Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP) and Other Free Software for Accounting and Financial Management of Non-Profit Entities

The non-profit sector is interested in elaborating reliable and clear financial accounting information to achieve several objectives: to know the real volume of activity in each organization, to use it to make financial and investment decision (financial management), and to contribute to improve the management system. This chapter shows the characteristics to identify the financial management and the management accounting in non-profit organizations. This information is used to define how to build an appropriate information system to provide the decision makers with reliable, transparent, and timely information. Besides the above, it also shows the usefulness of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), focusing on its definition, advantages, and disadvantages, as well as developing explanations of the major free software ERP and open source systems.

Social Media and Social Change

Technological advances in communications tools, the Internet, and the advent of social media have changed the ways in which nonprofit organizations engage with their various constituents. Nonprofits now have a constellation of tools including: interactive social media sites, mobile applications (apps), Websites, and mash-ups that allow them to create a comprehensive system for mobilizing supports to advocate for changing public policies. From Facebook to Twitter and from YouTube to Pinterest, communicating to many via words and images has never been easier. The authors explore the history of nonprofit advocacy and organizing, describe the social media and technology tools available for moving advocacy goals forward, and conclude with some possible challenges that organizations considering these tools could face.

Use and Management of Conventional ICT and Mobile Technology in Microfinance

Microfinance has been a significant means of reducing poverty since the mid-1970s. With the economic, social, and demographic characteristics, Bangladesh has been one of the countries where microfinance interventions are notable. In Bangladesh, hundreds of microfinance organisations have been implementing microfinance programs covering almost one-third of the rural population of the country. Studies show that the proper use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) may help microfinance intervention in different ways. It may help increase operational performance, organisational upsizing, and poverty outreach, and decrease interest rate with many other organisational and social implications. This chapter looks into the Information Systems (IS) of microfinance of Bangladesh, the extent and intensity of the use of ICT, the factors that hinder the use of ICT in microfinance, the approaches to ICT management, and the emerging mobile technology-based operational model of microfinance and perceived implications of the changing landscape of ICT on this development program.

Issues and Recommendations for Community-Based ICT Implemantation in the Social Sector

Complex Information and Communication Technology (ICT) applications dedicated to support the provision of community-based services can rarely be implemented by single social services agencies. Technical and funding requirements make it almost prohibitive for such agencies to undertake them in isolation. Furthermore, in the social sector the degree of service interdependence within a community makes it almost necessary that such complex systems be implemented in collaboration as a community-based initiative. But implementations in this context are filled with challenges not normally found in single institutional ICT projects, making community-based ICT initiatives paradoxical and difficult to manage only with conventional project management techniques. This chapter compares ICT management in various sectors. Using the case of Homeless Management Information Systems in the United States, the chapter presents some complexities involved. It then presents a model for understanding the contrasting opposing forces at play in the social sector and offers implementation management recommendations to increase the likelihood of their success.

Different Ways to Reach Transparency and Trust through Communication Management in Spanish Nonprofit Organizations

This chapter focuses on analyzing how communication management can improve transparency and trust in nonprofit organizations. Several examples of Spanish and international nonprofit organizations that are developing effective communication plans and actions to improve their engagement and reputation with citizens are explained through case study methodology. Fund raising, the use of Internet and social media, advocacy, new narratives, and how to spread their activities are the areas where civil society organizations are developing their innovative communication actions. The analysis is made under a model of three objectives or levels: marketing, information, and participation, and under the perspective that transparency is a value that a nonprofit organization should use as the same way as communication management. If transparency and communication management are added, the result could achieve notoriety, trust, and reputation for nonprofit sector.

Knowledge and Technologies for Learning and Action Network

The experience gained over the last 20 years of working with the Third Sector (in different organizational, sectoral, and territorial areas), as well as the study of literature, invites us to reflect and analyze, in a world which is complex, uncertain, and with plenty of information and knowledge, on the need to produce a new innovation and transformation strategy. This “Great Transformation” will allow NGOs to have a greater global impact thanks to the development of new approaches, new relational models and the creation of value with their environment and stakeholders. To this end, this chapter analyzes and makes a concrete proposal about the role that technology (especially the Internet) and social networks can play in the co-production and distribution of knowledge and the role of participation in communities to learn and innovate, but in order to move forward in this challenge, requires addressing the difficulties and reluctance in the NGOs, which are not only technological, but conceptual, structural, relational, and cultural. As stated in the conclusion of the chapter, the key to success lies in the purpose and vision of what is to be achieved rather than on the technology used.

Accountability and Web Usage in University Foundations

Information and Communications Technologies management and, in particular, Web pages are fundamental to an adequate disclosure of information and dialog to NPOs´ stakeholders. Amongst the entities of this sector, the labor of University Foundations (UF) as intermediary agents between the university and society is highlighted in this chapter. In spite of their social mission, the corruption cases of some UF have questioned their legitimacy, so the demand for new models of accountability has increased. Based on these precedents and centered on United States cases, this study presents two objectives: firstly, to analyze the influence of regulation, related to the right to information access, in UF´s Web usage as an accountability mechanism; secondly, to identify the relation between the management of 1.0 Web and the implementation of the new technologies of information—2.0 Web—in the aforementioned Web pages.

Use of New Technologies in Organizational Change Process in Aprosub

Use of new technologies in the field of organizational management is a key element to achieving enhanced outcomes in terms of effectiveness and efficiency (Schalock & Verdugo, 2013). Third sector organizations (NGOs) usually see the use of new tools as an expense rather than as an investment that will allow them to obtain, at a short or medium term, better outcomes in diverse areas and to assess approximation to their vision and attainment of their stated mission. This chapter sees organizational change implemented by Aprosub and how this electronic tool has been incorporated, allowing one to know the current status, thus easing swift and precise decision making.

The Electronic-Mediated Public Sphere and Environmental Public Participation in China

This chapter offers a critical analysis of the new pattern of public participation in the electronic-mediated public sphere. By reviewing the development of Chinese environmental activities that led to an active, electronic-mediated public discussion concerning environmental protection, the findings reveal that new Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) have made the public sphere more easily seen and heard by everyone, including governmental departments in the bureaucratic system. Thus, the electronic-mediated public sphere is providing a third power that could help Non-Profit Organizations' (NPOs) development in relatively conservative societies such as China. The implications of using ICTs in the management of NPOs are also discussed.

Key Enablers for Knowledge Management for Australian Not-for-Profit Organizations

Not-for-Profit (NFPs) organizations operate in an increasingly competitive marketplace for funding, staff and volunteers, and donations. Further, NFPs, both in Australia and internationally, are growing rapidly in number in response to increasing needs for humanitarian services and environmental sustainability that local and national governments and established international aid organizations cannot or struggle to provide effectively. Many NFPs are being driven to adopt more commercial practices in order to improve their donor appeal, government grant applications, staff/volunteer retention, and service delivery. Knowledge Management (KM) is one such “corporate” practice being explored to address the increasingly competitive environment. Although the concept of knowledge management may be basically understood in NFPs, researchers and NFP managers are yet to explore and fully understand the complex inter-relationships of organizational culture, ICT, internal marketing, employee engagement, and performance management as collective enablers on the capture, coordination, diffusion, and renewal of knowledge in a NFP environment. This chapter presents research into the relationship of KM with those enabling elements and presents an implementation model to assist NFPs to better understand how to plan and sustain KM activity from integrated organisational and knowledge worker perspectives. The model emphasises an enduring integrated approach to KM to drive and sustain the knowledge capture and renewal continuum. The model provides an important contribution on “how to” do KM.