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Introducing TechSoup's Digital Assessment Tool

We are excited to announce the launch of TechSoup's Digital Assessment Tool (DAT). It’s designed to help nonprofits identify where their technological capability can be improved and to provide specific, customized solutions to help in those areas and maximize the organization's impact.

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Many nonprofits find it difficult to identify where to start, what tools to adopt, and how to chart a path forward with technology. One of our main objectives was to create a free resource that nonprofits can use to get them started on the path of digital transformation.

When your nonprofit becomes more digitally capable, it can more readily serve society and make a greater impact and better fulfill its mission. Greater digital capability helps to ensure that resources are used more efficiently and that data can be easily harnessed. This allows your teams to be more informed, engaged, and focused on what's important.

Let's take a look at how the DAT can help your nonprofit today.

START YOUR TRANSFORMATION

Meet the DAT

Created in collaboration with leading technology experts, thought leaders, and civil society partners from around the world, the DAT is designed to guide your organization along the path to digital resiliency. The tool provides users with a Digital Capability Score and a range of recommendations that can help improve their capabilities.

The DAT guides organizations through questions in key functional areas of nonprofit operations that are based on TechSoup's Digital Transformation Framework:

  • Programs
  • Fundraising
  • Communications
  • Operations
  • Security
  • Infrastructure

These assessments collectively cover 27 subcategories and 85 topics. Upon completion of each assessment, the DAT provides recommended solutions specifically tailored to the needs of the organization.

diagram of Digital Assessment Tool components: assessment categories, rating stages of capability, recommendation resource types

DAT recommendations provide organizations with resources that help update technology, but also help them improve processes, transform culture, upgrade staff skills, and update policies. We know that adopting technology can't by itself solve problems, so these resources are designed to help organizations balance the people, processes, and technology that drive agility, insight, and innovation in organizations.

Five Stages of Capability

Organizations are given scores based on the five identified stages of nonprofit capability:

  • Ad Hoc: Organizations make reactive and isolated investments in people, processes, and technology solutions in order to meet critical needs.
  • Functional: Organizations make some investments in people, processes, and technology solutions in order to meet immediate day-to-day needs.
  • Standardized: Organizations' staffing, training, and processes are well developed so that technology solutions are used according to sets of standardized guidelines across the organization.
  • Optimized: Organizations recognize the importance of continual investment in the improvement of technology solutions and the people and processes required to support them.
  • Adaptive: Organizations consistently evaluate technology for strategic advantage and invest significantly in people and processes to be at the forefront of effective technology.

Get Started Today

When you take part in this assessment, we can help you identify your organization's current capabilities and help you chart out next steps to better support your organization. The DAT's recommendations are custom-designed, specific, and actionable to help connect you to software, hardware, services, training, informational content, and webinars most relevant to your organization's needs. As you work through these recommendations, you can track your organization's improvement over time as you work towards becoming more digitally capable.

No matter where you are in your journey toward digital transformation, the DAT can help you along the way. We hope you take a moment to explore this exciting new tool — built by and for nonprofits — today.

GET STARTED

The development of the Digital Assessment Tool was made possible by the generous support of industry leaders, including VMware, Okta, Dell, Box, Cisco, and Adobe. Our framework and capability models were informed by our TSGN partners, like MAKAIA in Colombia and WACSI in Ghana, and our partnerships with NetHope and Tech Impact. We were also aided by a select group of advisors and leaders who have expertise in the digital transformation of the nonprofit sector.