Every euro saved on IT is a euro for the mission
Associations, foundations, social cooperatives and third-sector organisations handle sensitive data — members, donors, beneficiaries — with limited budgets and teams often spread across sites and volunteers. Xion IT Group has worked with the non-profit sector for years: professional technology, properly sized and affordable.
What we do for non-profits
- IT management at a sustainable fee — support, monitoring and maintenance sized to the organisation (support contracts);
- GDPR for the third sector — data on beneficiaries, donors and volunteers handled correctly (GDPR);
- Cloud and collaboration — shared documents, remote working and tools for distributed teams (Cloud & Remote);
- Security that is lean but serious — protection, multi-factor authentication and off-site backup, because non-profits are targets for fraud and ransomware too;
- Discounted licensing — we help you reach the software vendors’ non-profit programmes;
- Operating leases — current equipment without tying up funds (leasing);
- Automation — lighter member administration, communications and reporting.
Where to start
A free review with no obligation: we record the systems, the data and the risks, and build a plan that respects the organisation’s budget — starting with what protects the mission.
Sensitive data, real budgets: the third sector’s balancing act
Non-profits live with a paradox: they often handle some of the most sensitive data there is — beneficiaries in vulnerable circumstances, minors, health or social records — with the most limited resources. That does not lower the obligations: the GDPR applies in full, and the responsibility towards the people being helped is arguably greater. Our answer is protection that is proportionate but serious: the measures that genuinely matter (controlled access, backup, volunteer training, correct privacy notices) sized to the organisation, without expensive superstructure. Every euro not spent on unnecessary complication is a euro that stays with the mission.
Technology that holds a distributed organisation together
Associations, cooperatives and foundations often have a scattered structure: several sites, volunteers working from home, collaborators coming and going. Holding documents, communications and activities together in that context is a challenge the cloud handles well — orderly document sharing, secure remote working, collaboration tools that do not require expensive infrastructure. To which is added an advantage that is often overlooked: the major software vendors offer discounted or free licences to non-profits, and we help you reach them. The result is professional technology at a cost a not-for-profit organisation can sustain.
Tight budgets do not mean weak measures
The most widespread misunderstanding in the third sector is that IT security is a luxury for those with resources. The opposite is true: non-profit organisations often handle the most sensitive data there is — people being helped, minors, health circumstances, situations of vulnerability — and they do it with reduced tools and budgets.
The good news is that the measures which genuinely move the risk are not the expensive ones. A second authentication factor, revoking access when a volunteer stops, backups that actually restore, encrypting laptops: these are organisational rather than technological measures, and they fit inside any budget. The expensive things — sophisticated equipment, continuous surveillance — come much later in the order of priority.
Volunteer turnover is the number one risk
This is the structural difference from a business. In an organisation with many volunteers, people come and go at a rate no HR department manages, often without any formal leaving moment.
We find the result almost every time: active accounts belonging to people who stopped helping years ago, shared mailboxes nobody can say who holds the password to, messaging groups still containing former volunteers alongside data about the people being helped.
Fixing it does not need a complex system: it needs a list of who has access to what, updated when somebody joins and when they leave. It is the least technological thing of all, and it is the one that reduces exposure most.
Donor data and beneficiary data are two different archives
They should be kept separate, with different access, and almost never are. Whoever handles fundraising has no reason to see the records of the people being helped, and whoever supports those people has no reason to see how much anyone donated.
The separation is not a formality: it is what limits the damage if one of the two is compromised, and it is also what makes it demonstrable — to a funding body or an inspection — that the data is handled with judgement.
Where we work
Xion IT Group has its head office in Milan and offices in Lecco and Bergamo, and works with associations, foundations and social cooperatives across Lombardy.