Too Much, Too Fast

In 2001, I worked for a small east Texas nonprofit management service provider that shall remain nameless. Handwritten notes were our primary communication tool. To our CEO, the computer was a typewriter and an adding machine, and the Internet was a big waste of time. She did not know or care what programs we were running. I would say most, if not all, of our clients were in pretty much the same place. They had computers on their desks but many still did not have Internet access or e-mail. Few people really knew how to use this technology in the real world.

Our client base grew by about 15 agencies per month, and we soon had too much data to process and track by hand. We began losing new contacts and forgetting where we were with others.

I designed a rudimentary database in Approach and later converted it to Microsoft Access, which allowed us to turn the data into information and use it to serve our clients. Then we were able to pull up each client in the database, read the notes to see where we were, and personalize each contact. The computer became a necessary part of our work.

Assessments Conducted by TNMAN

That spring, the Texas Nonprofit Management Assistance Network (TNMAN) hired outside consultants to conduct organizational and technology assessments for its members. This was a wonderful encouragement to our agency. We were able to focus on where we needed to be technologically and why.

Convinced that this was our opportunity for growth, we used our resources to turn their recommendations into a checklist. We went down the list and:

1. moved our offices to a downtown location, for better visability
2. changed our marketing and Web site presentations
3. acquired faster computer equipment
4. updated our operating system to certified copies of Windows 2000 for each machine (acquired from TechSoup Stock )
5. updated software to certified copies of Office 2000 professional (acquired from TechSoup)
6. networked the new computers in the new office
7. changed the structure of our filing system
8. changed all our phone numbers, Web address, and e-mail addresses

We all had to attend scheduled training to learn the new software and operating systems. I was the only staff person who knew anything about computers, and none of us had any experience with networked computers.

Accessing the database within the network was complicated because the others did not know how it worked. It was chaos, but we had to deal with it. We had too many things already scheduled that we could not cancel. It took us almost six months to recover our equilibrium and begin to operate with any efficiency again.

Lessons Learned

I had the staff write their recommendations for the next overhaul we attempted. They all said the same thing -- introduce changes one at a time and let everyone adjust at a slower pace.

It was too much change in too short of a period of time, and it left us all reeling.