Making The Case: The Why and How to Advocate for Investing in Tech

From changing cookie consent regulations to the rising adoption of AI in digital marketing, nonprofits face a myriad of challenges and opportunities right now. For these reasons, if you’re heading into a new fiscal year, you should be reassessing your tech budget.

The Widening Gap Between For-Profit and Nonprofit Sectors 

For many nonprofits, tech budgets tend to fall short of what’s needed to drive meaningful impact. According to an NTEN report on Managing Nonprofit Tech, while for-profit businesses typically invest 3-5% of their revenue in technology, nonprofits often allocate just 1% or less of their total revenue to tech initiatives. This discrepancy between for-profit and nonprofit sector tech spending can result in social good organizations falling behind in the digital marketing game. To stay relevant, organizations need to be both precise and creative when budgeting for tech.  

What to Consider When Budgeting for Tech 

ROI 

The same NTEN report also shows that regular evaluation of ROI for tech is uncommon among nonprofits. Nearly half of respondents stated they review platform ROI  very rarely or not at all. And while there’s generally a willingness to embrace change at nonprofits, clarity on the need for the change plus resource constraints often hampers openness to tech spending. 

Digital Maturity 

When crafting a comprehensive tech budget, nonprofits should consider both new tools and fostering what’s called a ‘digitally mature’ culture within the organization. Digital maturity measures a business’ ability to adapt in the face of quickly accelerating technological advancements and can be improved through increasing user education in an organization’s platforms and systems.  

Building Your Case For Tech Spending 

Tech investments support organizational growth, improve operational efficiency, and advance your mission. When advocating for an increased tech budget allocation, you can: 

• Demonstrate ROI: Provide data-driven evidence of the ROI of tech initiatives. Our MarTech Audit Template can help you collect and synthesize the data you need to do this. 
• Emphasize Staying Ahead of the Curve: Illustrate how investing in AI and emerging technologies will help your organization remain competitive on the digital marketing frontier. We make the case for using AI for personalization in a recent blog post. 
• Prioritize Digital Maturity: Stress how investing in staff training and development will ensure strong utilization of tech resources and maximize ROI. 
• Leveraging Success Stories: Share case studies and success stories from peer organizations to illustrate the tangible benefits of strategic tech investments. 

 Investing in Tech is Investing in Your Community 

By prioritizing ROI evaluation and digital maturity in your budget, your nonprofit can successfully leverage your tech to drive positive change in the communities you serve. Firefly can help by conducting a technical audit to pinpoint areas needing the most attention. 

Send us a message to find a time to talk about your MarTech priorities and budgeting to enhance your tech.