A nonprofit organization I work with has two websites. Both have been down for months. One of them — an online training site — generates significant revenue for the organization. Or at least it did. Now it’s costing the organization precious resources to rebuild the site. Revenues have stopped and loyal customers have dispersed.
The organization has one technical support employee. He’s a systems administrator, a desktop support person, a web designer and a programmer. He’s competent, but he’s stretched ridiculously thin. The organization has always been vulnerable. Now they’re paying the price.
The organization prospered by taking risks and developing web technologies to deliver quality online training. The revenue stream was just part of the reward. The organization enhanced its visibility, reputation and fund-raising capabilities by being on the web and proving itself an innovative leader among peer nonprofits statewide and beyond.
Management and the board of directors supported innovation in good times. Now, technical challenges and economic troubles present a test of leadership.
I sense an inclination to move towards safety. Abandon the experiment. Concede that the organization can’t afford to support technology at adequate levels to eliminate all financial, operational and reputational risks.
The instinct to retreat in hard times is understandable. The better response is to learn, adapt, change, get better and refuse to abandon the innovative spirit that made the organization a leader in the first place.
