We're trying to get a better grasp on the diverse workflow nonprofits use when making decisions that rely on tech. I.E. Building a Website, Making Changes, Adding Code for Google Analytics, PayPal etc.
What have been your experiences and what would you change?
Technical decision-making is messy here. The folks making the decisions are academics whose expertise is in their research areas, not in software development. I will refrain from the horror stories. I have made suggestions for improvements to workflow, technology, etc. but they must always be routed through someone with at least a Master's degree. Usually it's easier to make the changes myself and hope for the best. It can be frustrating that no one cares, but OTOH there's very little pressure, as Bahamut noted. At this stage in my career it's not a great fit, but if I were <10 years from retirement, I might feel differently.
Part of the problem, I think, is that we're grant-funded. In a business setting, I can make the case for process improvements in terms of the bottom line. Here, it doesn't really matter if, for example, we have no bug tracker, because that doesn't really affect the grant-writing process that keeps our lights on.
Our research goal is to discover best practices for improving employment options for people with disabilities. Therefore, if I could change anything, I'd have my boss approach our software development efforts in the same spirit as the research, that is, with an eye to measuring more of it and implementing processes to improve those metrics.
If I had to sum up my experiences in general, I'd say they were fairly disorganized - you really aren't sure what to expect when you dive into a nonprofit company's tech stack. Smaller companies and nonprofits in particular don't usually have the same regimented structure of larger companies, and you really see this when you're exposed to it. More importantly, all of the nonprofits I worked with had really shoddy IT because it's frankly an afterthought for most of them. They just outsource to whoever markets to them the most aggressively for the best price.
I'll hit you via email because your response brought to mind other things we're curious about. Thanks for taking the time to answer dsacco
The decision making was experiment with different technologies, figure out how to get them to work, and determining whether it was scalable.