Community IT Innovators Nonprofit Technology Topics

In today’s interview, Carolyn catches up with Robin Harris, who has been promoted to become a Cloud Technology Engineer, working on complex migrations to SharePoint file sharing. Robin shares her career path and how her managers at Community IT tapped her for this role based on the way she was interacting with clients and her experience. She works now within the cloud migrations practice and explo...

Community IT CEO Johan Hammerstrom has a conversation with cybersecurity expert and Community IT CTO Matt Eshleman about what policies you need, and where to find templates for them.  Do you have the security and IT general policies you need? Have they been updated recently to reflect any new work environment or expectations? Are staff using personal devices? Are they working from home? Are you re...

In today’s interview, Carolyn talks with Ben Nuest, Centralized Services Administrator, about his background in music and what it has been like joining Community IT remotely to work on the many systems that keep our clients’ laptops and devices running smoothly in the background. Ben says he didn’t start out interested in scripting, but found that he really liked it and obviously had a talent for...

What does your nonprofit need to know about Google Workspace as you grow? Review the basics you need to know about this platform Understand recent updates that can help you use Google better Learn how to avoid common headaches with Google implementation  Part 2 covers typical headaches with Workspace that you can encounter as your organization grows in IT complexity and answers Q&A. Some simpl...

What does your nonprofit need to know about Google Workspace as you grow? Review the basics you need to know about this platform Understand recent updates that can help you use Google better Learn how to avoid common headaches with Google implementation Part 1 covers an overview of Google Workspace and various updates launched over the past year that can help you work smarter. Part 2 covers typica...

Do you want to get better at analyzing your data and publishing data visualizations?  Do you ever feel that processing and massaging your data is taking over your time? Do you use Microsoft Office365? If so, you have a powerful data visualization tool available to you at an affordable price for nonprofit organizations. With minimal ramp-up, your organization can start to visualize and analyze your...

In today’s interview, Carolyn talks with Ann Corran, the longest vested employee-owner and one of the first employees at the spin off Community IT Innovators, having been recruited to join our parent company Reliacom over two decades ago. Ann recalls asking to work part time and from home to balance life with her young family, and how that emphasis on work-life integration has been a central facto...

What IT do you need as you grow? In part 2,  Community IT CEO Johan Hammerstrom and Outreach Director Carolyn Woodard get into practical advice on managing your IT during growth, cybersecurity considerations, and leadership tips including putting an IT Roadmap together to help your change management. Johan also answers questions on managing inventory (it's hard!) and costs (it depends!)  What...

What IT do you need as you grow? In part 1, join Community IT CEO Johan Hammerstrom and Outreach Director Carolyn Woodard for an overview of managing IT at different states of growth, and how to start early to make it a leadership habit to manage IT.  What IT do you need as a start up? As you spin off from a parent organization, how can you put your best IT foot forward?  Learn best practices and...

Community IT CEO Johan Hammerstrom moderates a presentation from Steve Longenecker and Pat Sprehe about Community IT’s approach to outsourced IT for nonprofits and how clients can benefit from our IT Business Manager model. They give tips and offer examples on maximizing the relationship with IT experts who can help you match the IT you need with your business strategy. Key Takeaways Many nonprofi...

Join Matt Eshleman, a cybersecurity expert, in a short presentation hosted by Jitasa University on preventing wire fraud at nonprofits, including the most common types of frauds and scams, what to look out for, some helpful resources, and prevention ideas. Jitasa is a network providing accounting services, CFO services, and nonprofit tax advice across the US. Jitasa partners with nonprofit associa...

Join Community IT experts Norwin Herrera, IT Business Manager, and Robin Harris, Cloud Technologies Engineer, for a case study of an ongoing, large, and complex SharePoint migration they are managing with our client, Chinatown Community Development Center.  Part 1 covers an introduction to SharePoint, some clarification of the terminology and a run through of some FAQs, and the introduction to the...

Join Community IT experts Norwin Herrera, IT Business Manager, and Robin Harris, Cloud Technologies Engineer, for a case study of an ongoing, large, and complex SharePoint migration they are managing with our client, Chinatown Community Development Center.  Part 1 covers an introduction to SharePoint, some clarification of the terminology and a run through of some FAQs, and the introduction to the...

Do you budget to replace a third of your laptops every year? Is your cybersecurity patching and antivirus up to date? How often to you hold cybersecurity staff trainings? How can you ensure your big IT migration doesn’t happen the same month as your big annual conference and stress everyone out? To fully utilize the power of IT to support your nonprofit, you need to have a plan. You don’t have to...

Do you budget to replace a third of your laptops every year? Is your cybersecurity patching and antivirus up to date? How often to you hold cybersecurity staff trainings? How can you ensure your big IT migration doesn’t happen the same month as your big annual conference and stress everyone out? To fully utilize the power of IT to support your nonprofit, you need to have a plan. You don’t have to...

Today Carolyn catches up with Norwin Herrera, recently promoted to IT Business Manager (ITBM) Team Lead. He talks more about the role the ITBMS fill with clients, guiding them to well-managed IT and helping with strategic planning, budgeting, and investing in addition to keeping IT running smoothly.  The Community IT ITBM service is unique to our company. ITBMs provide an outsourced IT manager to...

Ever heard about something that sounded really cool, like Artificial Intelligence or Blockchain and thought to yourself, my nonprofit needs to get some of that, no matter the cost?  Or have you had a vendor approach you with bleeding edge technology and swear it can transform your nonprofit and the world, but you have doubts?  Are you looking around at peer organizations and feeling a little fomo?...

Do you find a leader and teach them IT?  Or do you find an IT person and teach them leadership? Join Community IT CEO Johan Hammerstrom and Build Consulting co-founding Partner David Deal for this discussion of leadership needs and career training in nonprofit technology.  In part 2 Johan and David narrow in on how nonprofit leaders can match IT needs with strategic business needs to grow their or...

Do you find a leader and teach them IT?  Or do you find an IT person and teach them leadership? Join Community IT CEO Johan Hammerstrom and Build Consulting co-founding Partner David Deal for this discussion of leadership needs and career training in nonprofit technology.  How can you be an effective advocate for technology opportunities for your nonprofit? What do nonprofit IT leaders need to suc...

Vendors have been trying to sell fundraising AI (Artificial Intelligence) for years now, promising to effortlessly analyze your database and help move members to major donors by automating the right ask at the right time. AI completes our emails and chides us when we don’t take a break between meetings. AI can be a tool for equity and can also just be an expensive investment. AI is transforming jo...

Is your nonprofit prepared? Drawn from data from the calendar year 2022 of cybersecurity incidents across our small and mid-sized nonprofit client users, this report shows changes in attacks and emerging threats. Using this real and timely data, Community IT CTO and Cybersecurity expert Matt Eshleman walks through recommendations and outlines the practical steps your organization can take to preve...

Is your nonprofit prepared? Drawn from data from the calendar year 2022 of cybersecurity incidents across our small and mid-sized nonprofit client users, this report shows changes in attacks and emerging threats. Using this real and timely data, Community IT CTO and Cybersecurity expert Matt Eshleman walks through recommendations and outlines the practical steps your organization can take to preve...

Join us for our series featuring interviews with Community IT employees. In this series, we talk about nonprofit technology career paths, career resources, skills, and certifications. We will also touch on mentoring opportunities as you start out on your career and ways to give back if you are further along. If you are wondering what it is like to work at a place like Community IT, you can learn a...

Why do technology projects at nonprofits fail?  Peter Gross walks through ways to think about technology as it fits into nonprofit offices and business practices, and the ways new technology or new processes can have a hard time being adapted at organizations. He presents a template for taking action, and goes through a short case study, and then takes questions from the audience. Peter breaks dow...

If you have Office365 then you have access to Teams, Microsoft’s tool for chat, video conference, and calendar. But Teams does a lot more, and integrates with lots of other tools beyond the Microsoft office suite. Community IT experts presented this Q&A webinar with tips on using this multi-function tool better at nonprofits. In part 2, hear a mini-case study from nonprofit practitioner guests...