There’s no doubt that many organizations are using cloud technologies in innovative ways. But, more specifically, what links might we find between the unique aspects of cloud technology, and the conditions and success factors for innovation?

Recently NTEN posed an interesting question to us: Is there a connection between cloud technology and innovation in nonprofit organizations? There’s no doubt that many organizations are using cloud technologies in innovative ways. But, more specifically, what links might we find between the unique aspects of cloud technology, and the conditions and success factors for innovation? This article explores that question.

In the past two years my organization, MAP for Nonprofits, has focused intensely on innovative uses of technology in the nonprofit sector. In 2012, MAP and Idealware completed an exciting research project to pave the way for nonprofits to use technology for service innovation in a manner that advances their missions. By surveying 180 Minnesota nonprofits and doing in-depth interviews with 13 of them, we identified a “Framework for Innovation,” describing the conditions and success factors for innovation. The research report Unleashing Innovation: Using Everyday Technology to Improve Nonprofit Services presents details of our findings and is available for download.

The research and the pilot program could not be happening at a better time, unfolding against a backdrop of cultural and technology changes. These include:

• A general shift from enterprise-centered technology to consumer-centered technology, resulting in a more satisfying and empowering end-user experience. This is positive for innovation because it increases individuals’ expectations for how technology ought to serve them.
• Moving away from command-and-control management, toward organic/network organizational structures, which means innovative ideas can originate from outside of leadership, and have the chance to catch on through networks.
• Abandoning the 9-to-5, Monday to Friday work day for a blend of work, family, social and civic life throughout the day and the week, intricately related to anytime-, anywhere-access to work tools and information. This shift provides motivation to look for new applications of technology.
• The emergence of cloud services, which both fuels the other changes and is fueled by them. (see table below)

Lessons from our Innovation Research and Consulting Experience

Our innovation research suggested that some myth busting is in order. People often think of innovation as futuristic, cutting-edge technology, but we found that many nonprofits are innovating with straightforward technologies. For example, HOWA Family Center switched from email to text messaging as a more effective way to communicate with teen mentors.

We also found that innovation can be low cost. Many nonprofits successfully use existing technology to innovate in subtle ways, implementing solutions that are often both low-cost and effective. For example, Community Thread is using free social media for volunteer engagement. One big success was using Facebook to recruit roughly 1500 volunteers for relief efforts during a 2011 flood.

A key recommendation from our research was to consider starting small. Starting with a small project can, potentially, provide a straightforward success that will help your organization embrace the idea of innovation. This lesson was a painful one for one of our pilot participants. Through the pilot process of soliciting input from across the organization, they realized that they had rolled out a big technology change before the organization was fully ready. For their next technology implementation, they have taken a more iterative approach, testing it first on a smaller scale.

Cloud Technology in our Innovation Pilot

The proliferation of cloud services can leave a nonprofit professional looking like a deer in headlights, unsure how to select the right service and evaluate ROI. That’s why one of our goals for the pilot program is to help organizations identify actionable ideas for applying technology to address organizational needs – ideas which are prioritized based upon feasibility and return on investment.

So far, simply bringing people together and guiding them through the Framework for Innovation has yielded positive results. Not surprisingly, peer interaction has been one of the most valuable components of the program, providing new, outside perspectives and a support network for leaders seeking innovation. One of our pilot cohorts is comprised of smaller organizations that are all using cloud services for file sharing, as well as a variety of SaaS (Software as a Service) products for communication, outreach and fundraising. In their first group meeting, they did a lot of comparing notes and jotting down names of products. They are hungry for ideas and eager to experiment.

Barriers Still Exist

Funding plays a role in what sort of innovation happens. Some funders are savvy to the cloud trend, such as the Greater Twin Cities United Way which helped to underwrite the cost of migration to the cloud for a number of MAP’s clients. However, many funders are still reluctant to provide ongoing operating funds for IT. Knowing they are more likely to get funding for a capital investment (read: server, custom development), some nonprofits are choosing that route over the cloud, even if it isn’t the best fit for their needs, and even if it hinders innovation.

Privacy and security concerns are also holding people back from cloud services. For IT professionals used to controlling system, application, and data security, moving to the cloud means giving up many of the existing best security practices, simply because they are not available in the cloud environment. Even though there are always risks involved with cloud solutions—from outages to security leaks—cloud-based defenses can be more robust, scalable, redundant, and cost-effective than anything most nonprofits could put into place locally. HIPAA compliance remains unclear: most cloud solutions hesitate to state they are HIPAA compliant, but can be made so by tweaking their Service Level Agreement.

One practical thing we’ve learned is that an organization’s internet speed can be a huge help or hindrance to making the best use of cloud technology, especially streaming media such as webinars and webcasts that require a lot of bandwidth, and also web-based CRM and data management tools. Through our pilot, one organization discovered significant bandwidth problems, which they were then able to fix. This resulted in improved productivity as well as better trust and buy-in from employees related to IT changes.

So, is there a connection between cloud technology and innovation in nonprofit organizations? Our research and early results from our pilot program suggest that cloud technology, together with some of the cultural shifts which are closely related to it, are throwing the doors wide open to innovation. Cloud technology offers a multitude of new, low-cost, low-risk tools. It remains for nonprofit leaders to understand those tools, make smart connections between organization needs and technology, and overcome barriers to innovation. Collaboration with peers may be the secret sauce that pulls this recipe together.

What do technology innovation and weight loss have in common? With both processes, there’s an alarming degree of misunderstanding about how they work, and too much focus on tools and gimmicks.

MAP’s new director of technology & innovation, Karen Graham, believes that whether you’re a runner or a nonprofit manager, success is about more than tools. But the right accessories can’t hurt.

Pinning our hopes for organizational transformation on the latest device or application is like expecting new running shoes to make us thinner. It’s time to stop equating technology, especially technological innovation, with flashy tools.

Sure, transformative technology exists, but it’s rarely the catalyst, and never the only factor. There are multiple success factors that, when used together, help organizations improve their strategic use of technology. We know what some of the success factors are in weight loss. Here are their parallels in technology innovation.

Tools

This means having the right infrastructure, tools that are a good fit, and tools that increase productivity and inform decisions. Keep a few brand new ones in the mix. Don’t forget the pedometer – a tool to track your progress. This is also about adjusting and maintaining your equipment, using tech support and personalizing your settings to make tools your own.

Knowledge

Just like knowing the relative calories in a carrot and a cake, your IT knowledge will help you make better decisions. Gain an understanding of some basic IT concepts, novel ways peers are using technology, best practices, emerging tools and trends.

Strategies

With fitness, technology optimization, or practically any aspiration, it’s important to set goals and choose an approach. Are you trying to save money? Make better, data-based decisions? Improve collaboration? What strategies can get you there? Consider resource constraints and barriers – but also challenge them.

Discipline

Incorporate IT into strategic planning and budgeting; set aside time regularly for learning; evaluate ROI; practice structured reflection on technology use and decisions.

Support & Advice

Think of who your personal trainer and your accountability partner might be in this context: IT mentors, technical advisors, professional peers, outside advice from consultants, and user groups.

What do you think? Am I missing anything here? Which of these success factors is most often absent, and why?

We wanted to:

• Discover and learn from Minnesota human services organizations using technology for innovation in service delivery.
• Highlight our findings to inspire other nonprofits
• Assimilate the findings into recommendations for nonprofits, funders and support organizations everywhere

We began the actual research seven months ago and now have a completed report – Unleashing Innovation: Using Everyday Technology to Improve Nonprofit Services. The report accomplished what we’d hoped, but in different ways than we had expected.

We had thought that we might find a few pieces of hardware or software that were responsible for the majority of innovation in service delivery. We hypothesized that organizations that were improving their service delivery through technology would be very tech savvy internally. We also thought we’d find some “jet packs” – or some really cutting edge applications of technology that were revolutionizing service delivery.

Instead what we found were lots of great examples of nonprofits successfully using technology to innovate in highly-accessible ways.  Nonprofits are using existing and accessible technology to provide higher quality services, and actually finding ways to do more with less.  One of the case studies in the report, titled “Netting Big Results through a Small Change,” describes how the Domestic Abuse Project (DAP) in Minneapolis transformed the relationship between their staff and probation officers, and improved graduation rates of their participants, through the creation of a new form on their existing database.  The key inspiration in this case came from an organization with a similar mission in another state and the only cost was the time it took for the DAP staff member to create the form.

The other surprise for us was that many of the successful innovations didn’t come about because of an in-depth planning process and they often didn’t even come for people that were very tech savvy – the ideas resulted from the recognition of a service/program problem or opportunity.

The findings should and will inspire nonprofit leaders. They are also inspiring us at MAP to think about different and better ways to help our clients recognize their service problems and opportunities first – and then bring forward the technology solutions.

This research project has been interesting, challenging, educational and fun for me – in unexpected ways.  I’m looking forward to sharing the results with others so we can all continue to learn together. You can view the full report here, or register for the free webinar we’re providing with Idealware. And stay tuned, because this research is only the first chapter of our work.

MAP is working on an exciting research project to pave the way for nonprofits to use technology for service innovation in a manner that advances their missions. Our partner in this work is Idealware, a nonprofit that helps other nonprofits make smart software decisions.

We’re embarking on some detailed research, including a survey, interviews and in-depth case studies to understand how human service organizations are using technology to innovate and improve their service delivery — and the factors that help them succeed in this area.

Just from our background research, it’s clear that organizations are doing really interesting things.  Many of them, in fact, aren’t particularly expensive to implement.  For instance:

• Food shelves are using ID cards with a bar code to quickly check people in and out.
• Caseworkers in the field are entering case notes via laptop, PDA, smart phone, or even by calling a service that will then transcribe the notes.
• Homeless shelters are using service data to identify homeless clients who could be served more cost effectively by simply renting them an apartment.
• Organizations serving similar communities are coming together to agree on shared indicators and then pooling their data to understand and improve all of their services.
• Children in foster care are “virtually visiting” with their caseworker via Skype.
• Homebound seniors are using the internet to connect to each other and their doctors — supporting their ability to live longer in their own homes.
• Legal service organizations are producing and sharing videos to help inform clients about important topics.
• Organizations are using social media and online outreach methods to recruit more foster parents.

We’re excited to continue our research – especially to identify approaches, examples and tools that are straightforward to implement and likely to be effective for many different organizations.

This research was made possible by a generous contribution from the ADC Foundation.  We expect to release the complete results of our work in early 2011.