TRACK your TIME

There are two things a nonprofit should definitely track: time and money. While most of you probably have a grasp on tracking money, let's talk about your TIME.

Why track time?

-You really can't plan properly without knowing how much time your organization is spending on projects.

-Programs and projects are not just "things" or resources, but there are people behind each one!

Yes, you have your Executive Director working on projects, along with allocated staff, but you can't say the real costs of particular projects without knowing the time associated. Some projects may take no time at all, but some may be monopolizing your ED time, multiply that by the rate, and your projects budgets may just have quadrupled.

What about grants? Grants wants to know the cost of the project, too.

So how do you track time? It does NOT need to be hard. How you track depends on the level of accuracy you need.

Most small nonprofits do not need to be extremely accurate, so a simple excel sheet or google document with pivoting tables will suffice. Simply create a table with date, times/hours, and projects. You can add more details (client, tasks, notes) if you need them. Input the data once a week and estimate!

Spreadsheets are cheap/free, easy with no training required, good for small organizations. They are not great if you need detailed tracking as they are manual, limiting, and not in real-time.

If more accuracy is needed for billing, you can use tracking software. Check out Toggl or Timenye. You can even download a gmail interface to track time spend on client email to those minutes are not lost.

By tracking your time on programs and projects, you can get a more accurate picture for the cost of your programs and what programs are siphoning organizational time. Is most of the staff time spent on the most important project? Find out!