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INTRODUCTION
 Acknowledgements
This template was prepared through a collaboration of the UW - Milwaukee Department of Information & Media Technologies, ENTECH - Empowering Nonprofits in Technology and the Nonprofit Management Fund. This document is designed to provide Executive Directors, Boards of Directors and managers with suggestions for their nonprofit's information technology policies. These policies can help govern:
- Use of hardware and software
- Security
- Virus protection
- Appropriate use of an organization's technology resources
- Email communications, and
- Many other aspects of using technology in a nonprofit
Technology policies serve to outline acceptable uses, practices and guidelines for technology in the workplace. This document will provide a baseline from which to build a comprehensive organizational policy. The authors particularly would like to recognize the over 50 nonprofits that have been involved in technology assessments through ENTECH. Those projects have provided the collaborators with a wealth of information and ideas for developing this template.
INSTRUCTIONS
Before use, the policies must be customized to include certain specific information, including the organization's name. Other customizations include decisions regarding parameters of each individual policy, or references to other internal documentation. The policies themselves are not a substitute for legal counsel or statutes governing your organization.
REVIEW
Before use in any organization, the customized set of policies must be reviewed and adopted by the Board of Directors. Staff should also review this document, and take part in determining its practicality and scope.
CREATING YOUR POLICIES
These policies are a starting point. There is no one, right answer to the question…." is it ever appropriate to take organizational files home on disk?" But there should be a consistent, understood policy to guide the organization on exporting or off-site use of data.
Likewise, what constitutes appropriate use of the Internet will vary somewhat. What about during breaks or lunch hour?
This also can be an excellent strategy to better acquaint the Board, or at least a committee, about your technology challenges. Policies, in general, should be reviewed and approved by the your Board of Directors.
USE
These policies can be used as stand-alone guidelines for staff, or can be integrated into an existing personnel handbook. Other appropriate uses include training materials, or other operations manuals. Given advances in technology, it would be a sound idea to review and update the policies on an annual basis.
DISCLAIMER
In addition to these policies, federal and state laws or regulations may be in force and may take precedence over them. It is the responsibility of the organization making use of these policies to verify the validity, legality and applicability of these policies. ENTECH, the Nonprofit Management Fund, UWM and its Board of Regents cannot be held liable for any losses incurred as a direct or indirect result of the use of these policies.
POLICIES
ENTECH reserves the right to use the email address below to send news and events going on around the nonprofit community. ENTECH will not sell or distribute email addresses to third parties. If an organization does not wish to recieve emails from ENTECH, please respond back to the email and ask to be removed.
This procedure requires Adobe Acrobat. If you don't have Acrobat, you can download it for free by clicking on the logo below. (Opens in a new window)
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