It could be the long commutes to the work place, the insanity of fuel prices or just the sheer convenience of being able to work from the comfort of one’s own home but it’s very evident that more organizations are leaning towards a distributed workforce. While this trend is still picking up among these businesses when it comes to nonprofit organizations, the distributed workforce has been common practice long before it picked up in the Silicon Valley or elsewhere. Just take a look back into the work culture of some of the oldest churches in the country and you’ll probably discover a network of parishioners scattered across different locations still functioning as a single organization. Take an even closer look at nonprofits that rely heavily on volunteers and many have always been functioning this way not to mention those with global volunteers. They are the unsung heroes of world of nonprofit organizations and just as Batman needs Robin, volunteers working as a distributed workforce need reliable support (and preferably not as annoying as Batman’s sidekick). What I mean is a virtual work place which is not bound by a physical location.
When it comes to nonprofit organizations and hosted or web based software the partnership just can’t get better. They are just an ideal match! By moving administrative functions and collaboration activity online, nonprofits can really harness the power of volunteers in a way a centralized office environment can not match. Just about any function that’s critical to the working of a nonprofit can be managed online. With social networking tools like Ning and others volunteers can have discussions, share ideas, plan, communicate, collaborate and more. Online document and file sharing ensures that paperwork and administration can be shared and done by volunteers as long as they have access to the web. Specific functions like accounting and donations management has been made simpler using hosted solutions like Paypal and our very own Donor Tools. The possibilities are endless. Whether working with volunteers or full time employees working remotely, managing different administrative functions and running day to day operations becomes a breeze with the right web software tools.
While there are pro’s and cons to both centralized and distributed workforces based on volunteers and there are good arguments that can be made for both, we’ll save that for another time. For now, for those who choose not to be bound by working with excel sheets on the office computer there some really great alternatives to desktop software. Web based alternatives that can not just match what you can do on a desktop but do it blindfolded with both hands tied behind it’s back, make it look as easy as pie ….and let’s you work from wherever you choose to. Now how can you beat that?
