IT Innovations for Non-Profits with Vanessa Smith and Madeleine Fackler at ServiceNow Knowledge 2024

This is Textron tv. All right folks. And we're back at ServiceNow Knowledge 2024.

We're talking about it. org. And we have Madeline ler.

Baler is Chief Incarnation Operations Officer. Correct. For the International Rescue Committee.

Exactly. Excellent. org and I remember being here at the time, but give us an update of how that's initiative is going.

'cause at the time it was just a small thing and now I feel like it's a big Thing. Well, thanks for asking. org.

org is our business unit within ServiceNow focused on helping non-profits drive their digital transformation through the NOW platform. And so over this past year, we went from, as you've mentioned, a small team, um, with a few number of great customers like the International Rescue Committee to creating a much bigger community, um, that's focused on really accelerating digital transformation of the entire nonprofit community. Over the past year, it's been great to number one, build our team of experts who help consult with organizations and leaders like, um, Madeline and her team on the journey and how they can use the platform.

org and do shared things together. Like our grant program that we just launched. We've also aligned with our partner community because as we all know, the success of software implementation, our technology is not just the licenses, but a really successful implementation, um, that drives business outcomes.

Um, and and finally, um, we've listened a lot and that's been the best part of the job over the last year to really meet nonprofits where they are, to understand both their unique needs of their business and their challenges, but also how they're similar to other organizations in the for-profit world who are also trying to drive client experience, employee experience, automation, productivity, and of course ai. What I like to say is we're all about making AI and putting AI to work for purpose, and that's what ServiceNow org is all about. And then how did you come with ServiceNow?

I mean, you're here with a 10, 15,000 of your closest friends, but Exactly. Um, How did the IRC wind up on the ServiceNow platform? Well, uh, so our actual journey with ServiceNow started almost a decade ago.

So the IRC, it was part, is part of a consortium of different nonprofits in a group called Net. Uh, hope this was a consortium, started focused on global humanitarian, uh, groups and how we could better work together, um, and also use technology. So we originally started on a shared instance of ServiceNow with the other members of the consortium.

And we've grown so much over the last six plus years, uh, at the time that I've been there, that we felt the time had come to really have our own separate instance. org. Um, and it's a critical component almost of what we needed.

Almost graduated. Yeah, we did, we graduated to graduate to our, to our own instance at this point. So it's been a year.

What do you know now that you didn't know a year ago? Oh, so much. I will say it's been a, a year of immense learning.

Luckily, I've brought folks into my team who have deep backgrounds in working with organizations like the IRC on their digital transformation. Um, the number one thing that I've learned, to be honest with you, is a lot less about the technology and about the people who work within this industry. And we did a, a reception last night.

Um, we have over 150 customers here at Knowledge from the nonprofit community and the very, very, very special people who choose to do the work in these industries is amazing. You don't do it for the glory, you don't do it for the raise, you don't do it for the publicity. You do it because you really care about something bigger than yourself and the mission of your organization.

And it's just a different breed of people that you're working with who are drawn by again, something bigger than themselves. So that's been my number one learning. org because I've been doing go to market and digital transformation with technology for 25 plus years, but I knew there was a bigger calling and this idea to be able to bring together go to market digital transformation with pa My pa, passion for social impact and doing good in the world, that's been the best.

org was even born, has been a huge, huge learning for me. And they're the most passionate, dedicated, and committed people. So that's number one.

Um, and then second, the work that and the missions are long term and really hard. You don't get a win overnight. It's great to have a go live or great to expand technology to help achieve the mission better, faster.

But if you look at the bigger missions of these nonprofits, they're multi-decade. Some of these nonprofits have been around for a hundred plus years. And so it's like we are never done.

The work is never done. It's really, really hard. But the fact that we're using technology to even take one, two steps forward and those really big ambitions and journeys makes, um, makes it all worth it.

There are a lot of it folks watching this madely. What's different about working in a nonprofit from an IT perspective, if they were thinking about coming and joining MM-Hmm. You know, what do you wish they knew before they walked through the door?

Well, I think, you know, Vanessa's actually already hit on some of it, which is that one of the things that surprised me before I joined the IRC, my career had always been in the for-profit arena. So I came in with all of that and you know, as Vanessa said, working with people that truly believe in the mission and are seeing in it, seeing how technology can be used to actually help our colleagues so they can spend more time on the front lines, truly supporting our clients is huge. But some of the things that are the same, um, is that you're still focused on how do I bring in a new piece of technology?

What technology like ServiceNow can brought to bear to make people's lives easier, our colleagues' lives easier. Um, and that's a tremendous calling. Uh, the other thing that I've seen that's quite different is that, you know, I had worked in major companies and yes, you attended events like this, you got a chance to meet some of your peers, but there was always a little bit of the competitiveness.

And actually the IT community, I've been amazed by the nonprofit space are really tight. So because we're in it for a a broader purpose, we wanna be able to help and support each other. Hey, I've been able to use AI to solve this issue.

Let's connect you with ServiceNow. And what they've been able to provide, uh, is a very different mindset. But the idea of let's select a great package, let's apply it to solve a particular need and then see that to fruition, that's really exciting.

Lemme ask you a quick follow of that. Are all the people who are working like full-time employees or they volunteers at some level where they lend their skills? So the majority, the vast majority.

Um, from an IT perspective, you mean, lemme just clarify, the vast majority are our employees, but I am a huge believer in actually leveraging the talents of others. I mean, one of the things that I've been honored to see is how many people are want to help us. And so if I, you know, in that service now and I have some developers say, Hey, I've got some time available, how could I assist you?

That's a huge benefit to us and I try my best to find opportunities that they'll get excited by. Are you acting as kind of a clearinghouse for those volunteers and kind Of saying early on? I'm sure Early on, but interestingly enough I talked about over this last year, one of our big steps forward was around our alignment with our social impact team.

The one thing that's been great, I think companies for years now have been I the idea that giving back to the communities where they live, work and play is important. org and say, Vanessa, what charities, what nonprofits are you working with? We wanna first put our time towards those where we're building a partnership with.

And right behind us on this show four, we have not only thousands of our employees but our customers and partners, we are literally packing backpacks for the International rescue committee on site. Now that's a short two minute, um, two minute commitment, but there's also many, many more ways skilled technologists and skilled developers who want to help. And what's been great as we've created programs for our employees who wanna give back, we're really steering them to great organizations like buyer's sake.

Well, just building on Vanessa's comments, one thing from a technology piece that I haven't done yet, my team hasn't done yet is have a solution that helps us map those volunteer interests to actual programs. And the service cloud platform has that. So that's a great example of really building, um, on that that I could use.

They might learn skills working for Absolutely, but they wouldn't learn in their regular job and it's a great place to do hands on training. Absolutely. Under percent.

And You guys operate in, you know, hotspots. Yes, we do. You don't necessarily get the luxury of kind of showing up and saying, time out everybody, I gotta deploy some software.

Yep, Totally true. Yes. So how do you kind of get operations up going quickly?

'cause speed's kind of, of the essence, right? Yeah, absolutely. One of the commitments the IRC makes is that when a, a crisis occurs, a war breaks out a climate, a calamity occurs.

We are on the ground to help support the individuals within 72 hours. So exactly to your point, we need to be able to hit the ground running. So we actually, another area that we've been looking at ServiceNow is to help us from a sort of a field deployment perspective.

Our field's a little different definition of that, but to be able to have emergency, uh, workers who are standing by, we actually have an amazing roster of employees who we pay, um, less than, you know, a normal salary. They're not working at that time, but they have committed that when something happens, they will be available and they are in 72 hours. So, and what we've done is one of the things that has been a huge advantage that, you know, I champion right from the start of, of joining the IRC is getting everything in the cloud.

Because if you get all of your solutions in the cloud, what I have to ensure is that I can do connectivity from where someone lands and whether that be in a, you know, far reaches of, um, of, uh, Ethiopia or whether that be, um, which is one of the challenging spots, believe it or not for this, um, or if I somewhere in Asia or just somewhere I'm not even operating. What I need to do is to ensure they have that connectivity. And frankly, more and more solutions, starlink is one that's come out are allowing us to do that quite quickly.

Uh, what is The level of sophistication that you've seen among the non-profits when it comes to it? Because yeah, they're usually every dollar is going to the mission and they don't usually spend a lot of money on the gear and the software, and frankly, they probably shouldn't. So, um, how do you modernize those?

Well, here's, and to, to Madeline's point, um, a lot of the donors and a lot of the way money comes in as revenue, even though that's not the right term to nonprofits, is based on ensuring the efficiency of that dollar going to the front lines of the mission. So we know as ServiceNow, that means a couple things for us. Number one, it means that every dollar that's spent with us counts this idea of value realization and driving business outcomes.

It can be a life or death type of thing when we're working with nonprofits. Um, the second thing it means is that we wanna be relevant to helping organizations like the IRC deliver at speed on the front lines. So to build on one of Madeline's points, some of the areas that we're exploring within the ServiceNow platform, just like a for-profit organization that needs to get resources and supplies, whether it's in a hot spot or to a volunteer event in a timely way, track and manage that inventory so you have the right supplies, the right inventory at the right place, at the right time to meet the needs of your client.

Those are some innovative use cases on the platform where we've been able to take core capabilities that exist in field service management, asset management, creator workflows, and being able to repurpose those use cases for specific scenarios. And, um, examples that happen in the non-profit world, we've seen a lot of transferability and then working with folks like Madeline and folks on her team to tweak it and modify it for their specific scenarios has been a really great collaboration and how we're gonna grow in this space in the future. When I talk to folks in this field, they appreciate the donations, but they don't enjoy the process of getting the donations and they certainly don't enjoy the process of explaining where the donations went.

Can we stream all that in a way that makes it easier for them? They gotta do their thing. We're sure trying with technology, no question.

And you identify some of the key process areas that need to get addressed from overall fundraising, um, which is another business generation capability. When you think about the requirements to how do you properly track the finances and the use of those donations that come in, there are some aspects of our world that are different. So for example, I have to track all donate almost all donations in three different currencies.

I never had that before. I track it in the currency of the IRC, which is dollars, I track it in donor currency, which could be a whole host of different countries and I track it in the currency of where I am operating. So that's just one example of a requirement that has been unique.

Um, you know, one of the other things, you know, and this is the importance in my mind of technologists working together because we're committed as, um, ServiceNow and Vanessa and her team are thinking through, are there adjustments that need to be made to solutions? Um, how I wanna make sure that what they do actually meets other people's needs as well. I have no personal, um, desire to keep with my knowledge to myself.

I want to share it because even though we have grown so substantially, we're nowhere near the need that is out there. So I have to, I want my partners, I want the other great humanitarian aid groups to have the benefit of some of the changes that we're making on the technology front. AI has been a theme here A little bit, a little Bit.

What can folks in the nonprofit space kind of expect to see from ai? Because from their perspective, they're probably like, bring it on sooner than light up. Absolutely.

Like every dollar counts, Every dollar. So the promise of AI and the platform and some of the amazing use cases we saw this morning on the, um, main keynote stage with now assist. There's some things that we're even working with the IRC directly with, with now assist, whether that be, um, text to code, um, number one, being able to reduce the amount of time and the amount of development in-house skills.

We have to have to deploy a new workflow, whether that is, uh, case summarization so that our service managers who are out there, um, can more quickly, um, get responses to whether it's folks in the field about their laptop or whether it's even more mission critical activities. Those are definitely use cases that apply in the nonprofit world. But again, some of that speed, um, and productivity enhancements means we've got a better story back to our donors, right, about the better use of the dollar.

So that's how we've seen some of the same use cases that the for-profit world are seeing for AI are applied in the non-for-profit world in that way. But when we start to get to things like predictive ai, and I'll let you build on this, Madeline, 'cause when we've talked about the use of AI in her world, being able to predict where that next crisis might occur and being able to be much more proactive about getting those supplies, those resources there in time, or even more exciting frontline AI use cases where we think the ServiceNow platform can help. Yeah, absolutely.

And I'm personally really excited by AI because I need it. I I don't, I don't want to take those credit dollars and have to apply it internally and just on technology. I want it the clients There's only one of you.

Yeah, Exactly. I have a great team. But yes.

Um, so, um, things, um, to be able to use technology that's 72 hours, that's a really tight window to get the supplies needed, et cetera on the ground. But if I can predict that, uh, you know, uh, a, a major weather issue is gonna be, you know, occurring in a given place or the bigger issue in my world is there's a crisis, there's a political crisis brewing that, um, is about to blow up. So with that, I can start getting people assembled and ready so that if it does, we always hope it doesn't, but if it does, we can jump in.

All right. To be forewarned is to be for, I gonna Say absolutely. Absolutely.

Last word on all this, if people wanna volunteer, where do they go? org. Um, that's our website and you'll see the different opportunities there to be able to bring, uh, yeah, bring in and bring your expertise to bear.

Alright? So love to see people do that. Thank you.

In the same place. org and more, learn more about our mission and our team. All right folks, you're heard in here as always.

It's about making a difference. We can decide whether you wanna do that in a corporate world or do that for your fellow human beings. We'll be back in a minute.