The challenges of managing digital Identity in the not-for-profit sector

Delivering a seamless digital experience isn’t easy when your user base is a complex network ranging from stakeholders, employees, volunteers, and donors, to members, partners and the public. But that’s just one of the many challenges facing the charity sector. 

Along with their ongoing mission to increase donations and attract new supporters, the sector is also facing growing compliance, regulatory pressures, and rising cyber security threats. Meaning more resource must go into ensuring personal data is kept safe. But that data also needs to be accessible to ensure a smooth, personalised experience for users. To keep them coming back, engaging with the organization, and donating. 

Those users themselves add yet another layer of complexity, with multiple user groups each with different access and security needs. Organisations need the capability to secure and manage each of these groups, and a unified view to understand user journeys for strategic insights. 

And cyber-attacks are on the rise, with a third of charities experiencing some form of cyber security breach or attack in the past 12 months.¹ And they’re only getting trickier to dodge, as the bad guys turn to AI to create ever more elaborate attacks. 

Phishing was the most common type of attack, with reports by 83% of charities. And 37% experienced attacks by imposters impersonating organisations.¹ 

Recruitment and talent retention are also challenges, with salaries often weighed against those of the private sector – making the employee experience when engaging with systems as important as that of the external stakeholders and customers. 

There is a solution to all this and more. One that enables a unified view of all those different users accessing services and systems. Enabling access to those services faster, and more securely. And that solution is modern Identity management.

With a modern Identity solution, users get seamless access to the services they need, without having to wade through multiple Identity systems. Employees can access systems fast and so work more productively and without frustration, helping to boost job satisfaction. Supporters can log in to make donations quickly and securely, and users can access the services they need without a headache. 

Legacy platforms and lack of available budget can get in the way of IT modernization projects; but modernization is crucial to enabling easy and secure access to a myriad of users, simplifying the donation process and delivery of services. And for getting insights on user journeys that will inform strategic insights and decision making – driving engagement and income.  

Why legacy Identity management systems are no longer fit for purpose 

• They’re inflexible, unable to scale or meet the demands of innovation 
• They can cause restrictive, clumsy or slow log-in experiences for users, risking turning them off altogether 
• They create data siloes that are hard to manage, particularly in a sector that already has multiple streams of users
• They are insecure and can expose organizations to cyber-attacks and fraud – a non-negotiable in a sector where trust and reputation are everything 

Overcome the cyber security risk  

With a modern Identity solution, not for profits can be confident that the people accessing their services are who they say they are. With a verifiable and repeatable digital Identity to help stop fraudsters in their tracks – without compromising the experience for genuine users. Helping to boost trust and assurance of privacy and data security.  

With modern Identity management by Okta, organisations get a solution to all their challenges. A single, cloud-based system that delivers consistent, seamless, secure access to digital services for every user, at scale. And it can be deployed in under a day, meaning fast time-to-value where it matters most, ticking crucial boxes for the most frugal charitable body. Especially when you combine it with all the benefits – like giving IT talent more freedom to focus on innovation and other core business areas.

So, what does a modern Identity solution deliver? 

• A cloud-based approach, adaptable and ready for innovation, like social authentication.
• Intuitive login, making services more accessible even to less digital-savvy users. 
• Centralized access management, with all access points and admin under one roof, IT resource is freed up.
• Comprehensive access policies, like being able to recognize and control segmented access rights for different scenarios, using automation to drive policy updates and deliver stronger Identity hygiene. 
• Additional security based on context, so IT can boost resilience by spotting unusual patterns of behaviour. 
• Adaptive multi-factor authentication (MFA) to protect Identity and data wherever users go and wherever data lives.

A sector focused on helping others needs to invest in its modernisation to keep driving its mission onward. Put us to the test and see what great Identity management could do for your organisation with a free trial. 

Get your free 30-day trial of either Customer Identity Cloud (CIC) or Workforce Identity Cloud (WIC) right here.