Grantmakers Information Technology Survey Report 

V. Challenges/Emerging Issues 

Technology Issues That Grantmakers Are Not Prepared to Address 

Costs of Keeping up with New Technology 

Annual IT Spending Amount (n = 313) 

As one respondent said,  most funders do not/can not seem to acknowledge the 

need/efficacy of technology to increase nonprofit productivity and their own cost savings 

and productivity.  And, as noted above, 48 percent of respondents reporting barriers that 

prevented the funder from using (or making effective use of) information technology,  

indicated that cost was a barrier. 

Fifty percent of grantmakers reported replacing desktop computers every three years 

while 27 percent reported replacing desktop computers every five years (Table A 7). The 

remaining 23 percent of respondents replace computers when they break. The 

percentages for server replacements were similar to desktop replacements with a slightly 

longer replacement average. Thirty four percent of grantmakers reported replacing 

servers every three years while 35 percent reported replacing servers every five years. 

The remaining 31 percent of respondents replace servers when they break (Table A 8).  

Cost was cited as a challenge by many foundations in response to the open ended 

question about foundation challenges.  

Some examples of responses include: 

 Ongoing cost of updating hardware  

 Finding enough IT resources to function efficiently  

 Escalating costs of just keeping current  

 Age of hardware and software  

 Cost of comprehensive software such as FIMS  

 Keeping up with hardware and software potential when in a cost reduction 

mode  

 Capital investment for custom systems  

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