Will a consultant meet the technology needs of your organization, or is it time to hire a dedicated system administrator? Could you use a volunteer to fix part or all of your problems? In many cases, nonprofits can best use a combination of all three resources for different needs.

Before you decide to search for a consultant, ask yourself the following questions:

What sources of support do you have already?

In a few cases, you may already have a warranty that covers your problem. For instance, if a monitor is flickering, try calling the hardware vendor to see if they will fix it for free. When you call a technical support number, be assertive about getting explanations you understand. If the support person is using a lot of jargon, ask them to explain very simply. Stop them if there is something you don't understand. In a worst-case scenario, you can try calling back for a second explanation. If you have a trusted technology volunteer already working with your organization, ask her/him to call the tech support number and translate the jargon for you.

Could you use a volunteer?

Technical volunteers can be a source of substantial help for nonprofits. Before you hire a consultant, consider if all or part of the project could be accomplished by a volunteer. Can you limit the scope of work to one or more definable, short-term projects? Another reason to bring in a volunteer may simply be that you have no budget for a consultant. However, in many cases, nonprofits give up before they have explored their funding options.

Do you need to hire a systems administrator?

For the majority of nonprofits with more than ten or fifteen computers, hiring a system administrator, full-time or part-time, is the most cost-effective long-term solution for regular maintenance needs. As you upgrade in order to access the Internet and share files and data efficiently, your systems will become more complex. "The more complex your systems, the more you need to have someone on staff who understands," says Mary Duffy, senior program manager at CompuMentor.

Conversely, if you have a very old system with a mix of older hardware, it may be easier to maintain with a regular system administrator who gets to know it well than with a consultant who is used to working with current systems. The size of your organization will affect your decision as well. If you have more than fifteen computers, you should seriously consider hiring a part-time or full-time system administrator.

If you are considering bringing on a consultant for problems of a routine maintenance nature, think about how effective a consultant can be in reaching your goal. Is your budget big enough to include a full-time or part-time system administrator? Will getting what you need from a consultant be any cheaper in the long run? Again, in many cases, nonprofits give up on hiring a system administrator before they have fully explored funding options.

Can a consultant meet your needs?

A consultant is the natural choice for many common projects, such as installing a network, creating a Web site, or building a database. These require more specialized knowledge and resources than you would usually expect from a system administrator.

In some cases, a contract with a consultant can also be appropriate for ongoing maintenance needs. For instance, if your agency has several sites that run on different systems, it may be easier to manage them with different consultants in the short term, than to find a system administrator who is skilled in all of those systems. Some network consultants will contract with you to maintain the network for a monthly fee. They may include a certain number of visits per month, and charge extra for emergency calls. A disadvantage of using a consultant for ongoing maintenance is that they will often ask you to fit your system to certain specifications so that it is easier to maintain. This makes it possible for them to do their job, but it can make it difficult to customize your system. This might be fine for an agency with a learning center that has the same software on every machine for students to use, but not for an agency where each staff member has a totally different setup.

Finally, some other considerations may be:

• How well/quickly does the consultant perform?
• How well can they keep up with strange little problems?
• What kind of follow-up will be needed?
• Can you find a consultant whom you could hire on a monthly retainer basis in exchange for guaranteed hours of weekly work?
• Will s/he be available beyond the regular schedule if an emergency develops?

The bottom line is that consultants are not magic. If you don't make coherent decisions about your overall technological systems, a consultant will only be a temporary solution, and will only meet a small portion of your needs. A consultant will not fix your database, provide training, upgrade your hardware, and install a network at once. S/he will only be able to perform a small subset of those tasks. If you haven't built the systems and structures necessary to support healthy technology use at your organization, no consultant will make your issues go away. In fact, hiring a consultant under those circumstances will only allow you to ignore your technology needs for another season or two, while using up funds that you might otherwise have used to begin solving your technology problems. If you think the project will require ongoing maintenance, it may be best to hire a system administrator. The solution is to develop a vision and an overall timeline of tasks through a technology planning process. Then, the consultant's work can be one aspect of your overall vision for technology support.