Community IT Innovators Nonprofit Technology Topics

Does your organization struggle to match your IT to your actual business needs?  Learn how to right size your IT and get rid of FOMO. In pt 1, Johan, Pat and Carolyn discuss Tech FOMO and the reasons nonprofits are susceptible to feeling it. They ask the webinar audience about their last new tech implementations and explore everyone’s current FOMO, AI. In part 2, Pat walks us through an IT decisio...

Does your organization struggle to match your IT to your actual business needs?  Learn how to right size your IT and get rid of FOMO. In pt 1, Johan, Pat and Carolyn discuss Tech FOMO and the reasons nonprofits are susceptible to feeling it. They ask the webinar audience about their last new tech implementations and explore everyone’s current FOMO, AI. In part 2, Pat walks us through an IT decisio...

The pace of new AI tools and uses on the market is like a rocket. Does your nonprofit have questions about cybersecurity, opting out, or best practices when using AI?  Microsoft released a new AI Governance Framework for Nonprofits joining many institutions putting out guidelines and studying the impact of AI on nonprofits and the ways nonprofits are using AI. Many nonprofits are approaching AI ve...

Are you a new board member hoping to help your nonprofit navigate IT management?  Do you know what you need to know about IT, cybersecurity, and change management as a board member?  Where is your nonprofit on the scale of IT management maturity?  In this podcast Marketing Director Carolyn Woodard, who has served as an IT Director at nonprofits in her career, shares best practices and her thoughts...

Whether or not your nonprofit faced Crowdstrike impacts, the aftermath of a national or worldwide incident is a great time to gather your cybersecurity team and run the exercise: what will your organization do during the next outage or cyber attack?  Nonprofit Cybersecurity expert Matt Eshleman shares his thoughts in this podcast on the importance of reviewing your incident response and business c...

In part 2, we discuss Single Sign On (SSO) implementation and roll out, and answer questions from the webinar audience. In part 1, our guests Steve Longenecker and Phil Oswald Christano define SSO and go over what it does and doesn't do. We discuss the unfortunate fact that each app interacts with SSO differently so you have to enable it for each app. However, if you use Google or Microsoft y...

If you have heard about Single Sign On (SSO) and wondered what it can do for your nonprofit, this webinar explains the concept and examines the ways that SSO can help your organization be more productive and work more safely online. In part 1, our guests Steve Longenecker and Phil Oswald Christano define SSO and go over what it does and doesn't do. We discuss the unfortunate fact that each ap...

What do the acronyms SFP, DKIM, and DMARC mean, and why do you need to prove your email is legit? If you have been hearing these terms lately about your email or your cybersecurity liability insurance checklist, and don’t know your DKIM from your DMARC, you aren’t alone! Carolyn sat down with CEO Johan Hammerstrom to demystify the lingo and learn about the latest requirements for ensuring emails f...

What does it mean to be a learning organization and how can you grow learning practices at your nonprofit? In pt 1 Karen defined a Learning Organization and explored struggles to embrace learning at your nonprofit. In pt 2 Karen discusses the categories of learning technologies that can help nonprofits organize their learning management, and gave us tips on implementing learning strategies at our...

What does it mean to be a learning organization and how can you grow learning practices at your nonprofit? In pt 1 Karen defines a Learning Organization and explored struggles to embrace learning at your nonprofit. In pt 2 Karen discusses the categories of learning technologies that can help nonprofits organize their learning management, and gave us tips on implementing learning strategies at our...

In today’s interview, Carolyn talks with Vince Grady, the new Community IT Chief Financial Officer (CFO) who is 8 months into the job. Vince and Carolyn discuss his roundabout path to the CFO role, and how a diversity of backgrounds is common at Community IT and valued as one of our strengths – not all our employees have followed a typical path and that helps us connect with our nonprofit clients...

Listen to this conversation with Carole Melvin from Your Part Time Controller (YPTC) and catch up on the current thinking on preventing financial fraud as scams seem to multiply all around us in our jobs at nonprofits. Learn what new frauds and scams are evolving and how to protect yourself and your nonprofit. Some key takeaways: Cultivate a healthy dose of skepticism and use common sense.  Utiliz...

In today’s interview, Carolyn talks with Rob Schamberg about his long service on the Community IT Board helping steer the company through the process to become employee-owned through the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) and to his recent retirement from the Board. Rob describes his career from his days as a college grad who loved technology and the outdoors, through teaching and becoming Princ...

Pt 3 delves deeper into implementation, roll out, and overcoming barriers to updating or creating IT governance policies at your nonprofit. In this podcast follow up to their webinar, Community IT Senior Consultant Nura Aboki and guest Jeff Gibson from Build Consulting spoke with moderator Carolyn Woodard and shared their experiences and insights into the difficulties rolling out your updated poli...

Pt 2 covers implementation, overcoming barriers to this project, and Q&A. Pt 1 Covers policy definitions and priority policies, a process to create or revise your policies, and 2 polls. For templates: Free Resources for Building IT Policies at Nonprofits has a ton of links for you. Community IT Senior Consultant Nura Aboki and guest Jeff Gibson from Build Consulting  took your questions on whe...

Pt 1 Covers policy definitions and priority policies, a process to create or revise your policies, and 2 polls. Pt 2 covers implementation, overcoming barriers to this project, and Q&A. For templates: Free Resources for Building IT Policies at Nonprofits has a ton of links for you. Community IT Senior Consultant Nura Aboki and guest Jeff Gibson from Build Consulting took your questions on wher...

What are the main ways AI impacts nonprofit cybersecurity risks? Social engineering, trust, and data risks are the three big areas where AI will have impacts on cybersecurity at nonprofits that you need to be aware of. Whether or not your organization is using AI, these are areas where hackers are definitely using AI to devise new methods of attack. Matt Eshleman, CTO at Community IT, recommends c...

How to Protect Your Organization Against New Threats Following the 2024 Nonprofit Cybersecurity Incident Report , Carolyn sat down with Matt Eshleman , our Chief Technology Officer and cybersecurity expert, and José Antonio Peña-Rosales , our Director of Support Services, to talk about what users can do to stay safe and share some cybersecurity updates for nonprofits. When should you report someth...

Community IT CTO and cybersecurity expert Matt Eshleman delivers our report on trend lines and took questions live in this popular webinar. In pt 2 Matt goes into the report data and pulls out new and disturbing attacks, and finishes up with the best ways to protect yourself, especially from Attacker-in-the-Middle MFA attacks. In pt 1 he explores a systematic approach to cybersecurity for your non...

Community IT CTO and cybersecurity expert Matt Eshleman delivers our report on trend lines and took questions live in this popular webinar. In pt 1 we explore a systematic approach to cybersecurity for your nonprofit, talk about the big picture trends, take a couple of audience polls on what type of incidents are common, and demystify some lingo. In pt 2 Matt goes into the report data and pulls ou...

How can your nonprofit avoid common headaches with the free Google Workspace implementation as you grow?  So many small nonprofits start out using the free Google Workspace platform you can set up and administer yourself. Google makes it easy! But as you grow from a one- or two-person nonprofit to a larger team you may be wondering if Google Workspace is professional enough, and whether it can han...

Ethics, AI Tools, and Policies. How is Your Philanthropy Using AI? Part 1 of this podcast introduced basic AI concepts and definitions and gave some practical examples of nonprofits very intentionally using AI  to further their mission. It ended with results of a poll of the audience members and discussion on how nonprofits are using AI tools - individually, organization-wide, and/or to perform th...

Ethics, AI Tools, and Policies. How is Your Philanthropy Using AI? Community IT was thrilled to welcome two respected leaders, Sarah Di Troia from Project Evident and Jean Westrick from Technology Association of Grantmakers, who shared their informed perspective on AI in philanthropy to share this AI Framework with our audience. You will not want to miss this discussion. As society grapples with t...

How to Protect Your Inbox and Your Sanity Are you getting more unwelcome email lately? From junk emails, to annoying advertising, to malicious phishing, it can feel like the tools that keep our inboxes spam free aren’t working as well lately. Johan Hammerstrom , our CEO, answers Carolyn’s questions about email safety.  How do you know which unsubscribe links are legitimate, how do you flag spam, h...

Do you know if you are in technology debt or investing at the right level in your nonprofit IT? Senior Consultant Nura Aboki sat down with Carolyn Woodard recently and discussed his work as a senior consultant and the strategic responses he sees as the most successful across his clients. You can benefit from these tips no matter the size or technology comfort at your organization. Assessments can...