Technology policies and practices to leave behind in 2025

It’s 2025. I truly hope that nearly five years after the entire sector was forced to navigate office shutdowns, shift programs and services online, and streamline grant applications and reporting, I don’t need to make the case that technology is central to philanthropic and nonprofit organizations’ mission and programs. Yet, we see that many organizations are still quick to limit or cut back technology-related investments of all kinds, including training, evaluation, planning, and community feedback. Organizations need to realize that treating technology as a peripheral expense actually limits mission delivery and effectiveness.  

How can you put technology to work most effectively for your organization’s success? This is what we at NTEN call technology effectiveness: staff reporting they have both the tools and the skills to use the organization’s technology systems to do their job and meet the mission. Here are four technology policies and practices nonprofits and foundations of any size or mission area should leave behind in 2025: 

1. Stop leaving technology out of your strategic plans

An organization’s strategic plan is shared widely, both internally and externally, to map out its diligence, effectiveness, and direction. Yet, one thing is still often missing from so many of them: technology. NTEN’s 20 years of research has found that including technology as a component of the strategic plan is one of the top five practices connected to an organization’s technology effectiveness.  

 If technology investments and roadmaps aren’t articulated at the highest level of your organization’s plans and shown to  support and drive the success of all other strategic areas, how can we expect staff, board members, or partners to see that technology spending, systems, and adoption are essential to our work and help advance our mission? 

Of course, this doesn’t mean that strategic plans need to include an exhaustive list of every tool and license your organization uses or an outline of requested updates to the website or database. Instead, it’s making the connection that for an organization to evaluate its impact, it needs to invest adequately in data systems that give teams the information they need and the training for them to use it well. It also means investing proactively in technology in ways that support staff in all roles and teams, as well as board members, program participants, and service recipients.  

2. Stop investing in accessibility only when asked

Investments in accessibility help everyone, ensuring that all staff and participants—regardless of disability—can use the systems, access information, and utilize services. This might mean website and email accessibility for your users and community members, but it also means the kinds of tools on a staff person’s work station or the diversity of training materials provided to ensure each person’s learning styles and needs are met every day. Building equitable outcomes starts with building equitable organizations, and investments in accessibility—from the text used on our website to the accommodations we provide—helps us identify ways to continue improving how we do our work, not just what work we do.  

3. Stop creating product-specific technology policies

Just as accessibility covers many different systems, interventions, accommodations, and needs, so too should your organization’s policies. We all have experienced the realities of how quickly technology shifts and evolves. In a rapidly changing environment, we can’t provide staff with guidance and policies that need to be completely rewritten regularly. Instead of an Instagram policy, consider a social media policy. Or, instead of a policy specific to your database, create policies about how data is collected, stored, and accessed, even if some of those details do include your CRM system’s specifics.  

4. Stop using technology budgets based on organizational hierarchy

The CEO shouldn’t have a choice of laptops if program coordinators don’t have the same choice. Technology budgets should include all staff, and policies should provide equitable access to the specific technology different team members or departments need to do their various jobs—while being guided by shared organization-wide guidelines. Every employee is needed in driving your mission, so they should all have access to the same options and budget to use technology to do that work.  

Technology effectiveness is a year-round investment. You may not be working on your technology polices or annual budget now, but you can start advocating for better ways to use that budget, the support and strategic investment necessary for technology adoption, and the human systems you put and keep in place—today, this month, and all year. Your work to advocate for equitable technology inside and outside your organization makes a difference every day.

Photo credit: Fauxels via Pexels