At a recent interview someone asked me what the difference is between non-profit technology and for-profit technology. Ironically, this is a question I’ve struggled with for some time, despite having been in the field for several years and having worked on this site for about 6-months. It seems to be an answer I know but can’t articulate well.
My answer wasn’t eloquent but it satisfied the interviewer. The answer didn’t satisfy me, so I took what I came up with as seed for a larger discussion. While I’m well aware that money has a nice place in every IT person’s decision matrix, it’s how that money impacts the decisions that is relevant. Other factors include psychology (i.e. the for-profit staff mentality is different from that of most non-profit staff). Below is a brief over-arching list of items that I find different between the two sectors.
- Money
- restricted/unrestricted funding
- discount pricing
- used/donated technology
- TechSoup
- technology grants
- Social services-oriented staff and clients
- psychologies
- schedules
- Non-profit specific services and software
- fundraising
- grant management
- Microsoft
- consultants
I’m sure better minds have considered this matter with greater care but I wanted to think about it before I researched the topic. I’ll go into some details in future posts and would like to hear your thoughts on the matter.