Is Your Nonprofit Ready to Hire a Managed Service Provider?
Software upgrades, security notifications, and printer driver installations are frequent tasks that often result in unanticipated work interruption and inefficient use of staff time. Outsourcing your nonprofit IT service needs through a managed IT contract provides a comprehensive solution for technology needs.
How do you know if your nonprofit is ready to hire a managed service provider(MSP)? There are many resources available that allow your team to do the work themselves—including some of our nonprofit educational resources—but if you find your nonprofit answering "yes" to any of the following questions, it may be time to outsource.
Does your nonprofit frequently fix tech issues?
With a managed service provider, response to issues, outages, or downtime is resolved in seconds. Through state-of-the-art monitoring and remote management systems, your nonprofit's IT infrastructure has the ability to be accessed, diagnosed, and repaired almost immediately. If you rely on your internal team, this results in prioritizing their time toward the tech issue and away from their work which supports your mission.
Are you unable to resolve IT problems?
Tutorials, webinars, and internet searches can provide simple solutions. But what happens when you've reached a stalemate or your staff thinks the issue is fixed but is unsure? Outsourcing your IT support gives you access to trained IT professionals you can call upon at a moment's notice. Once they have resolved the immediate issue, a managed service provider works proactively to identify future problems before they've started through patch management and preventive maintenance.
Is your nonprofit staff short on time?
We understand the challenges nonprofits face when advocating for investment in additional staff and technology infrastructure. If your existing team members are short on time, responding to the latest tech issue will only compound their stress. Increasing your org chart to include an IT professional may seem like an easy solution, but it can be difficult to gain board support. By outsourcing to a managed service provider, you receive technical support through a contracted monthly fee that is scaled based on your needs—without the fixed overhead of adding an employee.
Outsourcing the management of your nonprofit's IT services can result in noticeable benefits such as IT expertise, predictable spending, fast solutions, and even peace of mind.
As you give thought to how you answered these questions and consider an approach to finding a solution, know that Tech Impact's team of tech experts built a number of tools and services to support nonprofits.