In today’s interview, Carolyn talks with Vince Grady, the new Community IT Chief Financial Officer (CFO) who is 8 months into the job. Vince and Carolyn discuss his roundabout path to the CFO role, and how a diversity of backgrounds is common at Community IT and valued as one of our strengths – not all our employees have followed a typical path and that helps us connect with our nonprofit clients who often also have non-conventional backgrounds, education, and careers.

Vince also comments on the value of mentors in his career, and he and Carolyn discuss steps to finding mentors you connect with and can turn to for advice. The takeaway? Be open to finding mentors that have the skills you want to develop, in addition to the career roles you want to grow into, and invite mentorship wherever you find it. Most people love being invited out for coffee and to discuss their skills and experience.

Vince and Carolyn also discuss the way being an employee-owned company (ESOP) has shaped the internal culture at Community IT in valuable ways.

Join us for our series featuring interviews with Community IT employees. In this series, we talk about nonprofit technology career paths, career resources, skills, and certifications. We will also touch on mentoring opportunities as you start out on your career and ways to give back if you are further along. If you are wondering what it is like to work at a place like Community IT, you can learn about it here. https://communityit.com/careers/

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.

Listen to this conversation with Carole Melvin from Your Part Time Controller (YPTC) and catch up on the current thinking on preventing financial fraud as scams seem to multiply all around us in our jobs at nonprofits.

Learn what new frauds and scams are evolving and how to protect yourself and your nonprofit. Some key takeaways:

Cultivate a healthy dose of skepticism and use common sense.

Utilize analog and off-line verification best practices.

Stay curious and aware of new threats.

Don’t be ashamed if you fell for a fraud.

Learn these tips and more from Carole Melvin as she discusses recent examples of fraud that accountants, CFOs and other staff in financial roles like Development and anyone who deals with vendors should know.

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.

In today’s interview, Carolyn talks with Rob Schamberg about his long service on the Community IT Board helping steer the company through the process to become employee-owned through the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) and to his recent retirement from the Board.

Rob describes his career from his days as a college grad who loved technology and the outdoors, through teaching and becoming Principal and Superintendent at various California public schools, to joining the Forum for Youth Investment in Washington DC. It was at the Forum that he met Community IT folks, and was asked to serve on the board where he has been over a decade. After moving back to California near Lake Tahoe, he has now founded his own nonprofit to give students in Reno a chance to explore the wilderness activities all around them, Reno Inspiring Connections Outdoors.

Join us for our series featuring interviews with Community IT employees and board members. In this series, we talk about nonprofit technology career paths, career resources, skills, and certifications. We will also touch on mentoring opportunities as you start out on your career and ways to give back if you are further along. If you are wondering what it is like to work at a place like Community IT, you can learn about it here. https://communityit.com/careers/

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.

Pt 3 delves deeper into implementation, roll out, and overcoming barriers to updating or creating IT governance policies at your nonprofit.

In this podcast follow up to their webinar, Community IT Senior Consultant Nura Aboki and guest Jeff Gibson from Build Consulting spoke with moderator Carolyn Woodard and shared their experiences and insights into the difficulties rolling out your updated policies. How can you overcome barriers like fear or inertia and see this process as an opportunity for your leadership to bring staff together around shared values, and not an onerous chore? What are good ways to get stakeholders on board and successfully roll out training on the new policies to all staff?

If you are feeling paralyzed about this project to implement your policies, this discussion will give you a roadmap on how to move forward. Learn about making IT governance work for your nonprofit.

For templates: Free Resources for Building IT Policies at Nonprofits has a ton of links for you to start with. Check out this podcast pt 1 and 2 for an introduction.

Is your nonprofit protected?

In our work with clients over the twenty years we have been providing outsourced IT services, Community IT has frequently run into clients with no Acceptable Use Policy at all. In addition to protecting your organization from employee misuse of equipment, IT governance policies are strategic documents that need regular review to stay in alignment with your nonprofit’s goals and tactics.

If your organization has no IT governance documents or they haven’t been updated in a while, this webinar teaches how and where to start creating these vital documents. Our panelists also shared their experiences and successful strategies to roll out these policies to all staff, and gave ideas on updating your training on these policies to be fun and engaging. The key takeaway? Collaborating: the IT department needs to work with other teams to incorporate various needs and insights.

Your organization’s protection from cyber crime and multiple legal issues rests on your staff understanding and following your IT policies. Don’t get caught without policies you can rely on and refer back to when situations with cyber attacks or disgruntled employees arise.

As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.

Community IT and Build Consulting are proudly vendor-agnostic and our webinars cover a range of topics and discussions. Webinars are never a sales pitch, always a way to share our knowledge with our community.

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.

Pt 2 covers implementation, overcoming barriers to this project, and Q&A. Pt 1 Covers policy definitions and priority policies, a process to create or revise your policies, and 2 polls.

For templates: Free Resources for Building IT Policies at Nonprofits has a ton of links for you.

Community IT Senior Consultant Nura Aboki and guest Jeff Gibson from Build Consulting took your questions on where to find nonprofit IT policy templates, how to overcome barriers and modify the templates to your organizational needs and strategic goals, and how to get the stakeholders on board and roll out training on the new policies to all staff.

If you are feeling paralyzed about starting this project to create or revise your policies, this discussion will give you a roadmap on how to move forward. Learn about making IT governance work for your nonprofit.

Is your nonprofit protected?

In our work with clients over the twenty years we have been providing outsourced IT services, Community IT has frequently run into clients with no Acceptable Use Policy at all. In addition to protecting your organization from employee misuse of equipment, IT governance policies are strategic documents that need regular review to stay in alignment with your nonprofit’s goals and tactics.

If your organization has no IT governance documents or they haven’t been updated in a while, this webinar teaches how and where to start creating these vital documents. Our panelists also shared their experiences and successful strategies to roll out these policies to all staff, and gave ideas on updating your training on these policies to be fun and engaging. The key takeaway? Collaborating: the IT department needs to work with other teams to incorporate various needs and insights.

Your organization’s protection from cyber crime and multiple legal issues rests on your staff understanding and following your IT policies. Don’t get caught without policies you can rely on and refer back to when situations with cyber attacks or disgruntled employees arise.

As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.

Community IT and Build Consulting are proudly vendor-agnostic and our webinars cover a range of topics and discussions. Webinars are never a sales pitch, always a way to share our knowledge with our community.

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.

Pt 1 Covers policy definitions and priority policies, a process to create or revise your policies, and 2 polls. Pt 2 covers implementation, overcoming barriers to this project, and Q&A.

For templates: Free Resources for Building IT Policies at Nonprofits has a ton of links for you.

Community IT Senior Consultant Nura Aboki and guest Jeff Gibson from Build Consulting took your questions on where to find nonprofit IT policy templates, how to overcome barriers and modify the templates to your organizational needs and strategic goals, and how to get the stakeholders on board and roll out training on the new policies to all staff.

If you are feeling paralyzed about starting this project to create or revise your policies, this discussion will give you a roadmap on how to move forward. Learn about making IT governance work for your nonprofit.

Is your nonprofit protected?

In our work with clients over the twenty years we have been providing outsourced IT services, Community IT has frequently run into clients with no Acceptable Use Policy at all. In addition to protecting your organization from employee misuse of equipment, IT governance policies are strategic documents that need regular review to stay in alignment with your nonprofit’s goals and tactics.

If your organization has no IT governance documents or they haven’t been updated in a while, this webinar teaches how and where to start creating these vital documents. Our panelists also shared their experiences and successful strategies to roll out these policies to all staff, and gave ideas on updating your training on these policies to be fun and engaging. The key takeaway? Collaborating: the IT department needs to work with other teams to incorporate various needs and insights.

Your organization’s protection from cyber crime and multiple legal issues rests on your staff understanding and following your IT policies. Don’t get caught without policies you can rely on and refer back to when situations with cyber attacks or disgruntled employees arise.

As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.

Community IT and Build Consulting are proudly vendor-agnostic and our webinars cover a range of topics and discussions. Webinars are never a sales pitch, always a way to share our knowledge with our community.

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.

What are the main ways AI impacts nonprofit cybersecurity risks?

Social engineering, trust, and data risks are the three big areas where AI will have impacts on cybersecurity at nonprofits that you need to be aware of. Whether or not your organization is using AI, these are areas where hackers are definitely using AI to devise new methods of attack.

Matt Eshleman, CTO at Community IT, recommends creating policies that address the way your staff uses AI – if you haven’t updated your Acceptable Use policies recently, AI concerns are a good reason to do that. He also recommends taking an inventory of your file sharing permissions before AI surfaces something that wasn’t secured correctly. Finally, make sure your staff training is up to date, engaging, and constant. AI is creating more believable attacks that change more frequently; if your staff don’t know what to look out for you could fall for the newest scams or accidentally share sensitive data with a public AI generator.

Community IT has created an Acceptable Use of AI Tools policy template; you can download it for free. And if you are trying to update or create policies but don’t know where to start, here is a resource on Making IT Governance Work for Your Nonprofit.

Good Tech Fest is a global virtual conference on how you can responsibly use emerging technologies for impact. Whether it’s AI, web3, machine learning, or just simple mobile and application development, Good Tech Fest is the place to hear from practitioners using these technologies for impact.

As with all our webinars, these presentations are appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.

Community IT is proudly vendor-agnostic and our webinars cover a range of topics and discussions. Webinars are never a sales pitch, always a way to share our knowledge with our community.

Presenter:

As the Chief Technology Officer at Community IT, Matthew Eshleman leads the team responsible for strategic planning, research, and implementation of the technology platforms used by nonprofit organization clients to be secure and productive. With a deep background in network infrastructure, he fundamentally understands how nonprofit tech works and interoperates both in the office and in the cloud. With extensive experience serving nonprofits, Matt also understands nonprofit culture and constraints, and has a history of implementing cost-effective and secure solutions at the enterprise level.

Matt has over 22 years of expertise in cybersecurity, IT support, team leadership, software selection and research, and client support. Matt is a frequent speaker on cybersecurity topics for nonprofits and has presented at NTEN events, the Inside NGO conference, Nonprofit Risk Management Summit and Credit Builders Alliance Symposium, LGBT MAP Finance Conference, and Tech Forward Conference. He is also the session designer and trainer for TechSoup’s Digital Security course, and our resident Cybersecurity expert

Matt holds dual degrees in Computer Science and Computer Information Systems from Eastern Mennonite University, and an MBA from the Carey School of Business at Johns Hopkins University.

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.

How to Protect Your Organization Against New Threats

Following the 2024 Nonprofit Cybersecurity Incident Report, Carolyn sat down with Matt Eshleman, our Chief Technology Officer and cybersecurity expert, and José Antonio Peña-Rosales, our Director of Support Services, to talk about what users can do to stay safe and share some cybersecurity updates for nonprofits.

When should you report something or submit a ticket? (Right away is the correct answer!)
How can you tell if an email is legit? (Consider the address but also consider the content. Be suspicious!)
What should you do if you a pop up tells you your laptop is infected? (Don't call the number on the popup!)

Get some practical tips and helpful advice to protect yourself and your organization with these cybersecurity updates for nonprofits.

_______________________________
Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening.