5 Ways Nonprofits can Drive Success through Change Leadership

Published 14/03/25 under:

For many charities and nonprofits, technology deployments are about much more than switching systems; new tech is a vehicle for positively transforming your services for your people. When we say ‘your people’, we mean both your employees and volunteers, as well as your service users.

Whilst selecting the right tools and implementing new solutions is important, the real success of a transformation comes down to how people engage with and adopt the change. That is where change management and change leadership deliver their true value.

Too often, change management is treated as an afterthought, or seen as a nice to have. Many change managers are only brought in once the project is already into technical development and delivery.

This drastically reduces the opportunity to deliver true change leadership and significantly diminishes the scope for impact that change management can deliver. As a result, it becomes much harder to achieve the anticipated benefits and limits the overall success of the transformation.

Conversely, engaging change management early on can give strategic leaders insights into engagement and adoption risks that ideally need to be identified and mitigated during the critical early programme conceptualisation stage.

Such mitigation can help forecast costs accurately, reduce stakeholder resistance and disengagement, simplify training needs, avoid adoption delays, and prevent productivity slumps through go-live.

So, how do we create meaningful, lasting change?

We need to shift the conversation. We need to put change management at the heart of the project from the first discussion, leverage change management activities to inform decision-making, and use change leadership to drive success.

Instead of seeing change management as a reactive, late programme activity, nonprofits should embrace change leadership through a proactive, people-first approach that sets the stage for successful adoption, engagement, and long-term impact.

Here are five key ways nonprofit leaders can leverage change leadership to ensure their technology transformation delivers real results:

1. Engage your people before you define your project or solution

Before making technology decisions, it’s essential to engage employees, volunteers, fundraisers, and service users to gain a clear understanding of their challenges and needs. Use their experience and feedback to inform your decision-making.

By exploring the problems they face in their daily work, assessing how they currently use, and/or struggle with technology, and identifying what would help them be more effective, organisations can ensure that the change is designed with the people who will use it in mind.

Involving stakeholders from the start not only creates a sense of ownership but also reduces resistance later, as they become active participants in shaping the change rather than having it imposed upon them.

2. Communicate the “Why” in a way that inspires

Nonprofit teams are deeply mission-driven, so they don’t just want to know what’s changing, they need to understand why it matters. If people cannot see how a transformation supports their mission, benefits their service users, or improves their daily work, they are far less likely to engage with it.

To create buy-in, go beyond technical messaging and connect the change to its real-world impact. Rather than stating, “We are implementing a new CRM,” frame the transformation in terms of its benefits: “This system will help us reach more people, fundraise more effectively, and deliver better services to those who need us.”

Use storytelling to illustrate the practical improvements a change will bring. Whether that’s enhancing service delivery, increasing fundraising capacity, or making day-to-day tasks easier, stories help people see the value of the transformation. When individuals understand the mission behind the change, they are far more motivated to support and drive its success.

3. Shift from Change Management to Change Leadership

Change management is often viewed like project management; it’s seen as a structured process, with a series of steps designed to help people transition from the old way of working to the new. However, change leadership goes beyond process because it focuses on shaping culture, influence, and mindset. Rather than simply minimising resistance, effective change leadership creates determination, fosters engagement, and builds shared ownership of success.

To drive this kind of transformation, charities and nonprofits need to identify change champions who are respected within their teams and can advocate for the change. Managers and team leaders should be empowered to lead by example, as their attitude towards the transformation will directly influence how others perceive and embrace it.

Creating a culture where feedback is valued and transparently acted upon ensures that people feel like participants in the change rather than passive recipients of it. Transformations that succeed are not dictated from the top down. They are driven by leaders at all levels, fostering a shared commitment to success.

4. Align technical adoption with your change management strategy

Too often, change management plans are driven by technology deployment timelines, focusing on procurement, development, and go-live dates while neglecting the human journey of change. Human beings are not machines; they cannot be changed at the flick of a switch, and their thoughts cannot be rerouted with new lines of code.

Change is not complete when a system goes live. It is complete when people fully embrace and use it effectively, so, instead of implementing a system when the IT team says it’s ready, it is essential to consider what people need to successfully adopt it, and the timeline for providing that to impacted users, and let that determine your adoption date. Don’t let the tech drive your go-live; prioritise the readiness of your users!

And if you want to make sure you can achieve simultaneous technical delivery and adoption, remember that changing humans takes a lot longer than changing machines, so start the change leadership before you start working on the technical solution.

5. True change is a marathon, not a sprint

Make change a continuous process, not a one-time event. Many nonprofits focus on getting through a transformation, but real success comes from creating a culture where change is embraced rather than feared. By engaging in change leadership early, you have time to formulate tools and approaches that are bespoke to your organisation, and which you can build like muscles to carry you through transformation after transformation.

Building continuous improvement into the strategy also ensures that adoption is monitored, user feedback is heard, and processes are refined after go-live. Encouraging teams to experiment, iterate, and adapt helps them see change as part of progress rather than something to endure. Recognising and celebrating quick wins reinforces momentum and strengthens commitment to the change.

When change leadership is embedded into an organisation’s culture, each transformation becomes easier, smoother, and more impactful.

Technology transformation in nonprofits succeeds when people engage with and adopt the change, not just when new systems are implemented. By embedding change leadership early, organisations can drive engagement, accelerate adoption, and create lasting impact.

Let’s shift the conversation from change management as an afterthought to change leadership as a success driver! 

Get in touch with John Pritchard, our resident expert on Change Management, to learn how you can drive successful technology transformation.