Project management • Scriptcase Deep Data: Is it possible when you’re non-profit?

Evan Liebovitch talks about deep data and how to document the needs of a non-profit while using Scriptcase. Read here the post and listen to a podcast!

If you’ve ever wondered how to document the needs of a non-profit while using Scriptcase, then today’s post is for you.

Profit is definitely not the goal for a not-for-profit organization according to Evan Liebovitch, who is one of the two founders of the global non-profit organization known as the Linux Professional Institute also known as LPI. LPI is the largest certification body for Linux administrators in the world, with over one hundred thousand certifications that are depended on by organizations around the world.

I first met Evan a few years ago, when I was assisting LPI to acquire and create training partners throughout many countries on five continents. At the time, he was their chairman and a member of their board. He still remains on their board to this day. This is one of the most influential & important groups in the field of Open Source.

Most of what he’s worked on during his career has been involved with Open Source and Education. He’s been involved with a number of organizations concerned with these kinds of things including the first Open Source based consultancy in Canada. And he’s been involved with Open Source not just for software but for documents, publications and other things. He is one of the leading luminaries in the field of Open Source, internationally.

Additionally, Evan has sat on a number of boards both with not-for-profit  as well as profit-making organizations. These include, a number of organizations including some that help to run the Internet, and some that are United Nations affiliated.

Evan has also been involved with some government related agencies from a technology viewpoint. He’s been involved with groups in some countries where it’s not terribly hospitable to refugees working to providing open-source means for them to gain livelihood.

So Evan understands quite a bit about not-for-profit and non-profit organizations and how technology can benefit them.

Our goal in this post is to document a different kind of business this week, which this time would be a not-for-profit or non-profit organization.

Just because the goal isn’t profit doesn’t mean that there aren’t goals for non-profit organizations. According to what Evan told us they still have requirements to meet certain fundraising targets, or membership drives. But most non-profits also have needs to meet certain targets for how they transform or affect either the environment or represent a group of people to government or society in general.

There are board members, and these people are mandated to track the performance on these kinds of issues.

There are a number of applications in the not-for-profit field that support assisting with this kind of thing.  NetSuite and Sage do provide applications in that space. You also see applications on and off the cloud, such as a Benevity, DonorPerfect Fundraising Software, StarChapter Association Management and a number of others.  (Mild Disclaimer: This is not a review of those applications, and we’re just mentioning apps that some sources are telling us are involved in these kinds of issues. There may be other popular applications, that we just haven’t heard of yet in the list is not exhaustive at all. The aforementioned small sampling is just meant to provide some examples and should not be relied upon as any indication of popularity or value or as some kind of buying aid or utility).

There certainly are a lot of choices depending on your needs and budget. The problem is dealing with all your issues without taking all your budget.

There are a number of different kinds of association management software, fundraising management software and given the needs of some organizations even applications as diverse as CRM to social media and beyond may be a factor in required solutions.

Some groups may find that these are quite suitable applications for them. Other groups may or may not need all the functionality, or may not necessarily have the budget to make such an investment. And even if they do have the budget to make such an investment in more complex organization they may or may not find a total solution in just one package.

Sometimes even a non-profit’s operational requirements can be complex.

The problem is that the direct operational needs of non-profits and not for profits from small organizations to large NGOs might require some investment in order to deal with common issues. And even if this is a not-for-profit that has fundraising needs, or chapter management needs or other things some needs in some software platforms may not necessarily deal with their Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) in total. It depends on the platform and what their actual direct needs are.

Even if you do raise funds, does that promote your cause, lobby government or inform and educate and transform the public and the world? Maybe or maybe not.

We listened to the description that Evan gave as to what board members in these kinds of organizations need in order to know that they’re doing their jobs right and that their organizations are running effectively.

So, Evan gave us an overview of the kinds of things the board members and these sorts of organizations would require. And he went into to some depth on that.

As a result we took this information used some of our object-oriented analysis methodologies, and translated this into a Scriptcase project that could help to make the jobs board members in these organizations do become just a little easier.

Therefore we have another business case study or yet again we see some of the power of how you can deploy Scriptcase effectively.

Delivering effective solutions to such organizations utilizing widely available technologies such as PHP, enterprise relational databases, and the full stack of Web technologies, can if used properly really help to bridge some of these gaps.

In this podcast we’ll hear what Evan had to say about the needs of such organizations.

In the resulting video demo we’ll see afterwards how  we can translate what he told us into interesting applications with some very useful capabilities in Scriptcase.

And although in this case we are dealing with not for profits, non-profits, associations and beyond we can all gain the profit of just a little deeper understanding of how Scriptcase, and these kinds of Enterprise Grade technologies can help to bridge gaps, provide insight and give a much deeper and more insightful view of what’s important. It’s possible even when you’re non-profit to use Deep Data to your group’s advantage.

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