7

I’ve been working in IT for a long time now, and the problems that show up in smaller organisations are remarkably consistent. Here are a few I’ve encountered and why I think they deserve proper attention.

“Our data lives on one person’s laptop”

This is more common than it should be. A charity’s entire history sitting on a single machine with no backup and no plan for what happens when that person leaves or the laptop dies. It’s a disaster waiting to happen, and it’s entirely fixable.

“We’re still using the same email we set up in 2014“

Old, unmanaged email accounts with no shared access, no security controls, and no central administration. When someone leaves, nobody knows how to get access. When something breaks, nobody knows who to call. Modern email platforms solve this properly, and charities can often access them at significantly reduced cost.

“Our Wi-Fi just doesn’t work”

A space where the internet cuts out constantly, or a charity office where half the rooms don’t get signal. Good Wi-Fi design isn’t complicated, it just needs someone who knows what they’re doing to set it up properly once.

“We got a suspicious email and we’re not sure what to do”

Smaller organisations are targeted by phishing and fraud, because they tend to have weaker defences. Knowing how to identify threats, what to do when something goes wrong, and how to build basic habits around security makes a difference.

None of these problems are unsolvable. They just need someone with the right knowledge to look at them properly. That’s what I’m here for.