Failure To Launch

Although we are a consulting firm, it’s not uncommon for us to do real work at client sites. Today I arrived early at a Chicago university where I replaced a staff position 8 years ago – I’m actually the senior person in the Development office here now.

For the past 11 months, in addition to managing the software used for Development and Alumni Affairs, I have been filling in for the gift entry operator who retired at the end of May, 2006. I had two free hours this morning, and I was on a mission -- I came in do some gift entry and acknowledgments.

I taxied out of the house on time, got my engines started by booting up my computer, and then…. Failure to launch.

As Murphy’s Law dictates, there has been a power outage in the server room, and the server on which my application resides is down. There is a delicious irony in the fact that when the server has no power, I also am powerless – I can figure out most any software issue that comes my way, but hardware… not my department.

In a university setting, there are generally larger issues that create hardware problems, because there is so much more hardware. But for smaller nonprofits, hardware problems tend to come from lack of planning and budgeting.

When we talk to nonprofit professionals about implementing software solutions, one thing we always encourage them to think about it the issue of ongoing budgeting for technology. When you buy fundraising software, for example, it’s very likely that you will pay annual maintenance in the amount of 20-25% of the purchase price of the software (unless you license software or use an on-line solution, in which case you will pay monthly for the life of the application.)

There is more to consider than just software support, though. It’s the job of software vendors to continue to develop and improve their products. Because it’s likely that this development is taking place using current technology, you need plan to keep up.

The older your hardware gets, the more likely it is that your software performance will be affected. And many nonprofits are just not in a position to suddenly have to replace their entire network of computers.

To avoid this scenario, plan ahead: budget to replace some percentage of your hardware every year. Try to budget to replace your server at least every 3 years.

We work with many software applications, and many of them work perfectly well on older technology. But I don’t think that many of us can afford to count on that, because if we do, when the day arrives that our technology does not support our software, we’re as powerless to be productive as I am with my downed server this morning.