1. technology and computing

Claranet whitepaper
Cloud Hosting for Charities
The changing face of the third sector
Connecting your charity to the future
Claranet supports
Microsoft cloud platforms
and technology
For more information :
claranet.co.uk - twitter.com/claranet
To book an appointment or to discuss our hosting services :
Call us : 0808 271 3215 - Email us : [email protected]
Claranet whitepaper Cloud Hosting for Charities
Content
The Charity Gap
The Cloud Challenge
Using Cloud for competitive advantage
How Cloud benefits charitable organisations
Getting specific
Next steps
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Claranet whitepaper Cloud Hosting for Charities
What we mean by a charity
today will completely
disappear by 2020.
Lucy Green - Founder and Director of Larato
The Charity Gap
The Good News
The way charities operate is under pressure
to change. Fuelled by social, economic and
technological shifts, gaps are appearing between
what people need and what Government can provide
– meaning that charities are increasingly being called
upon to fulfil services to the public, and individuals
are being encouraged to become activists within
their community through initiatives such as the ‘Big
Society’. Access to services and service providers
are now expected around the clock, which requires
charities to find additional funding to change the
way in which they engage with fundraisers and
beneficiaries.
This realisation has coincided with a transformation
driven by the maturing of the Digital Age – whereas
twenty years ago we were just introducing the
internet to networked office computers, we now have
a proliferation of connected devices directly in the
hands of most individuals – often referred to as the
‘Consumerisation of IT’.
Changes in Government funding and policies can
have a material impact on the ability of a charity
to succeed and so it makes sense to reduce this
risk. Charities are having to adopt frameworks
and working practices that are more in line with
traditional private sector businesses, and investors
have the same expectations that they would of a
commercial business when it comes to strategic
thinking. This is not to say ethical approaches must
be compromised, or causes should be replaced by
pursuit of profit; but that the approach to business
operations, infrastructure and technical innovation of
charities needs to match those of their private sector
counterparts.
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What does it mean to be a charity today? Whilst
the aim and ambition to improve the lives of others
remains true, the way in which charities reach out
to supporters and the people who consume their
services is changing. This document is informed
by our experiences of working with local and
international charities such as WRVS, Amnesty
International and Unicef on their IT infrastructure
needs. It explores how technology, and specifically
the advent of Cloud, can deliver great gains
to charitable organisations, and address the
challenges brought on by an always-on, hyperconnected economy.
This shift gives us a global community that is connected
like never before, and presents an opportunity for
charities to have greater access to supporters and
activists, and generate funding and awareness at higher
levels than previously possible. Thanks to platforms like
Twitter, WordPress and Change.org, individual voices are
being lifted to policy-changing levels and fundraising
sites are offering ways for entire communities of likeminded people to make an incredible impact (take for
example the #nomakeupselfie that raised over £8m
for Cancer Research UK within a week). All of this
combines to offer fantastic scale to those charities that
are able to effectively connect with these communities
– and the thing that they all have in common is that
they’re leveraging the Cloud.
Claranet whitepaper Cloud Hosting for Charities
The Cloud Challenge
The challenge for charities in making the most of the
Cloud opportunity are threefold:
Having the correct infrastructure
Given that many charities were founded pre-internet,
there is a proliferation of old infrastructure present in the
sector. With precious little to invest, and a great deal of
scrutiny on where money is spent, IT has often not been
given the correct level of priority. In fact, IT is central to
enabling organisations to flourish – especially now that
supporters, potential investors and employees are all
highly digitally connected.
Individuals take connectivity for granted and expect the
organisations and businesses that they interact with (and
work for) to be present wherever they are. It is crucial for
charities to recognise this and respond appropriately by
making the right IT investments that will enable them to
seamlessly connect with their supporters, and their wider
networks of colleagues, family and friends.
Far from being just about an internet connection,
maximising Cloud services involves having the right
overall infrastructure either within the business, or
outsourced to an appropriate solution provider.
Figure 1:
Competition from profit-making organisations
Methods of giving: proportion of total UK donors, 2012/13
With attention spans becoming shorter, charities find themselves
competing with profit-making organisations for the attention of the
people that they want to engage with.
52%
31%
Retail is a prime example of an industry that is leading the charge
in this area – they were the first to have advertising based on the
browsing habits of individuals, websites that are optimised for mobile,
tablet and PC, and the ability to pay at a click. It has never been
easier to make a digital cash transaction and charities that are able to
harness retail’s mindset are the ones that will make headway soonest.
28%
24%
16%
Cash
Direct
Debit
Buying Raffle
Source - Charities Aid Foundation
3
14%
Event Cheque
4%
4%
Fees
Payroll
2%
Other
The key to this is making it really easy to donate. The easier it is for a
person to donate to you, the more likely you are to benefit from spur
of the moment donation decisions – a study commissioned by NCVO
and CAF throughout 2012 discovered that only a third of individuals
donate by Direct Debit. The overwhelming majority of donations were
made by cash – so charities need to be in front of the right audience
at the right time to capitalise on these donation decisions.
Claranet whitepaper Cloud Hosting for Charities
Making the right decision
Given the amount of platforms available and ways in which organisations can interact with supporters, deciding where
to invest – and what department this investment belongs to – can feel confusing. Social media and digital engagement
are often given to marketing as a tactical ‘to do’ without taking into consideration the bandwidth, connectivity and mobility
requirements necessary to effectively implement a successful strategy. Infrastructure projects are then given to IT without
necessarily providing a link back to business KPI’s, leaving departments that should be closely aligned, working separately.
Whenever customer outreach, supporter engagement or fundraising strategy is discussed – it should be in conjunction with
the capability of the infrastructure and it is critical that decisions made fulfil the following objectives:
Increased income
Flexibility
Every IT service has the potential to influence income
if properly aligned to the organisations goals. From
CRM that keeps in regular, relevant contact with your
supporters, to offering the ability to donate across
multiple platforms, there is no excuse for IT not being
an enabler.
As previously highlighted, individuals expect to be
connected to the internet at any time on any device,
regardless of location. This high expectation, and the
proliferation of internet-ready devices means that
organisations who are unable to deliver a quality online
experience across devices and networks lose out on
employee productivity, supporter engagement and
donation opportunities.
Cost reduction
This flexibility also extends to network performance
and bandwidth elasticity.
Infrastructure investments made today should aim
to ultimately reduce the overall long-term cost of
IT service provision and this is where Cloud really
performs. Correctly implemented, the right IT strategy
can also be highly effective in reducing costs such as
physical office space, energy usage and headcount.
For charities this further extends to reduced
fundraising costs, expenditure on customer outreach
and more cost-efficient beneficiary communications
and service delivery.
Organisations often experience ‘spikes’ in interactions
and donations coinciding with anniversaries and special
events – those not equipped to manage bursts in
traffic risk a dissatisfied supporter base, compromised
network quality and lost income. By using a hosted
Cloud platform, this pain is taken away as the service
automatically flexes to meet your needs and saves you
costly hardware upgrades.
Using Cloud for Competitive Advantage
In our view, and based on our experiences of working with charitable organisations, the optimal way forward is to utilise
Cloud services. Organisations that are not yet using, or introducing, Cloud within their infrastructure are in danger of being
left with mounting costs for a less than ideal infrastructure – and running the risk of losing relevance with supporters.
Legacy infrastructure is costly, and with vendors and users pulling towards an app-based future (as evidenced in business
with Microsoft’s drive towards apps, and a “Mobile First, Cloud First” strategy), charities need to make Cloud a fundamental
part of their IT and Fundraising strategy.
Cloud offers charities a fantastic way to not only compete (and let’s be clear – charities are definitely competing for
people’s time and money), but also the ability to stay focused on their mission whilst rapidly responding to, or even
predicting, changes in supporters preferred choice of engagement.
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Claranet whitepaper Cloud Hosting for Charities
How Cloud benefits
charitable organisations
Supporter outreach
Employee productivity
One thing that charities have, more than any other
type of organisation, are stories. Many people are
compelled to take action, or make donations, on the
basis of the story of an individual that they can relate
to. Smart organisations are leveraging their online
presence to provide a platform where people come
together and share their experiences. Take Amnesty
International as an example. Its website:
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/ is built upon Claranet’s
managed application hosting platform which is tightly
tied to Amnesty’s content management system
(CMS). This gives Amnesty a powerful platform to
curate and share content that encourages site visitors
to take action – be that commenting, sharing or
making a donation – all of which are highly visible and
easy to do. In addition to this, they can track, manage
and enable self-service transactions that deliver
straight to the heart of the charity.
As with any private sector organisation, the issue of
employees having a more satisfactory IT experience
at home vs the workplace is commonplace and
charities must compete for talent. Having a working
environment that supports mobile working is not
only highly attractive for potential employees, it
also enables organisations to get the best possible
productivity results as staff are empowered to work
anywhere that they have a device and access to the
internet.
The days of organisations sending expensively
produced leaflets and pens that pass straight
from letterbox to bin should be numbered, and
“chuggers” are giving charities a bad press when
trying to fundraise on the street. Cloud offers an
alternative, intelligent option because it allows for an
immediate, reciprocal and – importantly – measurable
interaction. There are also incentives from major
vendors designed to help – Microsoft offers charitable
organisations cost-savings on online software
solutions such as Office 365 and Windows Server
through its not-for-profit programme.
Cost reduction
A highly-mobile, highly-connected workforce reduces
the need for office space and costly equipment as
staff are able to work at a location convenient to them.
Solutions such as Office 365 from Microsoft mean
that not only can teams connect and collaborate in
online workspaces using SharePoint, they also get the
benefit of productivity software directly to their tablet,
pc or mobile device.
Because Office 365 and other cloud-based software
is commonly priced and billed on a subscription basis,
organisations have the benefit of being able to move
IT costs from CapEx to OpEx. To extend these benefits
even further, many charity organisations that we
work with opt for full platform hosting which means
that instead of costly on-site servers that require
manual maintenance and management, they only
pay for the capacity that they use, meaning network
downtime becomes a thing of the past as bandwidth
automatically flexes to meet usage requirements.
With access to information about our users, we would be able to support their journey to the Amnesty website and,
once there, ensure they had access to the content and resources they needed. This in turn would help us encourage
and facilitate campaigning activity amongst all our users.
Kamesh Patel - Head of IT, Amnesty International UK
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Claranet whitepaper Cloud Hosting for Charities
Getting specific
There are numerous ways in which Cloud solutions
can help you. The below sets out the key categories
in broad terms although we have helped many
organisations opt for a blended or ‘hybrid’ model as
they begin their Cloud journey in order to maximise
the value of their existing IT assets as part of a
carefully planned transition process.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
By delivering specific applications to users, regardless
of location or device, you can offer employees greater
flexibility, encourage productivity, and keep your
teams in touch wherever they are. Office 365 from
Microsoft is a good example through the delivery of
SharePoint, Exchange, Lync and desktop tools such
as Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Why do it?
Switching to Cloud-based solutions and services
delivers an incredible array of benefits to all
organisations. What we’re finding with our charitable
customers is that by taking a more commercial
approach to IT infrastructure and investment (including
making clear demands on what they want to be
delivered) they are reaping rewards that directly
benefit the communities that matter the most – the
ones they want to help.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
IaaS delivers enormous benefits in terms of flexibility,
network elasticity and cost savings through the
provision of compute power, memory, and storage
on-demand. Claranet’s certified data centres, which
are built on enterprise-grade hardware and designed
to work in conjunction with industry-leading vendors
including Microsoft, offers organisations access to
incredible network power and speed, priced on a
consumption basis.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
PaaS allows organisations to develop, run and
manage web applications without the complexity of
building and maintaining the infrastructure typically
associated with developing and launching apps. This
is typified by products and services such as Microsoft
Azure.
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How to do it
Claranet specialises in providing Hosting, Network
and Communication solutions built in conjunction with
leading vendors like Microsoft, and with the needs of
charitable organisations in mind.
Thanks to our sector and technology experience,
we know one size (and one Cloud) doesn’t fit all.
That’s why we work closely with each of our clients
to provide a customised solution that facilitates more
effective collaboration and interaction between people,
networks and apps. All of our solutions are built on
our award-winning hosting and network infrastructure
and are designed to deliver ROI today, whilst providing
the scope and flexibility to provide integrated or
incremental services as your organisation grows.
Claranet whitepaper Cloud Hosting for Charities
Can we help you?
Founded in 1996, Claranet is one of Europe’s leading
managed service providers, offering commercial
and charitable organisations hosting, networks and
communications services.
Charitable organisations in the UK, and world-wide,
rely on Claranet to design and implement hosted IT
infrastructure solutions for networking, connectivity
and communication.
To find out more about the work we do, talk to a
like-minded charity expert at:
www.claranet.co.uk/charities
Claranet understood the imperatives, working closely with us and going the extra mile that was needed to help
us progress. We can now face outwards, listen and react to the markets, and begin engaging more actively with
our existing and a new customer base.
Susan Pym, Head of Finance & IT, LED
For more information :
claranet.co.uk - twitter.com/claranet
To book an appointment or to discuss our hosting services :
Call us : 0808 271 3215 - Email us : [email protected]