What’s the Best Way for Nonprofits to Migrate to the Cloud?

Nonprofits Have Limited Cloud Expertise

Most nonprofits operate with small IT teams. Some have only one or two generalists responsible for everything from networking and cybersecurity to help desk. Cloud expertise is seldom part of that mix.

That gap becomes clear as soon as they begin planning a migration. Even relatively simple transitions require decisions about data hygiene, identity and access control, security configuration, cost optimization and compliance requirements. And the complexity only increases for organizations managing healthcare-adjacent programs or sensitive client information.

When nonprofits attempt a do-it-yourself migration without that expertise, problems can escalate quickly. I recently worked with a healthcare organization that received a grant to implement a cloud-based tool for its nursing team. Without internal cloud skills, the team misconfigured key security controls, overlooked compliance requirements and set up an Azure environment without appropriate governance. Other departments began spinning up their own servers — often without notifying IT — and no one was decommissioning instances.

The result: unpredictable costs and avoidable risk.

For organizations with limited staff, missteps like these are common, which is why many nonprofits now lean heavily on cloud engineering expertise, technical advisers or staff augmentation support to guide or manage their environments.

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Cloud More Cost-Effective for Nonprofits?

Cost is always top of mind for nonprofits, and cloud can be both a blessing and a curse. While cloud services are often perceived as more affordable, that’s not always the case. If workloads are not sized correctly, if data is moved without proper cleanup, or if resources are accidentally left running, monthly bills can spike.

Still, cloud delivers two financial advantages that nonprofits value:

• Lower capital spending: Avoiding large hardware refreshes is a major benefit, especially as organizations grapple with aging infrastructure and applications that no longer run well on older equipment.
• Predictability: Subscription-based services offer more visibility into year-ahead costs, which helps nonprofits build more accurate budgets, especially as funding cycles tighten.

Because of the cost pressure, nonprofits often need help determining which cloud provider is the best fit. Discounts available to nonprofits from Microsoft make Azure appealing, but Azure migrations can be more complex for the uninitiated. Many nonprofits gravitate toward AWS (especially with CDW’s expanded AWS capabilities following its Mission Cloud acquisition) for its flexibility and stronger partner ecosystem. The right answer depends on the organization’s environment, workloads and long-term goals.

READ MORE: Learn why IT leaders are turning cloud optimization into a competitive edge.

How Should Nonprofits Move to the Cloud?

Most nonprofits are not moving everything to the cloud at once. Hybrid architectures are common, especially when organizations want to keep certain workloads on-premises or phase migrations over time.

This introduces additional wrinkles: application integrations, identity management across environments, and ensuring business continuity if one environment experiences an outage. Those considerations need to be addressed during early assessments, not midway through migration.

Data optimization is another major focus. Before any migration, nonprofits need to understand what data they have, what should be moved, what should be cleaned or archived, and how it will be secured and backed up once in the cloud. Those steps not only reduce migration complexity but also help avoid unnecessary storage costs.

Even after migrating, nonprofits often struggle to manage cloud environments day to day. With IT talent shortages and rising turnover, many organizations need ongoing support, not just one-time project help.

CDW works closely with nonprofits to provide that support, whether through cloud managed services, technical advisers or staff augmentation. For organizations that eventually want to hire full-time talent, our approach allows them to evaluate staff augmentation resources over several months and convert them to employees without additional fees. This approach helps nonprofits stay secure, stable and cost-efficient while operating with lean teams.

That combination of cost pressure, evolving missions and fast-changing technology is exactly why nonprofits are looking for trusted guidance. With the right assessment, planning and ongoing support, cloud migration can be an inflection point that positions organizations for greater scalability, reliability and innovation in the years ahead. 

This article is part of BizTech's CommunITy blog series.