Many non-profit organizations do not have the IT expertise and resources to develop & maintain their ‘business applications’ that are central to their operations. A Salesforce.com or Micrsoft ‘Live’ would be a perfect way to go for them.
Here are some of the features a small to medium sized non-profit would require:
- Web hosting – every organization needs to have a web front
- Accounting – general ledger
- Accounts – Sister non-profit organizations, partners etc.
- Contact management – donors, volunteers, sponsors (personal, corporate), receipients
- Project management – funding projects
- Fund management – donations (cash v.s. non-cash),
- Campaign management – track and manage fund-raising campaigns
- Marketing function – newsletter, etc.
- Analytics – reporting
- Offline, Mobile – sync
And how big of an impact this offering will have? According to Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, The nonprofit sector is a major economic force in the world.
In the 26 countries for which we have assembled data, nonprofit organizations as of the mid-1990s accounted for: (1) $1.2 trillion in expenditures;
(2) 31 million full-time equivalent workers, or 6.8 percent of the nonagricultural workforce