Leadership Charlotte overcame pandemic and move-based technical issues through their partnership with Apparo.
Leadership Charlotte develops and enhances volunteer community leadership by providing a diverse group of emerging & existing leaders with the opportunity to increase their community knowledge, civic network, & service to the community. They first turned to Apparo for support in 2014 and worked with us as trusted partners ever since. We checked in recently with Elizabeth McKee, Executive Director, to learn about the impact of our work together through Apparo’s Tech Therapy program.
Elizabeth shares her perspective:
“Working with Apparo has been a gamechanger for us. The impact is huge, as related to both dealing with the pandemic and our move.
“Before our move, we were landlocked with no opportunity for growth and we were dependent on an on premise server. When the pandemic hit, we were limping along. We had no way for our staff to work virtually and we were not the best at delivering our class content virtually. Stephanie (McKee, Apparo’s Chief Technology Thought Partner) helped us get on laptops, move to the cloud and use it all to the greatest of their capabilities. We were successful in continuing our work during the pandemic because of Stephanie and Apparo.
“We have a goal to add new programs, so that we are able to get even more people connected to service in Charlotte. When we were given the opportunity to move to new space, we knew we wanted to take it so that we could grow our programs, but then we learned that we would not have access to any technology. With Stephanie’s background in networking, I knew she would be able to guide us in a way that no one else could. She reviewed the situation, gave us an overview of our tech needs and then detailed each piece of equipment we should purchase. She also helped us make the most of TechSoup offers. For nonprofits without technical expertise, their offers go unused and don’t deliver the optimal impact. Without this support, who knows what we would have purchased.
“Today even though we are back in person, there are so many benefits. Many of our speakers want to be virtual and we accommodate them. We can also invite speakers from across the country and world, which we would not have done before. Our alumni education program is all virtual and it’s going very well. Our staff all enjoys the flexibility of being able to work remotely when they need to and Microsoft365 makes everything easier, from calendaring to avoiding version control issues. We are a thousand times ahead of where we would be without Apparo.”
