Home > Resources > Whitepapers > Moving Away from Spreadsheets: How to Know When It’s Time

Moving Away from Spreadsheets: How to Know When It’s Time

July 23, 2018

The spreadsheet conundrum... Joe Smith, sales director for Great Start-Up Number 5 Billion and Thirty-One, puts on a blindfold and reaches out blindly for something, ANYTHING, to help him organize his team’s deals and commissions. He’s hopeful. He’s waiting. He knows he’ll come back with something. We’re talking metaphorically, of course. He’s not actually HOLDING a spreadsheet, he’s using Excel—because it’s the lowest hanging fruit. It’s free and easy to learn. And for a while, you know what? It works great. He can use VLOOKUPS and shortcuts to navigate. He can import booking results and activity metrics from Salesforce or his CRM. He can get so good at it that packaging complex algorithms becomes second nature.

Spotlight

AIESEC in the United States

AIESEC is the world's largest youth-run organization developing the leadership potential of young people. Present in 127 countries and territories across 2,600 universities, we provide students and recent graduates with life-changing experiences to volunteer, intern, or work abroad within partner organizations. We partner with organizations ranging from Fortune 500 to local enterprises in developing and sourcing their global talent needs across our network. Through our programs in universities, we provide organizations with access to a global network of young talents who have both the capabilities to make a positive impact.

OTHER WHITEPAPERS

Community Foundations–a new way of thinking about charity, philanthropy and working with clients

whitePaper | February 9, 2022

Charities have an essential function in our communities, delivering a range of social services that would be difficult to provide on a purely commercial or a state-run basis. Essentially, they fill the gaps in society (often by partnering with government) that are not already cared for by central or local government.

Grow Together 2023 Report: Building value for nonprofits in a digital economy

whitePaper | May 1, 2023

The second part of the annual Grow Together Report surveyed 120 decision makers in nonprofits in April 2023 to understand the current state of nonprofit organizations in Canada. The survey reveals that financial pressures for nonprofits have eased somewhat in the last 12 months, although organizations continue to struggle with rising costs and with securing skilled talent to help drive strategic initiatives, including digital transformation.

2021 Nonprofit Technology Trends Report

whitePaper | May 10, 2021

Our 2021 Nonprofit Technology Trends Report highlighted some of the specific challenges nonprofits faced this year including decreasing funding, canceled fundraisers, and virtual programming. The survey also highlighted the myriad of innovations nonprofits have developed as a result of the pandemic.

6 Trends Driving Nonprofit Hiring in 2021

whitePaper | January 20, 2021

This past year was challenging yet transformational for the nonprofit sector. With organizations facing a sudden shift to remote operations, our country experiencing a nationwide reckoning on racial equity, and a drastically changing fundraising landscape, nonprofits were forced to reexamine the operations and traits needed to carry them into the future.

Raise More Money with Your Next Event

whitePaper | June 14, 2022

Thinking of launching your next fundraising event? There can be a lot of planning involved but it’s far more manageable when tackled one step at a time. Download our FREE white paper for all the expert knowledge and tips you need to make your charity’s fundraising event a success.

Metrics for Mission Impact How Nonprofits Can Strengthen Outcomes through Quantitative Measures

whitePaper | March 25, 2020

In their seminal article, "Nonprofit Starvation Cycle", Ann Goggins Gregory and Dan Howard exhort nonprofit finance professionals to report to funders the real costs of running nonprofit organizations. The authors explain that the popular trend to restrict funding to specific programs without accounting for infrastructure expenses leads to an unintended consequence, a "nonprofit starvation cycle", where charities cease to function because they can't pay for overhead costs, such as administrative employees, computers and electric bills. To break this unhealthy cycle, the article encourages nonprofits to recalibrate funder expectations by providing accurate financial reports and other supporting information to reflect the true costs of nonprofit operations.

Moving Away from Spreadsheets: How to Know When It’s Time