As a nonprofit organization, you likely have many responsibilities. You’re constantly meeting new people and keeping up with your latest initiatives. But what about the day-to-day tasks? How do you stay organized and on top of all of it?
Trying to balance a full-time job with work for your nonprofit can be tricky – but not impossible! We’ve put together some tips from our experience that will help keep things running smoothly at your non-profit.
Effective Methods To Ensure Your Nonprofit Is Well-Organized
Administering nonprofit organizations can be a challenging task, but incorporating practical solutions such as organized storage systems in addition to online tools can significantly enhance efficiency.
While there is personnel to keep track of everything, tools like Aplos can simplify your life and improve managerial tasks to ensure no errors or fewer human mistakes.
When it comes to organizing your physical space, storage cabinets can play a crucial role in maintaining order by housing important documents and materials.
With these resources in place, here are some additional proven and effective methods to consider:
Stay in touch with your stakeholders.
Not only can this be a great networking activity, but it also builds trust and keeps up to date on their needs as well.
Remember the importance of taking time for yourself.
It’s essential to have some self-care, even if it means working from home one day each week or scheduling an hour at lunchtime every other week. This goes hand in hand with staying connected – make sure you do not forget about yourself.
Take notes during meetings.
One meeting will inevitably lead to the next one before you know it, so don’t lose track of all those ideas just because they were brainstormed out loud and not written down somewhere. Keeping things organized makes them more manageable when it comes time to put them into action.
Be clear about your priorities and stick to them.
Prioritize tasks based on their urgency, importance, or value of achieving that task – whichever is highest should prioritize. This will help you focus on what needs to be done first or if a task can be delegated to someone else more suited for the job to free up your time, so it’s not wasted.
Stay Focus
Keeping an eye out for any potential distractions and ensuring things are organized helps keep your mind focused on tasks, allowing you to do better overall work. Whether this means using social media sparingly during breaks, setting timers when working through something challenging, turning off notifications while doing specific tasks, having some discipline with yourself will ensure you’re focused when it’s needed the most.
Schedule Tasks Accordingly
To stay on top of things, try scheduling your workdays and surrounding time slots to know how many hours are going towards each task for the day. This will give you a better idea of whether or not they’re all feasible in one day or if something needs to be pushed back because there are too many tasks competing for your attention.
Track Your Progress
The best way to keep track of yourself is through what I like to call “time blocks.” Time blocks can be used as deadlines set up ahead of time that can’t be moved around easily (e.g., due dates). These allow us an opportunity to see our progress throughout a project by separating different parts with their deadline but at the same time helping us to avoid a feeling of being overwhelmed.
This may seem hard at first because we’re not used to having deadlines, but you must start sticking with them. This will help make sure your work stays organized and on track so that everything doesn’t come crashing down around you when one thing goes wrong.
Benefits Of Keeping A Nonprofit Organize
Once you keep your nonprofit organized, everything falls perfectly into place. You can find what you are looking for at a moment’s notice, saving both time and money.
- Quickly finds documents without wasting paper or resources on printing copies of files that have already been scanned in.
- Time savings because the staff doesn’t need to spend hours searching through stacks of papers to locate the information they need; instead, all the appropriate paperwork is neatly stored where it needs to be accessed from one central location.
- It is much more accessible with the ability to create electronic records by scanning physical ones into digital format and saving them electronically. This ensures an organization has access if anything happens to their office building and any disaster, making sure there is always a backup plan.
- Improves efficiency by eliminating the need to handle paper-based files and folders, which are often misfiled or lost due to damage from frequent handling and improper storage methods.
- Safety comes with knowing that any confidential information is protected because it’s in a digital format instead of on paper.
Techniques To Maintain Your Nonprofit Organized
- Create an organizational system for storing documents easily retrieved when needed; keep them electronically if possible!
- Labeling your electronic records will make finding what you’re looking for far easier than sorting through random pages
- If you don’t have the time or money to invest in a secure electronic file storage system, consider using an inexpensive home filing cabinet with folders and labels to store all your documents together by category.
- It’s important to know what information should be confidential before sharing it electronically so that those without proper authorization do not have access!
- It’s also wise to have all the right tools on hand for getting your office organized, including a labeler printer and labels if possible, but even just an old-fashioned pen and paper can be sufficient!
Final Words
Ensure that confidential documents are safe by using encryption software and password-protecting sensitive files before sending them via Gmail, Outlook, etc. Labeling everything makes it easier to find things later on and reminds people where they are supposed to go when they are ready.