Running a non-profit isn’t the same as running a regular business. Your goals, priorities, marketing approach, and recruitment strategy are all going to be radically different. And the way you track and manage your time is going to be different too.
Time management for non-profits and NGOs is extremely important. It’s important for all the obvious reasons — resource optimization and team management for example — but for some NGO-specific reasons too, like the need to carefully track volunteer hours when reporting to the people who fund you.
In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the best ways to manage time as a non-profit organization and share some of the best tools out there to help you.
How Should Non-Profits Prioritize Tasks?
One of the most important parts of time management is knowing how to prioritize tasks properly. This allows you to focus on the most important and time-sensitive tasks first so you and your volunteers can use your time, resources, and energy in the most appropriate way.
So how should you go about prioritizing tasks?
- Associate your tasks with key goals. For example, raising money through an online campaign is obviously tied to the goal of increasing your donations and funds. When you know the ultimate purpose of every task — large or small — it becomes easier to identify more important and impactful jobs.
- Rank tasks according to urgency. If you have a big event planned for Friday afternoon, the activities associated with that event should take precedence over the event you have planned in three months. Try to organize all your tasks according to urgency in this way, so you prioritize more wisely.
- Try to estimate the time and resources needed for each task. If you can come up with a rough estimate for how long a task will take, and what’s required, it’ll be far easier to priorize work, delegate, and schedule jobs.
How can Non-Profit Professionals Manage Their Time Better?
If you work for a non-profit, you’ll be all too familiar with the constant demands on your time and the non-stop conveyor belt of work to do and deadlines to meet. Time management is a crucial skill here — so how can you get better at it?
- Share the load — delegating responsibilities in the right way is one of the best ways to reduce your own workload and free up more time. Your volunteers are there to help, just make sure you’re assigning the right tasks to the right people and giving them everything they need.
- Use the right tools — there are tons of time management tools out there, from simple ones like calendars and organization apps to more complex platforms like CRMs. We’ll explore time management tools for NGOs and non-profits in more detail later on.
- Be ruthless with time — non-profits might be altruistic projects, but that doesn’t mean you have to agree to everything. Don’t be afraid to say no and defend your time, or you’ll end up buried under a mountain of tasks.
- Standardize where you can — if you standardize processes and common tasks, it becomes easier to plan and delegate. Automation can be your friend here by taking care of repetitive, monotonous work.
Time Management Strategies for Research Projects
Research is a big part of non-profit and NGO work. And as anyone who has ever even dipped their toes in a research project will tell you — it’s easy to get distracted and off track. Let’s look at a few techniques to squeeze more productivity out of your research time.
- Focus on one task at a time — one of the worst things you can do from a time management perspective is trying to juggle multiple tasks at once. Block off time to focus specifically on one task at a time and you’ll use your time much more efficiently.
- Use the Pomodoro method — the Pomodoro method involves splitting your time into 25-minute long blocks, separated by short breaks. The idea is to carefully segment your time and focus on nothing but work.
- Outsource what you can — it’s best to spend your research time doing nothing but research. This is much easier when you can outsource other jobs — like scheduling meetings, managing social media, and replying to emails — to someone else in your organization.
- Disconnect from the internet — having the entire world of information at our fingertips comes with a lot of advantages, but it’s also a massive distraction. Cutting off your connection allows you to focus purely on your work without the relentless pinging of notifications and tempting distractions.
Volunteer Time Tracking
NGOs and non-profits depend on their network of volunteers. But volunteers can only perform well if they’re managed properly. Tracking your volunteers’ time allows you to keep them happy, productive, and useful. In addition, you might be required to track your volunteers’ time, for example as part of community service requirements.
Here’s how to track your volunteer’s time:
- Make it a priority to keep detailed records and spreadsheets. It’s easy to lose track of this task, but making small and regular updates keeps things easier.
- Give volunteers the option to log their own hours, and make it easy and accessible for them to do this, for example through a software tool.
- Use tools and apps designed specifically for logging hours. We’ll dive into some of the best options here in the next section.
Time Tracking Tools for NGOs
Now it’s time to check out some of the best time-tracking tools for non-profits and NGOs. In relatively recent history not many such tools existed, but today’s non-profits have access to many excellent platforms, each with their own pros and cons.
1. Forecast
Forecast is a multi-layered project management tool with a focus on NGOs and non-profits. It’s AI-powered, easy to use, and comes with a simple and accessible user interface to help you and your teams track and manage your time.
Forecast comes with features like AI time tracking, real-time project monitoring tools, and financial management options to help you stay on top of projects and budget — a key consideration for non-profits.
On top of all this, Forecast gives you productivity insights to better understand how you are using your time, identify inefficiencies, and take steps to tighten things up. It comes as one single package, with tailored pricing based on your specific needs and contract length. Forecast is a great choice for non-profits with more than 15 team members.
2. ClickTime
ClickTime offers a time tracking platform built specifically for non-profits and NGOs. It comes with tools to track funding sources, manage hours and timesheets, and gain insights into how you are using your time.
You can also generate detailed reports to share with funding sources and for compliance reasons, as well as to visualize your own internal activities, time management, and spending. It costs $8 per month and there are discounts available.
3. Monitask
Monitask is employee monitoring software designed for small and medium-sized remote teams, making it a great fit for non-profits and NGOs that do a lot of digital work.
You can access insights about what your teams are working on. allow your volunteers and workers to manually log their own hours, and generate reports to learn more about how you spend time and boost efficiency.
Starting at $4.99 per month, Monitask is affordable for everyone and also offers a 10 day free trial.
4. Clockify
Clockify is a completely free time tracking platform for businesses of all sizes, including NGOs and non-profit organizations. It supports unlimited users and comes with a suite of features to help you track work hours, productivity, and attendance.
Clockify lets you easily visualize the time spent by your teams on different tasks, get a clear overview of activities, and generate easy-to-view reports packed with information that can be exported in a variety of formats.
5. Jibble
Jibble is designed to make it as easy as possible to manage large numbers of team members. Its features include digital time tracking across desktop, mobile, and web applications, the ability to generate automatic, detailed timesheets, and the option to create and monitor specific tasks.
For NGOs, Jibble helps you understand where your grant money is going at a granular level by breaking down activities and tracking specific tasks. You can give team members different authority and access levels, and set automated reminders to log hours on time.
Jibble is free for the basic plan, and offers a 50% discount on paid plans for NGOs.
6. Kimai
Kimai is an open-source platform designed to help businesses keep track of their time and manage projects more easily.
This SaaS platform comes with a ton of reporting, tracking, and invoicing features, and supports unlimited users and multiple languages. Best of all, Kimai has a special discounted rate for non-profits at just $0.99 per user per month.
7. VolunteerHub
VolunteerHub is designed specifically to help organizations recruit and manage volunteers more easily, making it a perfect choice for non-profits and NGOs.
It has features to help you communicate more easily with your volunteers, track their hours, schedule their time, and recruit new volunteers. Pricing starts at $143 per month for up to 1000 volunteers, with an option at $288 per month for up to 2500 volunteers, and custom plans for larger organizations.
Work with Forecast
Forecast is built to help non-profits harness the power of AI to manage their teams, get more out of their time, and run smoother and more productive operations. Our goal is to help you give more to the causes you support by helping you optimize your time and resources.
If you’re interested in learning more about Forecast and how to get started, book a demo with us.
