A new year means a new budget, and some of the most impactful spending you can do for your nonprofit organization (NPO) is on your technology. Not only is your IT vital for achieving your goals in 2025, but it also has a massive effect on your capabilities and efficiency compared to other parts of your budget.
But of course, you’re not a big-business enterprise with an endless IT budget; you’re a cause-driven organization that has to make do with what you have. This means you have to be more careful when allocating funds to your IT budget for the year to ensure your resources aren’t wasted and you can reach your goals without overspending.
To help you with this, here are some IT budgeting tips to keep your nonprofit’s spending under control in 2025.
Set detailed goals
Work with key stakeholders to determine your NPO’s goals for the new year. You can then make IT budgeting goals that will align with your objectives, such as increasing your nonprofit’s reach, improving online fundraising, or streamlining operations. With your goals clearly defined, you can then allocate funds to specialized technologies that will assist with these objectives.
Inventory your IT and examine your nonprofit’s technology habits
The end of the year is a good time to audit your technology infrastructure to determine the IT assets that your NPO is working with and manage their life cycle. By learning what you have and what you are lacking, you can better determine which areas require spending and which don’t. For example, technology that will be obsolete or out of date soon must be replaced to maintain productivity.
In addition to examining what IT your NPO has, consider how your team utilizes this technology to more efficiently allocate funds. For example, if there is a tool or service that your NPO has used extensively or come to rely on for its operations, you may want to increase spending in those areas. On the other hand, if assets such as a software subscription go underused, that is a good place to cut spending.
Stay flexible
No matter how careful you are with your budgeting, you can’t predict everything that is going to happen in 2025, so don’t allocate every last dime available to your IT budget. There is a host of developments that can necessitate a shift in funding or emergency expenses:
- A new technology hits the market that your NPO can’t live without.
- An unexpected disaster requires big replacement or remediation costs.
- Your NPO’s goals suddenly shift.
- An unforeseen event necessitates a change in the way you operate (i.e., a pandemic or natural disaster).
You want your budget to be able to absorb these emergency costs, or to have enough flexibility to shift funds when the time inevitably comes.
Cultivate relationships with technology vendors
To run a modern office, there are many technology vendors that you have to partner with and pay monthly subscriptions to, such as:
- Cloud infrastructure and productivity software providers (Google, Microsoft, etc.)
- Business ISPs
- VoIP and telecommunications providers
- Hardware-as-a-Service vendors
- Printing and other office supply merchants
- Enterprise software companies (Slack, Dashlane, Asana, Mailchimp, Salesforce, etc.)
The start of the year (and budgeting season) is the best time to make contact with these vendors to try and work out a deal to lower your costs. If you are a long-time, loyal customer, many vendors will provide discounts or special offers on the spot to keep you paying your monthly subscription, especially telecom companies.
Additionally, other vendors may provide special deals for nonprofit organizations for tax purposes, good PR, or just because they believe in your cause. It doesn’t hurt to ask, and doing so can significantly reduce your expenses.
Bring in professional help
An expert IT consultant with experience assisting nonprofit organizations with their budgeting can be the shot in the arm your NPO needs to optimize spending. You likely can’t afford to keep an IT professional with up-to-date knowledge on your payroll, but with Refresh Technologies, you don’t have to.
We employ a reliable team of outsourced technology consultants and can help you create a tailored and optimized IT budget for 2025. Contact Refresh today, and we’ll show you a cost-effective way to optimize your spending and maximize the impact of your IT budget for greater success in the new year.