Yup, we’ve all been there. Forms that did not submit properly. Updates that erased your contacts. Apps that crashed. Programs that refused to save your work even though you clicked the save button ten times before you logged out. The blue screen of death. Add in the occasional data breach and its sort of a miracle that we trust our technology at all.
Here’s a very short list of some of the reasons that you may have found yourself dealing with doubt and pain around the use of technology at your organization, along with ways to recognize them and ways to beat the lack-of-trust trap.
The Self-Protection Factor
We may live in a time of breathtaking innovation, but we are hard-wired to keep ourselves safe. Our experiences with technology can often teach us to expect the worst, and that can turn into a self-fulfilling prophesy. A tech project crosses our path? Cue the sweaty palms.
- How to recognize it: When that new CRM purchase gets the green light, you’re coming into the project with your game face on (but your phaser is set to stun).
- How to address it: Think about what you need to have in place to be able to drop your guard. Detailed documentation? Weekly status meetings? Information can help you decrease your sense of doom.
I Have No Idea What I’m Doing
Chances are good that you did not get a computer science degree before becoming a marketing director or event manager. We’ve all pushed the wrong button, or even sent an email to the wrong list. (Raises hand.) Nonprofit engagement software is complicated and for some products, documentation and support is woefully light. When something goes wrong, especially in a highly visible situation, we can feel like we goofed up big time.
- How to recognize it: You are afraid to ask for help, because you think other people may either a) judge you for making a mistake; or b) that you don’t have the right skills to do your job.
- How to address it: Remember that no one is born knowing how to personalize an email message. Practice asking for help when you get stuck, or have a colleague review your work.
It’s Not the Technology At All
In situations involving people, trust is built when things go wrong, and folks work together to recover as a team. But when you’re dealing with hardware and software, sometimes it can be hard to know who to trust to give you advice and support. I’ve seen nonprofit staff bounce endlessly between vendors, consultants, peers, message boards looking for reasonable solutions for their pain points.
- How to recognize it: It’s a waste of time getting help from (company or vendor X) – they don’t seem invested in helping you, or they aren’t able to solve your issues without an expensive price tag.
- How to address it: If addressing challenges with technology has you spinning in circles, stop for a minute. Look to your network – does one of your peers seem happy with the advice they get from their technology partners? Recommendations can save you a lot of time.
What Creates Trust?
At the end of the day, trusting your nonprofit technology is a big deal. After all, our supporters trust us to work hard in service of our mission, and technology is a big part of how we achieve this. Attributes of a trusting relationship include competence, reliability, and integrity. It’s up to us, the technology purchaser or end user, to beef up our knowledge of and competence with the systems we use to do our jobs. And it’s up to us to use integrity when dealing with the inevitable techno-challenges. In turn, we deserve reasonable reliability from our software, as well as honesty from vendors and consultants.
Have you found a way to build up trust in your nonprofit systems? Share your story in the comments!