Finding a project management software for Non-profit Organizations
Of the organizations that have become household names in our everyday world, the vast majority are for-profit; seemingly, for-profit organizations run the world. However, we cannot forget that there are many non-profit organizations (NPOs) as well, striving to make the world a better place. As these organizations tend to be charities, member- or community-serving, their goals may shift according to how the community and environment changes. For the people leading the NPO, it can be tricky trying to pivot and change plans as new developments arise. By applying project management concepts to account for potential risks and changes, the process can be much less daunting.
How project management pathing helps you manage your duties
Non-profit organizations run campaigns, each of which can be considered a project that requires managing. The process of project management outlines a flow consisting of five phases: initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing. When embarking on a new campaign, we can follow the project management workflow to give us a reasonable working order. The initiating stage is when the campaign is first conceived. From there, plans are drawn up to address resources, scheduling, budgets, and scope. Once the executing phase is underway, the campaign is in full force, and we must monitor and control the process as issues crop up and threaten the campaign. The last phase is to close out the campaign, a process that includes assessing how it went. Following this process will give your work structure and a framework to reference.
Project management will help manage not only your work, but also your resources
One important thing to keep in mind is that the nature of each specific campaign is, and will be, different even if the goal may be the same. The non-profit aspect of an NPO especially poses its own issues as it can be difficult knowing what resources are available. Oftentimes, NPOs look for volunteers to offer their time, but it can be tough accounting for the exact number of volunteers you will have. Some NPOs are reliant on donations—of which the amount can be very uncertain—to acquire resources. Aside from volunteers and workers, resourcing includes equipment, material, knowledge, and time. To deal with all of this, we can apply resource management techniques. When planning out a new campaign, as with any project, we need to draw up a breakdown of the tasks required to achieve completion. This gives us the basis for a schedule we can put together that highlights dependencies between tasks. Once we have our schedule, we can look at our resources and their availabilities, and assign resources to tasks. This becomes your resource allocation plan. If your NPO is distributing some sort of product or merchandise, you will also have to track your inventory in a similar fashion, taking time and materials into account. All of this work we do in the planning phase may be tedious or difficult, but it will make it easier when we are in the executing, monitoring and controlling phases.
Similar to a for-profit organization, NPOs require management of their work, whether it’s focused on a product, a project, or more general communication with clients and volunteers. Being able to track all of this in one piece of software is a huge asset. With OneDesk, you get all that and more. OneDesk supports product as well as project planning with tools for resourcing and scheduling. Communications with clients and customers are streamlined through the client portal tool, and it’s easy to manage your volunteers and see who is handling which tasks. In terms of organizing your work, OneDesk is the ultimate tool that can do it all without breaking the bank.
Photo Credit ‘Aid’/www.directline.com/ CC BY