About FireOak
Nonprofits
We help our clients manage, share, and secure their organizational knowledge.
Working with Nonprofit Organizations
Foundations, research institutes, associations, philanthropies, and think tanks
With all of our clients, we work to enhance how they manage, secure, and share organizational information, data, and knowledge. Our nonprofit clients vary tremendously in the focus of their work, but they include foundations, think tanks, research and education institutions, and associations.
All of our nonprofit clients are particularly concerned with being as effective and efficient as possible so they can focus on accomplishing their mission and achieving their goals.
Common traits among our nonprofit clients:
- Mission-driven
- Staff are always looking for new ways to help accomplish organizational goals
- Lots of ad hoc, informal procedures about how to work
- Concerns with organizational knowledge walking out the door
- Grassroots knowledge management efforts
- Proliferation of free and low-cost cloud platforms, making it difficult for staff to find information and for the organization to properly manage knowledge
- Small and/or outsourced IT roles
- Common misconception that “no one would want to hack us,” which is used as an excuse for not having an information security program in place
- Assumption that external IT vendors are responsible for information security
We partner with nonprofits to fine-tune their processes, policies, procedures, and technologies in ways that are cost-effective, practical, and balance security and sharing.
Nonprofit Case Studies
These client stories represent just a few examples of our work since 2010 to illustrate and showcase some of the typical work the FireOak team conducts for nonprofits.
Private Foundation (Washington, DC)
We helped this mid-sized organization by conducting a combined knowledge management, IT, and information security assessment, with deep dives in Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Salesforce. Then we developed an implementation roadmap for the future.
Philanthropic Organization
(Chicago, IL)
After completing a knowledge management assessment, it was clear that internal knowledge sharing was an area for improvement. We worked with this client to develop a 3-year strategy, which we’ve since implemented. Highlights of tactics include: development of a new intranet; improved onboarding & offboarding efforts with a knowledge management focus; and new standard operating procedures designed to capture and maximize re-use of organizational knowledge.
Knowledge Base Implementation (Seattle, WA)
For this client, we developed a strategy and implementation plan for a series of new knowledge management tactics, including developing a new knowledge base for an external audience. The knowledge base included custom fields to promote findability and discoverability, interactive functionality, and custom reporting features. We then served as curators to expedite content development. Read more about this project.
Policy Institute (Washington, DC)
The FireOak team conducted a comprehensive, hands-on research data management assessment, which highlighted information security issues. A year later, we conducted a security-focused assessment, which included a technical assessment for multiple office locations, security assessments for many websites, briefings for senior executives, and the development of a 3-year plan for moving forward.
About our clients
FireOak Strategies serves all types of clients, but we specialize in working with nonprofits, private sector companies, international organizations, and higher education.
Start the conversation
Reach out to schedule a time to talk. After we understand what you hope to accomplish and what problems you’re trying to solve, we’ll put together a custom proposal and work with you to get started on your consulting engagement.
