Yes. Every nonprofit that depends on technology to serve people, raise money, or meet reporting requirements needs a disaster recovery plan. It doesn't have to be long or expensive. For most small and mid-sized nonprofits, a few pages that answer "what do we restore, how, and who does it?" will cover the essentials.
Below is a plain-language explanation of what a nonprofit disaster recovery plan includes and a starter checklist you can use this week.
Why Nonprofits Can't Skip This
Nonprofits often assume disaster recovery is for big corporations. In reality, nonprofits may have less room to absorb a disruption. Consider what would happen if you lost:
- Your donor database the week before a year-end giving campaign.
- Program attendance records needed for a grant report.
- Client case notes used to coordinate services.
- Access to email and files after a ransomware attack.
Disasters don't have to be dramatic. A failed hard drive, a deleted folder, or a compromised email account can do serious harm when there's no plan to recover.
Disaster Recovery vs. Business Continuity
These terms are often used together:
- Disaster recovery focuses on restoring technology and data.
- Business continuity focuses on keeping your mission and services going while technology is being restored.
A food pantry might keep serving families with paper sign-in sheets (continuity) while its database is restored from backup (recovery). Both matter.
Two Key Terms, Explained Simply
Recovery time objective (RTO): How long can a system be down before it seriously hurts your work? Your donation platform might need to be back within a day. Your archive of old newsletters could wait a week.
Recovery point objective (RPO): How much recent data could you afford to lose? If you back up nightly, you might lose up to a day's work. If that's too much for your case management system, it needs more frequent backups.
What a Nonprofit Disaster Recovery Plan Includes
- A list of critical systems such as email, donor database, accounting, case management, and shared files.
- Recovery priorities showing what gets restored first.
- Backup details describing what's backed up, how often, and where.
- Contact information for staff, board leaders, IT support, and key vendors.
- Roles explaining who makes decisions and who does the work.
- Manual workarounds for continuing programs without systems.
- A testing schedule to confirm the plan works.
Starter Checklist
Use this list to get from "no plan" to "basic plan" quickly:
- ☐ List every system your organization depends on.
- ☐ Rank each one as critical, important, or can wait.
- ☐ Confirm each critical system is backed up.
- ☐ Confirm cloud services (like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace) have a backup plan beyond the provider's own recycle bin.
- ☐ Store at least one backup copy where ransomware can't reach it.
- ☐ Restore one file or record to prove backups work.
- ☐ Write down who to call and who decides.
- ☐ Keep a printed copy of the plan and key contacts offsite.
- ☐ Share the plan with your executive director and board chair.
- ☐ Schedule a review once a year.
Frequently Asked Questions
Our files are in the cloud. Isn't that enough?
Not always. Cloud providers keep their systems running, but they may not protect you from accidental deletion, a compromised account, or ransomware that syncs encrypted files. A separate backup adds an important safety net.
How much does disaster recovery cost?
It depends on how many systems you have, how much data you store, and how fast you need things back. Many nonprofits can meet basic needs with modest investments, especially when they prioritize the most important systems first.
Do funders care about this?
Increasingly, yes. Some grant applications and insurance carriers now ask about data protection and continuity planning.
We serve youth or students. Does that change anything?
Organizations that work with young people often hold sensitive information such as attendance, guardian contacts, and permissions. Recovery planning should prioritize protecting and restoring that data. Our IT services for education page discusses related considerations.
Start Small, Start Now
A one-page plan you can actually follow beats a perfect plan that never gets written. Start with the checklist above, then build from there.
Maise Technology helps mission-driven organizations plan for disruptions through our disaster recovery services. Learn more about our work with nonprofits on our IT services for nonprofit organizations page.
Have a question about getting started? Get In Touch.
