2. Unify the organization around a digital vision
Another method of reducing friction during digital transformation is to help team members understand why it’s so valuable before enacting changes. That way, employees can feel more connected to your efforts and can participate more actively in the process.
First, set and share crystal-clear digital transformation goals that tie back to your mission. For instance, your goal might be to migrate all analog records to your new database by the end of the fiscal year to better visualize and capitalize on giving patterns.
Also, ensure your teams are united throughout the change process. Though your teams may have different roles during digital transformation, you should guarantee that they can communicate with each other should they need assistance. You could appoint internal change champions from each team who can be the source of truth for your efforts so information transfers clearly across your organization.
3. Assess digital readiness and build capacity
Each organization has its own benchmarks for digital transformation preparedness based on its team’s existing experience and capacity to migrate systems. Here’s how you can determine your own project’s scope:
- Conduct a digital skills audit. Survey your team members to identify the current technical abilities within your team and where gaps exist. This helps you prioritize training and hire strategically to ensure your staff can effectively use new tools.
- Pinpoint infrastructure or process bottlenecks. Ask your team members and compare your data to industry benchmarks to discover inefficiencies in your workflows. These areas are prime candidates for automation or integration through digital solutions.
- Invest in training and mentorship. Provide ongoing professional development via conferences, courses, and webinars so staff can confidently adopt new technology. Consider pairing less-experienced users with tech-savvy mentors to accelerate learning and reduce resistance to change.
- Create spaces for tech learning. Outside of your digital transformation efforts, support technological learning in everyday life. For instance, you might host monthly Lunch and Learn meetings about emerging technologies.
4. Integrate a unified marketing and outreach strategy
Digital transformation isn’t just about building internal systems—it’s also about how you communicate the transformation itself. By creating a cohesive marketing and outreach plan around your digital efforts, you can build trust, demonstrate impact, and show supporters how technology makes your mission stronger. Get started:
- Develop an integrated digital marketing plan. Promote your transformation efforts across email, social, web, and SMS so messaging is cohesive across channels.
- Use data to drive outreach. Pull insights from your CRM to highlight supporter impact, share progress updates, and show how digital tools create measurable improvements in fundraising and programs.
- Centralize campaign planning. Use collaborative tools to manage communications about your digital transformation, ensuring that updates to donors, staff, and beneficiaries are coordinated, timely, and transparent.
5. Lift your use of automation tools
With automated workflows, nonprofit can stretch their resources further and achieve more mission-critical initiatives. Leading nonprofits are using automation to:
- Manage repetitive tasks. Set up automated email journeys, recurring donation processing, and data entry workflows to free up staff time.
- Leverage AI-powered insights. Use AI tools to predict donor churn, recommend next-best actions, or optimize marketing send times.
- Test workflow automation tools. Pilot simple automations like internal task reminders before scaling across departments.
- Keep the human touch. Balance automation with genuine, personalized interactions so your touchpoints remain valuable and supporters stay connected.
6. Get started!
As you reach this final stage, you have most of the components needed to launch your efforts. But remember, digital transformation is an iterative process that takes time. Get a head start by:
- Addressing immediate needs. Apply digital principles (automation, data use, user experience) to areas that create the most impact quickly.
- Recognizing small-scale wins. As you launch programs, keep perspective by celebrating any kind of progress, even if it seems small in the grand scheme of your transformation efforts.
- Balance planning with doing. Don’t wait for all of the stars to align perfectly—start small with what you can manage now, and build up as you mobilize resources and finalize timelines. Avoid decision paralysis by moving forward with thoughtful action instead of waiting for perfect conditions.
Additional resources
Getting started with nonprofit digital transformation can be overwhelming even for seasoned pros. That’s why working with nonprofit technology pros, like Heller Consulting can provide a solid foundation for your digital transformation efforts. They can take the chaos out of significant periods of change for your nonprofit, handling the details so you can continue offering services uninterrupted.
Want to learn more about digital transformation and trends? Check out these resources:
