How (and why) should non-profits become more tech-savvy? GoodWeave offers an example of how a robust tech-based system can help an organization operate at scale…..
GoodWeave began the process of building a tech-based system in 1999. The non-profit worked with Colibri Solutions, a New York-based company, to create a custom database that manages not just their supply chain and inspection data but also their communications, website, fundraising and financial information.
“We’re a tiny staff with a huge mission,” says Smith, referring to a network of 45 personnel in three countries. The technology, she says, has been “instrumental in our successes in stopping child exploitation.”
Despite its affection for technology, GoodWeave does not have a full-time technologist on staff — a common theme in the social space where lack of funding and high salaries in the private sector make non-profits less competitive.
If she wasn’t using Filemaker, what would she be using to manage all that data? “Probably Excel spreadsheets.”