Musings from our ED: Back to school

It’s been a long time since I went “back to school” and yet every Labor Day I find myself feeling excited about the change in seasons, the final push to meet annual goals, and the promise of a family holiday vacation at the end of the year.

This year is no different. I find myself amped up for the coming few months. 2011 has been a year of planning and strategizing for NPower. And, yes, we’ve also worked through some really big projects—completing a rebranding process, launching a new website, developing a series of brown bag trainings, and delivering thousands of hours of high quality consulting to many savvy nonprofits. But, much of the big stuff we’ve challenged ourselves to move through in our strategic plan has been more theoretical than tangible. Until now. (Drum roll, please…) a great deal of planning is about to be set in motion.

I’m pleased to announce several ambitious efforts coming your way this fall:

We’re launching Stable and Secure Managed Services in October. This is our evolved service to support nonprofits’ internal infrastructure. We know that you can’t work toward your mission if you’re worried your server is going to crash or your PC takes 20 minutes to load. So, we’ve developed a set of services at a predictable cost and added a few items that are a must have for any robust IT system—real-time monitoring of all machines, an annual assessment, and access to our support line. Additionally, because we can monitor your systems from our offices, we’re excited to focus more of our on-site time working with you on the strategic direction of your organization. Our goal is to free up more of your time so you can focus on your mission, resulting in a more vibrant community.

We’re also kicking off work on our Best Practices Model. This model will be your road map to realizing the benefits of technology to drive your mission. Yes - it’s a bit ambitious - but you should see the team we’ve assembled. We’re delighted to be working with our CIO Council, nonprofit tech leaders, our AmeriCorps VISTA team, and the NPower staff to develop this model. Interested in learning more? Send me an email.

Finally, we’re going full throttle on creating our Theory of Change (thanks to generous funding from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation). We kicked off with an awesome staff off-site last month where we envisioned the future of the nonprofit community with capacity building seen not as a luxury, but as a necessity for meeting our missions. Our next step is hosting a series of focus groups in Tacoma, Vancouver, Portland, Bellevue and Seattle during the week of September 12 to validate our assumptions and more deeply understand the sector needs, wants, and expectations. If you want to join one of our focus groups, let me know via email.

So that’s what I’m excited about as we enter the back-to-school season. Plus, I’m picturing how good it’s going to feel on December 23^rd when I head out on vacation: the solid feeling of accomplishment and appreciation for the value our work brings to the sector.

- Alison