SharePoint: The Epic Hack to Supercharge Your Non-Profit Organization

Everything has changed because of digitization and technology. Whether it’s a business, how people work, or even a charity, technology is a crucial part of them. Non-profit organizations have come a long way from their traditional reliance on donations. Now, they are tech-savvy, which helps them grow at the rate they need to stay alive in the modern world. 

The success of a non-profit organization relies on how much money or donations it gets from outside sources and how well it uses the money it already has. If the fund isn’t used right or isn’t managed well, clients, trust, and status could be lost. So, non-profits must use tools that work well and don’t cost too much to handle the whole process. 

One technology, Microsoft SharePoint, a web-based collaborative platform, is the answer to this problem. 

How Can SharePoint Benefit Non-profits?

A SharePoint Version that is Affordable and Effective 

At a time, SharePoint was thought to be a technology that only big, successful companies used. Now that Office 365 and SharePoint Online are out, non-profits can find a version of SharePoint that is both cost-effective and useful. Microsoft offers Office 365 and SharePoint either totally free or at a significant discount to non-profits (depending on the plan). This is a no-brainer considering all the features and benefits that are provided. 

Central Location for All Your Important Documents 

Most email accounts for non-profits are scattered among Yahoo, Gmail, and other mail providers. Important documents are also stored all over the place (i.e., Dropbox or personal drives). When you use SharePoint, all these essential parts of your non-profit come together in one place. With SharePoint, everything works together in a way that streamlines things easier. When an employee leaves, all important documents are saved in one place. This way, no data is lost, and it is always easy to find the correct information. 

Shallow Pockets for IT Budgets

SharePoint is a cloud-based system that allows you to work 100% online. Since your files are in the cloud, Microsoft controls the security aspect and spends millions of dollars on that effort, so you don’t ever have to worry about your data being breached. Non-profits do not need to worry anymore about server hosting, software licensing, or separate IT support. This all comes as a bundled package under services provided by Microsoft. If you need to scale up or make the tools more effective as per your use case, the platform is highly flexible for customizations.

Sharing Internal Documents with External Partners

Non-profits work mostly with external partners. SharePoint is a well-known platform for document management and seamless collaboration. You can easily set up a document library where all the important documents related to vendors, donators, or stakeholders can be placed, and you can also manage user permission levels to access the documents. Apart from document management, you can also set up group calendars to track projects, tasks, meetings, and events, or create custom workflows that simplify your specific processes. We have a complete SharePoint team of experts who can demonstrate how to set up these processes in SharePoint easily. 

But when we say document management, we don’t mean DROPBOX! SharePoint isn’t just a drop box. 

Knowledge Management and Collaboration 

SharePoint is excellent when it comes to knowledge management and collaboration. We know that organizations, including non-profits, can suffer when there is miscommunication or no communication at all. It is important to bridge this gap and SharePoint Knowledge Management tools have taken the charge to determine how they can help you reinvent the way you work! 

Users can search, share, add, or access important company information whenever and wherever they want within high security levels. 

Value of Your Own Non-Profit Intranet 

Just like with SharePoint, having an intranet of your own was also at one time thought to be just for larger companies! Small organizations avoided giving even a thought to their OWN COMPANY INTRANET. Surprisingly, though, experts state that non-profits are among the companies that can benefit the most from having their own intranet. Resources are required to collaborate and work from anywhere, anytime. It is necessary that everyone continuously shares the latest docs and info at one common location, always ensuring easy access.  Only SharePoint can make this happen. 

A well-thought-out intranet can be the nexus where staff can easily find relevant documents, organizational charts, employee directories, employee benefits, forms, general directions for operating as a member of your nonprofit, and more. SharePoint Online makes setting up and modifying your intranet super easy. All you need to do is plan up your Intranet carefully. 

Scalability and Customization 

SharePoint is a highly customizable application, one that is designed to accommodate your changing needs. You can not only create custom workflows of any of your business processes within this, but you can also set up document libraries to allow for easy document sharing, setting up group calendars to track projects, tasks, meetings, and events, and more. 

Microsoft also takes good care of keeping SharePoint Online updated with new features on a regular basis, making the platform up to date as well as highly scalable.

Features of SharePoint for NPO

• Easily create custom applications, functions, and websites. 
• Provide secure access to important information for employees, members, and donors. 
• Collaboration is possible from anywhere with mobile and online capabilities. 
• Reduce costs by consolidating intranet, extranet, and Internet sites. 
• On-premises or cloud-based deployments are available. 
• Take advantage of hundreds of Microsoft and independent add-ons. 

Use cases    

1. Donor Management solution on PowerApps

Data from past, present, and potential donors can be put in one place, which lets your organization make smart decisions. This centralized data allows you to divide and sort potential and current donors. Using our solution for managing donors, you can keep track of donations by location, type, and year. Using Excel spreadsheets and emails, our tech solution can keep track of data.

2. Intranet for Collaboration

Nonprofit organizations discuss with multiple stakeholders to raise money and get support. We offer SharePoint intranet solutions that keep employees and other interested parties up to date. With our intranet solution, you can give teams and people content that fits their roles. With the intranet solutions we offer to nonprofits, you can plan events, give out tasks, and keep track of group projects.

 3. Document Management System

Nonprofit organizations help make the world a better place, but they don’t have much money, time, or talent. Due to the sheer amount of paperwork, document management helps nonprofits get the most out of their resources by saving time, preventing bottlenecks, and safely following rules. With our SharePoint Document Management System, you can safely organize, store, share, and search for all your essential documents.

 4. Power Pages for rapid website development

1. Microsoft Power Platform is a set of tools that give businesses access to business intelligence, app development, and app connectivity. With Power Pages, the tool can be used to build websites independently. It expands the idea of showing data from the back end to the front end. So, Power Platform’s features can be used to make interactive websites quickly.

 5. Data analytics and reporting on Power BI

Data analytics can be useful for nonprofits. About half of the nonprofits that collect data don’t use it to its full potential. Nonprofits should use data well to get the most out of them. Our data analytics solution for NPO can help find and keep supporters, raise money, meet goals, and plan for future campaigns by analyzing their data.

 6. Customizing workflows

        SharePoint offers a variety of options for creating, maintaining, and executing workflows, as Microsoft designed it with business process management. Many common processes can be                      handled  with built-in workflows, such as getting approvals, collecting feedback, or collecting signatures. With SharePoint’s customization capabilities, enterprises can automate complex                      business processes like: 

• Tender or Bid management 
• Employee Recruitment and Onboarding 
• Managing Contracts 
• Support desk ticketing system 
• Complaint management center for customers 

Conclusion

Hey, non-profits! You continuously serve your communities, so give Beyond Intranet the chance to serve you!

Beyond Intranet, (a subsidiary company of Beyond Key) is a SharePoint custom development expert for the last 16 years and can help you in any aspect of SharePoint customization, ready-to-use SharePoint add-ins, integration capability, and enterprise intranets. We have built an enviable reputation as an expert in SharePoint-based consulting, Custom Application Development, Intranet Design and Development, Branding, and SharePoint Migration.

Reach out to us at [email protected] and connect with our SharePoint experts to get a free consultation today!