How Future-Ready Tech Helps Nonprofits Focus on Their Mission

In the “no margin, no mission” nonprofit sector, it’s not uncommon to see organizations wringing every last byte out of the digital solutions they invested in five, 10, or even 20 years ago. 

And while that approach can seem fiscally prudent in the near term, it often means nonprofits ultimately spend more in the long term through never-ending upgrades and the constant maintenance of legacy systems—all while solving interoperability issues when disparate solutions are stitched together. The time devoted to making these outdated solutions work means less time focusing on mission-critical activities.

The promise of dedicating less time to “keeping the blinking green lights on” and freeing up people to spend more time on doing their jobs motivated the Boston Symphony Orchestra to switch from an on-site legacy system to Workday in 2021, according to the nonprofit’s then-CFO.

“Like many nonprofits, we’d preferred to spend our money on the real mission and lagged [behind] with infrastructure and technology,” Evelyn Barnes said at the time. 

“But we had horror stories,” Barnes added, including a months-long lag in producing variance reports and a trial balance that stretched over 125 pages and 8,000 accounts. “It was cumbersome, and despite all the effort, we didn’t know exactly where we were spending our money,” she said.

The issues highlighted by the pandemic forced many nonprofits to rethink their technology—nearly 70% had to invest in additional technology just to remain in operation, according to a 2021 report on nonprofit technology. Much of those ad hoc additions, however, were simply layered atop a complicated, inefficient foundation. 

Cumbersome processes and murky insights are significant risks regardless of what’s happening in the world. But the current environment most nonprofits operate in—economic uncertainty, tight talent markets, regulatory shifts—makes navigating those risks untenable. Nonprofits feel this acutely, and leaders are now considering what it would take for them to operate as effectively and efficiently as possible, while strengthening their ability to adapt and make data-driven decisions. 

For most, the answer is transforming their digital core.

A Better Way: Investing in a Future-Ready Foundation

There’s a better way. When nonprofit leaders invest in a future-ready foundation—uniting finance, human resources (HR), and IT with a cloud-native enterprise management system—they’re better able to drive their organization’s mission. And the resources that might otherwise have been consumed by upgrades and workarounds, maintenance and manual tasks can instead be redirected to the meaningful work that drew people to these organizations in the first place.

Harnessing the Power of Unified, Real-Time Data

How much time do your finance, HR, or IT teams spend wrangling their data? I’m guessing the answer is a lot. And when they need data from other departments, the process probably involves making a request, then manually verifying that the info delivered aligns with the data they have on hand, and then manually spotting and addressing any outdated or inaccurate data. 

What about the goal of providing leaders decision-ready data to guide strategic decisions? By the time such data has been gathered, verified, and analyzed, the opportunity may very well have passed.

A cloud-native enterprise management platform banishes such data silos entirely. Instead, Workday’s unified data core means that finance, HR, and IT all work from a single source of real-time, reliable data and a shared, comprehensive view of the company’s operations.

“Prior to Workday, we’d have to do a lot of ‘off-road’ work in Excel or other alternate systems. In Workday, everything is integrated, and we see things in real time,” says Caroline Croen, CFO at The WNET Group, which has a team of 400 full-time staff and an operating budget of $155 million. “Having everything in one place has been transformational.”

That’s true both for internal teams and the external funders that power the nonprofit’s mission. Each has its own requirements and expectations around reporting—and customizing reports for individual funders can quickly become burdensome for time-strapped teams. But, “Workday allows you to build those reports in real time, so we can be flexible and nimble when it comes to the onerous reporting requirements,” Croen says. 

Adapting and Evolving With the Wind at Your Back

Digital acceleration is currently a hot topic of discussion—but it’s hardly a trend. Nonprofits, big and small, will continue to see digitization reshape how their organizations are funded and operated, how and where their teams work, how donors are engaged, and how endowments are managed.

We can’t pretend to know which emerging metrics will matter most five or 10 years from now, let alone which regulatory changes may crest the horizon. But we can—and have—designed a digital solution with adaptability at its very core. Because Workday was designed to evolve, we can take advantage of new technologies that make sense for our customers, without asking them to upgrade to a new version or recreate how they use the platform—unlike traditional enterprise resource planning systems. 

At the same time, there are a staggering number of tailored applications available to our customers—an amount that’s growing exponentially to keep pace with business change. Rather than try to recreate each and every one of those capabilities, Workday was designed to seamlessly and securely integrate with all of them. That means nonprofits can pick the best-of-breed applications that make sense for them, while still reaping the benefits of an enterprise backbone that delivers a unified user experience.

No question, the right technology can be make-or-break for a nonprofit’s ability to pivot, scale, and adapt as the future unfolds. But people play an essential role as well. That’s why we’ve built a dedicated nonprofit practice at Workday—sharing insights and use-case knowledge specific to nonprofits. Whether they have 100 employees or thousands, a regional focus or a global reach, our nonprofit customers are deeply invested in learning from peers and leveraging best practices. And our Workday Community for customers creates a space for them to do just that, as well as make suggestions for future product enhancements.

We believe, deeply, in the power of partnership. And we’ve seen firsthand the dramatic value that customers achieve—not just on day one but ongoing. Education advocacy nonprofit Teach for America first implemented Workday in 2009, starting with a tight focus on benefits and human capital management. But over the years it’s incorporated seven other Workday applications—covering everything from expenses to planning to payroll—under one cloud-based system.

In 2020, the nonprofit turned to Workday to evolve its training and learning as well. “It took eight weeks for us to convert a training module into a remote one,” says Sandeep Chellani, Teach for America CIO. “But it was possible because we had the right technology in place, that ongoing dialogue and trust, and Workday’s deep understanding of what we need.”

To learn more about how Workday helps nonprofits build a sustainable financial future, visit our website.