Tips for Getting Past ‘Us and Them’ Culture for Shared Technology Projects

Putting a shared-technology project in place — and getting affiliates to use it — can be a tall order

for national charities, whether the project in question is a common fund-raising database, Web-based software to help affiliates raise money online, or a computerized system to help them keep track of clients.

But organizations can smooth the process significantly, by listening to local groups, offering training, and planning carefully, say nonprofit leaders and technology experts who have shepherded such projects to completion.

Seek affiliate input. When the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America, in New York, started to plan a shared database that would link its chapters’ fund-raising records, the organization set up committees that involved local staff members to decide how chapters could use the shared information, discuss data security, and standardize fund-raising practices.

Without the committee process, it would have been much tougher to persuade the chapters to adopt the new database, says Pamela Meistrell, executive director of the organization’s Greater San Diego & Desert Area chapter.

The process created the “sense that decisions were not just being made by the national headquarters, that decisions were being made by the organization as a whole,” says Ms. Meistrell. “It stripped away the sense of us and them.”

Consider sharing costs — or not. The price tag for systemwide technology projects can be steep, sometimes running in the millions of dollars. For most such endeavors, the organization’s national office is going to have to pay the lion’s share of initial costs, says Doug Barker, president of Barker & Scott Consulting, in Washington. But he recommends that local affiliates bear at least a small part of the burden.

“Everyone should have some skin in the game,” says Mr. Barker. When an organization is going through a time of tremendous change, he says, the worst thing it can have is a group of people who don’t feel involved in the project heckling from the sidelines.

The national office of the Arthritis Foundation, in Atlanta, decided to foot the entire $8-million bill for an ambitious project to standardize technology throughout the organization. That included the costs for new hardware and networking and for centralized software programs, including a shared fund-raising database.

Marla Davidson, chief information officer at the Arthritis Foundation, agrees that affiliates would probably have more of a personal stake in the project’s success if they had shared in the initial costs. But on the other hand, she says, “had the national office not done it and we’d waited until we got consensus from all the chapters to make that kind of joint investment, it may never have happened.”

Provide instruction. Charity employees can’t make use of technology they don’t understand, so high-quality training is crucial.

The Arthritis Foundation offers Web-based classes, usually restricted to five or fewer students, on discrete topics that can be covered in roughly two hours. That way employees aren’t overwhelmed by information, and can take a class on a particular subject — such as how to use the fund-raising database to help run a special event — just as they are about to start that task.

The charity didn’t start off with that approach. At first, it offered courses in Atlanta on how to use the shared fund-raising database and required participants to commit to nearly a week of training. In addition to being expensive, the intensive sessions gave people too much to absorb at once, says Ms. Davidson.

“You’d go back to your office, and you didn’t have anyone else to talk to,” she says. “So if you didn’t remember how to do something, you had to call for help and hope that we could help you remotely.”

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, in Philadelphia, is introducing a new information-management system that helps affiliates manage their day-to-day operations, including recruiting and screening volunteers, matching them with children, and supporting those relationships.

When a local group is about to start using the system, the national office sends a technology specialist and a program expert to help with the transition.

The specialists’ goal is to help an affiliate not just learn the nuts and bolts of using the new system but also think about how it will affect the way staff members do their work, says Cindy Mefko, director of agency management systems at Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. For example, she says, now that affiliates record into a database the answers potential volunteers give during their interviews, groups need to decide whether they will type as the interview goes along and how that might affect the tone and flow of the interviews.

Plan carefully. Seek ways to create early victories and minimize disruptions so that affiliates will grow more enthusiastic about adopting changes.

The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America, for example, is bringing its chapters onto the organization’s shared fund-raising database in groups of three or four to limit the amount of time the system is unavailable to current users.

Whether an organization can adopt new technology successfully — and how smooth or rocky that process will be — often hinges on attitude and emotions, says Harry E. Gruber, chief executive officer of Kintera, a San Diego company that provides Web-based software for nonprofit organizations. He recommends that charities think carefully about which affiliates get the software first.

“The trick is identifying early adopters and champions within the organization rather than letting it roll out too fast and hitting the people who are technically challenged first,” he says, “because they’ll send a bad vibe through the organization.”