Happy New Year to everyone and we hope you are as recharged and excited for 2022 as we are! Many charities and non-profits struggle with ageing servers running old, legacy applications that are too complex to move to the cloud quickly. Microsoft Azure is a great alternative to running your own physical servers or paying…
Creating an IT Strategy at a charity or non-profit can feel very daunting for some organisations, especially those who don’t have IT expertise in-house. At Smartdesc we help bridge the gap between the business and the technical, and in this video we share some tips and advice on how you can create a IT Strategy…
James Field, Customer Strategy Director at Smartdesc – non-profit IT specialists – comments on the Charity Digital Skills Report 2021 The Charity Digital Skills Report, now in its fifth year, is an annual report on the charity sector’s use of digital technology and an excellent barometer of support needs, digital skills, and attitudes from across…
Andrew Coyle, Head of Information Security at Smartdesc, explains how non-profits can achieve Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation to demonstrate their cyber security commitments to funders, supporters and other stakeholders: What is Cyber Essentials? Cyber Essentials is a government backed certification introduced following concerns that organisations were not putting the basic technical…
A project is a fail if it does not meet the constraints of the project management triangle – Cost, Scope, and Time… why do some charities struggle with project management? Unclear Project Goals and Objectives Project Goals are the aspirations of the client for the project – the project purpose. Objectives are the benefits,…
Carl Rowles, Customer Success Manager at Smartdesc discusses how charities and non-profit organisations can get the most from their outsourced IT Providers or Managed Service Provider (MSP). Watch the full interview here. We know that a healthy IT function within a charity or non-profit is not just about the technology, it’s about both about the…
James Field, Customer Strategy Director at Smartdesc – Charity IT Specialist, discusses how we helped the team at Orbis design an IT Training Programme to equip their staff with a consistent baseline of IT skills, including How to plan IT training for all – doing a gap analysis Building a video training library – a…
Chris Cranie, Director and Co-Founder of Smartdesc shares his knowledge and best practice for charities and non-profits on how to create an IT budget, even if you aren’t an IT professional, as is so often the case at many non-profits. View the video here; Here’s the text version of the interview if you prefer to…
Adam Monks, Co-Founder and Director at Smartdesc – Charity IT specialists – discusses how charities and non-profit organisations are planning their communications technology to support a blend of office-based and home-based workers. View the full interview: Or read the following summary: What technologies have worked well during lockdown? Teams, Zoom and online project management…
There is no doubt that the year 2020 put many charities on a steep learning curve with a fast shift to remote working, cloud services and delivery of digital services. The way that organisations adapted was remarkable, and although the challenges are continuing in 2021, now is also a good time to reassess how IT…
