Budget Driven Website or Database Project?

There is a lot of conversation lately about the tough economy, and how it is impacting nonprofits. One way that nonprofits can continue to further their mission is to ensure that their technology helps, rather than hinder. But with tight (and tightening) budgets, what should nonprofits do?

Many people are familiar with the Iron Triangle - that tangle of price, feature set and timeline. With an unlimited budget - you can control the other two (features and timeline). Or - if timeline is the most important thing - you might be able to control when you launch - but might launch with fewer features, or at a price which you find unattractive.

In our sector though - we know that almost all of our work is budget driven to a large degree. In some instances (such as hardware) - getting 75% of what you need my be crippling - you get a workstation without a monitor!

However - since both of the tools that we use here for websites and databases are feature rich out of the box - a budget driven approach can sometimes work to get you started. Here’s a quick description of different ways you can approach a technology project:

1. Budget driven. In this case – budget drives everything –so you have little control over desired features/design. This can work in environments where you are getting a package–because you have some assurance about what you’ll get. But it doesn’t help for customizations and so on – when those are unknown and your budget is the driver – you may not be able to afford those items.

Both Plone and Salesforce are feature rich, out of the box. If you can approach your project in phases, are willing to start with high priority features, and are confident that you can grow your technology budget - this can be an effective approach.

2. Needs driven. In this case, you invest in planning, because you want all of your needs met. Then you estimate the costs for all of those needs, and then you prioritize and find funding. This is nice because you let your actual needs dictate what you are going to get – but requires a bigger investment in planning up front. And you may or may not be successful finding donors to help support those needs!

Both Plone and Salesforce are highly customizable, but start with great out of the box features. If you prefer to start with knowing what is possible and then proceed with creating a plan to accommodate all of your needs, this is an excellent approach.

3. A blended model. That’s where you do a bit of both. This is attractive because your budget constraints are clear up front –but you also do enough planning that you avoid painting yourself into a corner. You still might not get all of your features, and you still might not know total costs – but you ought to finish with a working tool that sets you up for phase two when ready.

This balances the strengths and weaknesses of the first two models. It can provide some budgetary assurances, but also requires that both you and your vendor work diligently to share risk. The risk for you is that you run out of time/money/features, and the risk for your vendor is that they don’t feel successful implementing your project - because they have run out of time and money, too!