If you’re a nonprofit organization in Connecticut, you may be struggling to figure out how to prioritize cybersecurity readiness with a tight budget. Partnering with a local managed IT services provider (MSP) serving Greater Hartford and other parts of the state will allow you to develop powerful security defenses all while staying within your set budget.
Connecticut nonprofit organizations have options when it comes to strengthening their cybersecurity with limited resources. One way these nonprofits can curtail costs while boosting cybersecurity resilience is by using managed IT.
Like their small and medium-sized business counterparts, many nonprofit organizations across the state feel conflicted about being able to ramp up cybersecurity protections with limited budgets.
Although studies have shown that nonprofit leaders recognize the need to put strong cybersecurity measures in place to defend against growing cyber threats, many feel hampered by limited resources and competing priorities.
Managed IT provides a practical and effective way to tackle both issues head-on.
What Are The Benefits Of Nonprofits Using Managed IT To Maintain Strong Cybersecurity Defenses & Cut Costs?
Nonprofit organizations that don’t have IT professionals on staff with the experience and know-how to fix hidden security weaknesses and implement the right security tools and systems are at increased risk to ever-present cyber threats.
Such threats affect not just businesses, but nonprofits, educational institutions, healthcare organizations, and many other entities. No industry or organization is immune from growing cybersecurity risks, such as phishing attacks, breaches, malware attacks, or ransomware attacks.
Some cost-saving benefits of managed IT include:
1. Predictable monthly pricing structure
- Most MSPs bill monthly, allowing their clients to treat their managed services costs like any other recurring obligation, such as utility, payroll processing, or accounting services costs. This billing structure creates a predictable, monthly operating expense for nonprofits.
- As the name implies, organizations that rely on a “break/fix” reactive IT service model only address issues with their IT equipment, systems, or network when something breaks and needs immediate fixing in order to minimize productivity disruption and/or service delivery delays.
- In contrast, managed IT focuses on providing proactive services to find and fix cybersecurity vulnerabilities to prevent a cyber incident and minimize the chances of prolonged, unplanned downtime.
2. Specialized IT & Cybersecurity Expertise
- With managed IT, organizations gain an entire team of knowledgeable IT and cybersecurity experts with the experience and specialized skills to put in place the right cybersecurity policies, procedures, tools, and systems tailored to each organization’s immediate and long-term needs.
- The central focus of managed IT is to offer proactive cybersecurity monitoring and management, along with ongoing IT maintenance, to keep your systems, software, and devices running securely and efficiently.
- These comprehensive solutions help minimize cyberattacks and breaches that can lead to costly disruptions, system failures, and even accidental data loss.
- By using managed IT, not-for-profit organizations don’t have to worry about trying to recruit, hire, and maintain a comparable in-house team of IT and cybersecurity experts, saving substantial time, effort, and money.
3. Strategic IT Budgeting Guidance
- Rather than simply guessing at what cybersecurity solutions may or may not work for their organization, a local MSP can perform a deep-dive into each client’s entire IT environment to evaluate the health and security of their devices, software, network, and databases.
- Virtual Chief Information Officer (vCIO) services provides a comprehensive, customized IT budgeting strategy, along with recommendations for future investments in hardware, software, and IT personnel to boost the overall cybersecurity strength of nonprofit organizations in Hartford County and surrounding regions.
- A vCIO, working with other stakeholders within the MSP, can also make targeted recommendations for specific on-premises, cloud, or hybrid IT and cybersecurity solutions that would work best for a particular nonprofit organization.
- At Kelser, we also have a technical alignment manager (TAM) to work closely with our vCIO.
- The TAM is responsible for developing a bird’s eye view of a customer’s infrastructure to quickly flag potential issues before they develop into larger problems, such as devices nearing their end-of-life, software licensing renewals, network misconfigurations, or access control issues, for instance.
- With vCIO/TAM expert guidance, nonprofits can better plan for necessary IT capital expenses.
4. Helpdesk & On-site Tech Support
- Scenario: as your team begins to trickle in as usual in the morning, you immediately start to hear grumblings from staff not being able to connect to the internet. Having a managed IT service provider at the ready means you can reach out to them via remote support to get the help you need to get back up and running quickly.
- For more complex issues, using a local MSP based in Connecticut means the provider can send an engineer to troubleshoot the matter in person.
- Complex IT problems are escalated to higher-level engineers for further evaluation and resolution, be it on premises or remotely, as needed.
5. Regulatory & Cyber Insurance Compliance
- With MSP services, nonprofits can ensure that they meet and maintain compliance with relevant regulatory, industry, and insurance cybersecurity requirements.
- Nonprofits can avoid costly fines, penalties, loss of funding, and other potential fallout from failing to meet the required cybersecurity standards.
Key Takeaways
By partnering with a trusted managed IT company in Connecticut, area not-for-profits can take advantage of numerous benefits to help keep their organizations stay at optimal performance and security for day-to-day operations—while staying on budget.
As we’ve shown in this article, using a qualified local MSP offers nonprofit organizations:
- Predictable monthly pricing
- Specialized IT and cybersecurity expertise
- Strategic IT budgeting and planning
- Helpdesk and on-site IT maintenance and support
- Compliance with cybersecurity regulations and insurance requirements
As a managed IT services provider based in Glastonbury, Conn., at Kelser, we have more than four decades of experience providing cost-effective, proactive solutions to help our clients maintain robust cybersecurity defenses to minimize cyber risks.
And as a small business ourselves, we understand what some of the budgeting challenges many smaller nonprofits and small and medium-sized enterprises are facing in today’s fast-changing business climate.
If you need help assessing your current cybersecurity defenses, or want more information about how managed IT support could help your nonprofit organization boost efficiency, productivity, and cyber resiliency, reach out now to start a conversation.
Frequently Asked Questions:
1. What is managed IT support?
Managed IT is a proactive, cost-effective approach to IT support. With predictable monthly pricing, managed IT allows organizations to ensure the ongoing health and security of their IT hardware, software, and systems. Read this article to learn about the criteria you should use when choosing a managed IT provider.
2. How much do managed IT services cost per month?
Managed IT services is generally based on a per user and per device charge. The total monthly charge will depend on different factors, however, including add-on services that are not included in the base price. Use our free, no-obligation pricing calculator to get an instant estimate of your managed IT cost.
3. What’s included in managed IT monthly pricing?
Managed IT services typically includes ongoing IT maintenance and management, helpdesk support, managed workstations with automated patching, license management, managed spam filtering, managed servers and networks, among other services.
The services that are included in the base price or are considered an add-on service will depend on the provider, however.
Use our no-cost, no-obligation pricing calculator to get an instant estimate on how much managed IT might cost your non-profit organization.