Philtech Academy’s Digital Leaders course equips nonprofit professionals with the knowledge and skills to lead digital growth and transformation in their organizations. The course covers an array of topics, including philanthropic trends, digital innovation, marketing and social media, storytelling, crowdfunding campaigns, data, and task management systems, data-driven monitoring and evaluation, technological infrastructures, and impact investing.
An eight-week course for digital leaders and managers
In order to address the social challenges of today and the future and to meet the growing expectation to collect and leverage data in its program development and decision-making processes, nonprofits must allocate resources toward establishing a robust digital infrastructure. This course, led by Shelly Tene Barkai, CEO of Philtech, and additional digital experts, aims to provide participants with the knowledge, insights, and practical tools they need to lead processes of digital innovation and implementation in their organizations.
Introduction and Opening Remarks
Trends in the Social Sector
What are today’s main trends in the fields of philanthropy and social economics, and what are their implications on the activities of nonprofit organizations? Presented by Amit Marom, founder of Marom group.
An Introduction to Digital Transformation
What is digital transformation? Why is it a necessary, significant organizational change? We will explore how the main trends in the sector interface with nonprofits, and analyze technological development in the social sector in 2023.
Hackathon: Digital Maturity
How do we know where to start? We will learn and practice using a unique tool to measure leadership, innovation, use of technology, and organizational culture to determine the starting point for digital transformation.
Innovation and Design Thinking as a Tool for Developing Digital Change
Design Thinking is a methodology used to generate innovative ideas, based on the needs of the user and personal experiences. We will learn how nonprofits can adopt this method to enhance their impact by creatively and innovatively solving problems and rethinking their internal work processes.
Digital Marketing and New Media
Today’s abundance of marketing and promotion channels can often leave many uncertain about where to start. We will review the process of selecting the right marketing and the steps involved in building a digital marketing infrastructure and social media strategy. We will also explore the potential applications of leveraging AI in marketing campaigns and strategies.
Storytelling Workshop
Every organization has its own story. A compelling, coherent, and inspiring story can strengthen your organization’s connection with its audience and make your organization more memorable and significant. In this workshop, we will learn the key elements of the art of storytelling and it can enhance your organization’s communication strategy.
Crowdfunding Campaigns
Crowdfunding has become a vital tool for communication with donors (both big and small), providing a platform to send important messages to stakeholders. We will explore the preparations and resources an organization needs for crowdfunding, in addition to the fundamental principles of building, launching, and maintaining a successful campaign.
Panel: Crowdfunding
We will meet with crowdfunding professionals and discuss their insights, tips, and best practices from the field, and the connection between data management and fundraising campaigns.
Data Management: CRM Systems
In order to improve operational efficiency and effectively manage the organization’s activities, resource development, and volunteer management, a CRM system is required. In this session, we will learn about CRM systems’ main solutions and uses, and the significant role they play in organizational growth.
Selecting a CRM System
The variety of CRM systems available can make selecting a system an intimidating task. We will review a selection of CRM platforms and understand how to choose one that best meets your organization’s needs, in addition to examining case studies and hearing the success story of an organization that successfully implemented a CRM system.
Monitoring, Evaluation and Decision-Making
Nonprofits often base their decisions on personal and anecdotal experience. In this session, we will discuss how monitoring and evaluation is a crucial and ongoing process and not simply a grant reporting requirement. Using data-driven insights to analyze patterns in donor, beneficiary, and volunteer behavior as well as program impact measures, enables organizations to significantly improve their decision-making processes and contribute to the advancement of organizational goals.
Monitoring and Evaluation Workshop
Building Blocks: Digital Infrastructure
In the age of remote work and virtual teams, an organized and intuitive digital infrastructure is essential for information sharing, transparency, and collaboration. We will review the building blocks of digital infrastructure, including project and task management, shared calendars, scheduling tools, and cloud-based document storage, and learn how to select and implement the right tools for your organization.
Workshop: Designing a Digital Infrastructure for Your Organization
We will apply the knowledge we have acquired during the course in a guided workshop. Each participant will consider their organization’s unique needs, and we will start to build digital infrastructure plans and discuss how we can lead significant changes in our teams’ daily operations.
Impact Investing: The Age of Social ROI
In recent years, ‘impact investing’ has become one of today’s buzzwords in the social sector. We will learn the key principles of impact investing, and gain insights into why donors are becoming increasingly interested in this type of investment. Learning from nonprofit success stories, we will discuss how an organization can adapt its activities and utilize impact investment to create additional income streams.
Summary and Conclusions
In our last session together, we will go over everything we learned during the last eight weeks, and hold an open discussion about the implementation of digital tools in our organizations.