Technology & Digital Services
User Guide

1. About This Tool

Technology & Digital Services is the sixth app in the Build Your Club Operations & Compliance suite. It exists because small nonprofits get terrible technology advice: either enterprise advice scaled down (buy a CRM! hire IT!) or no advice at all. This app's promise is different: what you need at your size, and what you can safely skip.

The whole app is organized around three organization stages, not budgets:

• Stage 1, All-volunteer: no staff, a founder's laptop, often a personal Gmail.
• Stage 2, First hire: one staff member; real handoffs begin and accounts must outlive people.
• Stage 3, Small staff (2-10): shared systems; security and simple policy start to matter.

You pick your stage once on the Dashboard and every tab adapts its advice. Everything you enter is saved in your browser, and the AI Automations can turn your answers into board-ready documents.

2. Getting Started & Stages

1. Pick your stage on the Dashboard. This sets the context for every other tab. You can change it any time as the organization grows.
2. Take the Tech Readiness Assessment. Ten minutes of plain yes/no/partly questions produce a letter grade and a prioritized fix list. Each fix links to the tab that solves it.
3. Work the fix list, highest priority first. For most organizations that means the Website Builder or Email & Domain Setup.
4. Fill in the Tech Plan & Budget table as you go, so renewals never surprise you and the AI compiler has real data to work from.

Where your data lives

Your stage, assessment answers, website worksheet, and tool inventory are stored locally in your browser. Clearing browser data clears them, so export anything important (every report offers Copy, Text, Print, Word, and Email exports).

3. The Dashboard

The Dashboard is home base. It shows:

• The stage selector: three cards; click one and the whole app adapts.
• Your Tech Readiness Score: the letter grade from the assessment, with a re-check link. If you have not assessed yet, it says so and points you there.
• Top 3 quick wins for your stage: the three highest-impact moves for an organization your size.
• The free-money callout: Google for Nonprofits (free Workspace plus the $10,000 a month Ad Grant) and TechSoup. Most founders have never heard of either; together they are worth thousands a year.
• The free Website Audit link: run the audit at buildyourclub.com, then feed the results to the Website Audit Action Plan automation.

4. Tech Readiness Assessment

A guided wizard with five sections that mirror the rest of the app: Website & domain, Email & accounts, Files & data, Security basics, and Tools & subscriptions. Each section is four to six plain-language questions answered Yes, Partly, or No. Click any step chip to jump; answers save automatically.

The report

The final step grades you A through F overall, scores each section, and builds a prioritized fix list: every weak answer becomes a numbered item with a button that opens the tab that fixes it. The full report exports with the standard toolbar (Copy, Text, Print, Word, Email), so it can go straight to the board.

5. Website Builder

A five-step wizard from nothing to live:

1. Name & domain: choosing and buying yourorg.org (about $12 a year), .org versus .com, and a plain-language registrar walkthrough, including what to skip at checkout.
2. The one page that's enough: a fill-in-the-blanks worksheet (name, mission sentence, three what-we-do bullets, how to give, contact). The Download my one-page website button turns your answers into a finished, ready-to-publish HTML page. A blank template is downloadable too.
3. Pick your path: an honest three-way comparison of free builders, low-cost builders, and the techy-volunteer option, each with its own skip list.
4. Publish & connect: pointing the domain in plain language and a go-live checklist.
5. Keep it alive: the four things to update quarterly (dates, impact numbers, people, the donate link).

6. Email & Domain Setup

Covers why team@yourorg.org beats a personal Gmail (trust, donations, continuity), the step-by-step Google Workspace for Nonprofits walkthrough (free for verified 501(c)(3) organizations), role addresses that outlive volunteers (info@, treasurer@, donations@, board@), and SPF/DKIM explained as the two switches that keep you out of spam, with a link out rather than a deep dive.

7. Tool Stack by Stage

For each stage: the recommended minimal stack across files, comms, donations, accounting, and scheduling, an equally prominent skip list, and the triggers that tell you when to graduate. Your own stage is pinned to the top with a highlight. Cross-links point to the BYC apps that already cover stack slots free: Donor Management, Compliance Tracker, and the rest of the suite.

8. Free & Discounted Tech

The programs, in priority order: Google for Nonprofits (free Workspace plus the $10,000 a month Ad Grant, with an honest reality check on the grant), TechSoup (how registration works and what is actually worth getting), Canva for Nonprofits, and Microsoft for Nonprofits. The eligibility quick-check lists what every program asks for; the master key is your 501(c)(3) determination letter plus your EIN.

9. Security Essentials

The stage-appropriate five: a password manager, 2FA on email and the bank, an account ownership map, an offboarding checklist, and backup basics. Plus three expandable "if the worst happens" one-pagers: lost laptop, hacked email, and a ransomware note, each a calm numbered checklist.

10. Tech Plan & Budget

A simple editable table: what we use, annual cost, who owns the account, renewal date. Add, edit, and remove rows; everything saves automatically. Rows renewing within 60 days are highlighted, because the expired domain is the classic silent killer that takes the website and email down together.

Fill in the owner column for every row (free tools at cost zero) and the table doubles as your account ownership map. The Autopilot Max Technology Plan Compiler builds the full annual plan from this data.

✨ AI Automations Beta

AI features. Free during beta, then part of a paid plan. See plans.

The AI Automations tab holds 17 automations that draft your technology documents for you: the annual plan, policy pack, budget, website copy, announcements, reminder emails, and more. Each card shows a plan chip (Included, Autopilot, Autopilot Pro, Autopilot Max) indicating where it will sit after beta. Every output opens in an editor with the full export toolbar: Copy, Text, Print, Word, and Email to any address.

Each automation is documented in detail in the AI Automations Guide.

Your Technology Workflow

Where each automation fits in the life of your organization's tech, from first domain to annual plan:

11. Why Small-Nonprofit Tech Fails

Small-nonprofit technology rarely fails dramatically. It fails quietly, in four recurring ways:

• Single points of failure with a pulse. One person owns the website, the email, and the passwords, and then life happens. Continuity, not capability, is the real problem to solve.
• Silent expirations. The domain lapses, the card on file expires, the subscription auto-renews unused. A renewal calendar is the cheapest insurance there is.
• Staleness. A website that says last year quietly tells donors you may not be active. Maintenance is a quarterly half-hour, not a job.
• Buying enterprise answers to small-team questions. A discounted enterprise CRM is still enterprise complexity. The skip lists in this app exist because not buying things is half of good tech strategy.

12. Domain & Website Best Practices

• Register the domain in the organization's name, with an organization email, and turn auto-renew on, backed by an organization card.
• Prefer .org; vary the name before settling for a confusing alternative.
• One current page beats ten stale ones. Answer who you are, what you do, how to give, how to reach you.
• Two people can always edit the site, and the login is in the account map.
• Quarterly: dates, impact numbers, people, and click your own donate link.
• Skip custom development, plugin stacks, retainers, and anything over about $20 a month at Stage 1.

13. Email Best Practices

• Move to Google Workspace for Nonprofits (or Microsoft's nonprofit plan); both are free at small sizes.
• Create role addresses (info@, treasurer@, donations@, board@) and re-point them on every handoff.
• Migrate gently: forward first, update services over weeks, announce, verify, then retire the old account.
• Paste the SPF and DKIM records the setup wizard gives you; they keep your mail out of spam.
• Send newsletters through a real email tool, keep unsubscribing easy, and remove bouncing addresses.

14. Security Best Practices

• A password manager with unique passwords everywhere ends the most common attack on small organizations.
• 2FA on email and the bank first; email resets everything else.
• Keep a one-page account ownership map with a named backup for every account.
• Offboard everyone, by default, on departure: a ten-minute checklist run from the account map.
• Money never moves on email alone; verify payment requests by voice with a number you already have.
• Never log in from a link in an email; go to the site yourself or let the password manager refuse the fake.

15. Budgeting Best Practices

• Realistic annual tech budgets: roughly $15-$150 at Stage 1, $150-$1,000 at Stage 2, $1,000-$5,000 at Stage 3, with the free programs doing the heavy lifting.
• Budget a small hardware-replacement line every year instead of a crisis every four.
• List actual renewal amounts from the inventory, plus a 10-15 percent contingency.
• Before paying retail for anything, ask: is there a nonprofit price? There usually is.
• Review the inventory annually and cut overlapping tools; the renewal entry is your moment to ask "are we still using this?"

16. Common Pitfalls

• The founder's Gmail runs everything. The organization does not own its own operations until the accounts do not depend on one person.
• The domain registered to a volunteer who left. Recovering it ranges from awkward to impossible. Register organizationally from day one.
• "Only Dave understands it." Anything only one human can operate is a future emergency. Document, and name a backup.
• Free-plus-free split-brain storage. Half the files in Drive, half in OneDrive. Pick one ecosystem and commit.
• The discount trap. A discount on a tool you did not need is just smaller waste. Buy from your plan, not from the sale page.
• Security theater over security basics. Before any fancy tool: password manager, 2FA on email and bank, account map, offboarding, backups. The five basics beat everything else combined.

Contact & Support

Questions, feedback, or stuck on a step? We read everything.

• Website: buildyourclub.com
• All apps: buildyourclub.com/apps.html
• Open the app: Technology & Digital Services
• Automation details: AI Automations Guide

This guide is general information for small nonprofits, not legal, tax, or professional IT advice. Build Your Club, LLC.