they should treat it as the important initiative that it is by setting goals, highlighting benefits, sharing learnings with staff, and celebrating wins—in other words, by building a culture of tech and encouraging data literacy. With a technical governance framework in place, nonprofits can more effectively engage with other board members, nonprofit leadership, and staff. A designated tech board member can leverage tech resources and tools like open-source software, digital marketing, and AI to drive long-term value. Given there’s both a supply of and demand for tech-focused board members, every nonprofit board should consider having one to harness the power of technology for greater impact.

Read more stories by Alethea Hannemann, Aaron Hurst & Erin Baudo Felter.