Duygu Soysanli
The nonprofit sector is not commonly known to have a great influence on the economy. So, it can be surprising to hear that the number of nonprofits in the United States has reached 1.5 million, and 10% of the U.S. workforce is employed within nonprofit organizations.
We can also add that using nonprofit project management tools will be beneficial to such organizations. Because using nonprofit management software helps organizations establish a sense of cohesion and unity in the workplace.
We will now explain the concepts associated with non profit project management. One of the concepts of nonprofit project management is its best practices. Let’s take a closer look at how you can make the best of your nonprofit project management efforts.
Table of Contents
Project Management Best Practices for Nonprofit Organizations
If you are the project manager for a nonprofit, you may want to ensure you are following these best practices since they can have a significant impact on how you operate within your organization.
Managing stakeholders
One of the essential parts of project management in nonprofit organizations includes stakeholder management. To achieve your objectives you need to manage your stakeholders effectively. Engaging with the stakeholders at the beginning of your project and understanding what they can do for it is a must. If you do so, you can facilitate communication among your stakeholders while avoiding challenges that may be caused by a lack of clarity with respect to the roles and responsibilities of your team members.
Managing your resources
One of the reasons for incomplete projects or exceeding the budget is doing a subpar job while managing resources including finances, staff, and time. You need a solid plan to get the best outcome out of your project. After you determine what resources you will use, you need to track how you use them throughout your project’s lifecycle.
Managing funds and grants
Since nonprofit organizations mostly depend on funds and grants to achieve their goals it’s important to manage them successfully. As a start, you should plan things out which will include the goals and how much financial support you need. When you have a solid plan, you may reach out to foundations and government agencies to aid you financially. As a final step, you need to monitor the funds and grants you’ve been given to clearly see your progress.
Managing volunteers
To manage your pool of volunteers you need to make sure that they know about their roles and that they can utilize the right tools and resources to finish their tasks successfully. You can implement a volunteer program for your nonprofit project. Your volunteer program should involve steps such as recruiting, training, and orientation, placing them into the right groups and assigning them their tasks, supervision, appreciation, engagement, and last but not least, evaluation.
You can also utilize Microsoft Teams to create a web of communication among your volunteers. This will allow better teamwork and increase productivity.
Collaboration and partnerships
You don’t need to compete with other nonprofits. You should collaborate and partner up with them. It’s because when you collaborate with other organizations you may share resources and knowledge and this will yield better results. You know what they say, many hands make light work!
A shared vision between the involved parties is a must to reach maximum productivity. There should also be effective communication between organizations to avoid confusion and problems that may arise from unclear responsibilities.
Tracking the progress
Just like every other organization, nonprofits also need to keep track of the progress to ensure that their strategy toward success is working. There are ways of monitoring and it starts with setting the right goals. These goals shouldn’t be vague and overly complicated.
According to goal-setting theory which is implemented to increase productivity within working environments, your goals should be SMART. Smart is the acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. For example, everyone in your organization needs to be clear about when the deadlines are and what are the milestones you want to achieve, and the metrics you will use while measuring the effectiveness of your project. Also, you need to be as specific as you can with your SMART goals while being realistic about how achievable the tasks are.
After this part, you need to review how far you have come concerning your objectives. To track the progress, you can use different ways to collect and analyze data. These methods include conducting surveys, interviewing, and writing reports.
Common Nonprofit Project Management Challenges
Scarcity of resources
Nonprofit project management can be tiring, especially if you have a limited budget, staff, volunteers, and time. When faced with limitations such as these you should be realistic. For instance, to manage the budget of your project you may consider your organization’s capacity and enthusiasm but you also need to avoid demanding astronomical numbers from the fundraisers and government agencies.
Lack of motivation among volunteers
Nonprofit project teams can be completely or almost made up of volunteers. This fact reveals how difficult project management for non profit can become. Because volunteers are different from other team members who have been paid to work within the organization. If you assign too much work they might quit. So, to motivate the volunteers you need to remind them why they work for the organization. In other words, you need to remind them how their values align with your organization’s mission.
Lack of guidance
Nonprofit organizations may suffer from a lack of guidance, this may happen due to having busy sponsors. Your sponsor might be unavailable because they are busy and this may lead to having no one to make important decisions. However, if you have someone that the sponsor can fully trust, it might speed up the progress so, it’s necessary to authorize your team members.
Absence of cohesion
Supervising the tasks of the volunteers and staff can be a big challenge for project managers. Also, managing tasks without project management software may cause confusion among the team members. So, why not make things easier for you and people who dedicate their time and energy to a good cause?
The workload of your organization will be optimized with project management solutions. Many nonprofits utilize Teamflect, a user-friendly project management tool, and you can use it to simplify your nonprofit project management as well!
Why should nonprofits use project management tools?
Project managers for nonprofit organizations can manage their responsibilities in a number of ways with ease by using project management software because technology makes everything easier.
What are the benefits of using non-profit project management software?
It will become so much easier for you to carry out and assign tasks if you use technology for project management. The benefits of using nonprofit project management software include:
- Saving a ton of time and effort while handling finances.
- Simplify your task management process.
- Assigning tasks and responsibilities to team members.
- Facilitating communication and seamlessly exchanging files with your team members.
- Knowing which task is ahead of you.
- Keeping information easily accessible to all.
- Monitoring the progress that’s been made.
- Linking related tasks to each other.
- Finishing recurring tasks, probably the most obvious one being meetings!
- And a whole lot more!
Teamflect
Teamflect is a performance management tool that is created for Microsoft Teams users. It is the effective companion for so many people who use Microsoft Teams and the choice for many organizations. It is also an integral part of how numerous nonprofits operate. More than 75 nonprofit organizations across the world streamline their nonprofit project management with Teamflect.
So, why should you use Teamflect?
Teamflect offers up to 60% off to all nonprofit organizations
First things first, as a nonprofit organization you may be operating on a shoestring budget and you deserve the support you need in terms of finances. We believe in your mission to accomplish your goals, so we offer discounts of up to 60% to all nonprofit organizations.
You can set SMART goals with Teamflect!
We mentioned how important and game-changing the SMART goals can be.
One of the greatest solutions provided by Teamflect is being able to set, monitor and evaluate the goals without leaving Microsoft Teams. You can set goals that align with your mission while monitoring the progress in real-time.
Incorporate continuous feedback into your routine
It’s possible to streamline the 360-degree feedback process with customizable feedback templates and complete Microsoft Teams integration via Teamflect. This way you will be incorporating continuous feedback into your organization’s everyday routine with ease.
Have fun with the extensive meeting features
You can even create tasks in ongoing meetings. You may customize your meeting agendas and create talking points. You can take shared and private notes within Teamflect.
Everything your nonprofit organization needs!
Working for a nonprofit organization is rewarding because you are making a positive impact. However, there are some challenges to reaching your goals as there are in any endeavor. And project management for non profit organizations is definitely not an easy endeavor. So, you should leverage project management tools to perform some of the most important tasks in your organization.
Teamflect as a project management software continues to prove itself extremely useful. Don’t just take our word for it, hear what Audra Hurd of Adoptions Together had to say about Teamflect!
