Connecting Up Australia - NGO report

In October 2008, Connecting Up Australia invited Australian charities and nonprofits to take part in a survey about their information technology usage. This is a similar survey to one conducted as a part of the National Nonprofit ICT Coalition (NNIC) project in 2006. Over 1,000 organisations of all sizes and from all over Australia recorded their information.

Briefly, the survey has found that Australia’s charities and nonprofit organisations are missing out on opportunities presented by the social web and are unhappy with software that does not meet their needs. Those that have embraced the digital future are experiencing gains in productivity but some still face major challenges.

The survey outcomes throw out a real challenge to software developers in that charities and nonprofits are between two and four times more likely than other sectors of the economy to conclude that the software they have does not meet their needs. However, the most worrying result from this survey is that despite the sector spending up to an estimated $500m annually on technology, three out of five charities and nonprofits are not spending a cent on technology-related training.

There are two parts to the report – one from Digital Business Insights reporting the main survey data and providing some excellent case studies on technology implementation, and one from Connecting Up Australia that provides some analysis of the outcomes and some recommendations for the future. You can download both reports at Connecting Up Australia.

Also, the data from the survey has also been fed into a new service Connecting Up Australia are offering Australia’s nonprofits – Are We There Yet? (or AWTY for short) . AWTY is an online tool that allows you to benchmark your technology capacity against similar Australian nonprofits of your size and in your specialised area of service . This in turn makes the benchmark data even richer over time, as more organisations participate. Give AWTY a try. 

If you’re looking for technology donations, visit the Donortec site.

Finally, the Connecting Up 09 conference in Sydney from May 11-13. Always an informative gathering.