Besides program delivery, how are LMSs being used by forward-thinking nonprofits? (Part 2)

Welcome back to Part 2 of our blog series on how LMSs are being used by modern nonprofits. In Part 1, we discussed how LMSs can support and scale knowledge mobilisation efforts, increase service efficiencies, and re-engage community across the customer journey. If you missed it, you can read it here.

In this article, we will cover several additional benefits of adopting an LMSs for nonprofits, namely:

• Increasing membership value and/or earning revenue

• Making stakeholder research easier to plan and execute

• Facilitating engagement and dialogue

• Having a centralised source for data gathering and analytics

• Onboarding, compliance and training for staff

• Building digital capacity within your organisation

Remember, these are benefits that go above and beyond the primary benefits related to delivering and scaling your programming.

Let's dive in!

Increasing membership value and/or earning revenue

One of the challenges that nonprofits face is how to sustain their operations and generate income without compromising their mission and values. An LMS can help with this by offering various ways to monetize your content and services, such as:

• Charging a fee for access to premium courses, certificates, or badges

• Creating a subscription or membership model that provides ongoing access to your content and community

• Offering sponsorship or advertising opportunities to relevant partners or donors

• Selling merchandise or products related to your cause or niche

• Accepting donations from your learners or supporters

By providing valuable and engaging content and services through your LMS, you can increase the perceived value of your membership and attract more supporters, donors, or customers. You can also use your LMS to showcase the impact of your work and communicate your stories and successes.

One challenge that can arise when it comes to monetizing educational content is that some types of funding and grants prevent your organisation from monetizing it. If this is your case, don’t hesitate to book a meeting with us to discuss your options.

Making stakeholder research easier to plan and execute

Another benefit of using an LMS for your nonprofit is that it can help you plan, collect, and learn more about your community than ever before. By configuring your LMS and programs to include various data collection methods, you can set up your LMS at the outset to collect and visualise data for you all year long. You can track and analyse the “digital body language” of your learners, you can gain insights into their preferences, needs, challenges, motivations, and behaviours. 

LMS data can be used to improve your content, services, and outreach strategies. You can also use LMS data and your insights to provide more compelling and evidence-based rationales in grant applications.

An LMS also makes it easy to collect feedback from your learners and stakeholders through various methods.

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Feedback Mechanisms

• Analysing usage behaviour patterns

• Having single poll questions, feedback forms, and surveys built in for users to respond to every time they log in

• Creating quizzes or assessments to measure learning outcomes and satisfaction

• Encouraging comments, ratings, reviews, or testimonials from your learners

• Conducting interviews, focus groups, or case studies with learners who are not engaging, struggling, and/or those who are succeeding
  
  By using an LMS to conduct stakeholder research, you can save time and resources, increase response rates, and get real-time results. You can also use your LMS to segment your audience based on their responses and tailor your communication and offerings accordingly.

Facilitating ongoing engagement and dialogue

One of the main goals of nonprofits is to create a sense of community and belonging among their learners and stakeholders. An LMS can help with this by facilitating engagement and dialogue through various features, such as:

• Creating forums or groups where learners can interact with each other and with your staff or experts

• Enabling gamification elements such as points, badges, leaderboards, or rewards to motivate and recognize learners

• Incorporating social media integration or sharing options to allow learners to connect with each other and with your organisation on different platforms

• Offering live events such as webinars, workshops, or Q&A sessions where learners can participate in real-time discussions and activities

• Providing tech support channels such as email, phone, chatbot, or helpdesk where learners can ask questions or report issues
  

By using an LMS to foster engagement and dialogue, you can create a more interactive and collaborative learning experience for your learners. You can also build trust and loyalty among your community members and increase their retention and advocacy.

Having a centralised source for data gathering and analytics

Another advantage of using an LMS for your nonprofit is that it can provide you with a centralised source for data gathering and analytics. An LMS can be programmed to collect and store various types of data from your learners and stakeholders in an ongoing basis throughout the year,

such as:

• Demographic data such as age, gender, race and ethnicity, location, education level, etc.

• Behavioural data such as login frequency, course completion rate, time spent on each activity, etc.

• Performance data such as quiz scores, assessment results, learning outcomes, etc.

• Feedback data such as survey responses, ratings, reviews, comments, etc.

An LMS can also provide you with various tools to analyse and visualise this data,

such as:

• Dashboards that display key metrics and trends at a glance

• Reports that provide detailed information on specific aspects or segments of your data

• Charts that show comparisons or correlations among different variables or groups

• Filters that allow you to customize your data views based on different criteria

By using an LMS to gather and analyze data, you can gain a deeper understanding of your learners' progress, performance, and satisfaction. You can also use this data to evaluate the effectiveness of your content, services, and strategies, and make informed decisions to improve them.

Onboarding, compliance and training for staff

An LMS can also help you with onboarding, compliance, and training for your staff

As well,

• Create and deliver standardised and consistent training programs for your new hires, volunteers, or partners

• Ensure that your staff comply with the relevant policies, regulations, or standards in your sector or industry

• Provide ongoing professional development and learning opportunities for your staff to enhance their skills and knowledge

• Track and monitor the progress, performance, and compliance of your staff and provide feedback or coaching as needed

• Recognize and reward your staff for their achievements and contributions

By using an LMS to onboard, train, and manage your staff, you can save time and money, increase productivity and quality, and reduce risks and errors. You can also create a culture of learning and excellence among your staff and foster their engagement and retention.

Building digital capacity within your organisation

Finally, an LMS can also help you build digital capacity within your organisation. Digital capacity refers to the ability of your organisation to use digital tools and technologies effectively and efficiently to achieve your goals and objectives. By using an LMS, you can:

• Enhance your digital skills and literacy by learning how to use various features and functions of the LMS

• Adopt a digital mindset by embracing innovation, experimentation, and collaboration through the LMS

• Leverage digital opportunities by exploring new ways to deliver your content, services, and impact through the LMS

• Overcome digital challenges by finding solutions to technical, operational, or strategic issues that may arise from using the LMS

• Support digital transformation by leading the change process and engaging your staff, learners, and stakeholders in using the LMS

By using an LMS to build your digital capacity, you can increase your competitiveness, relevance, and sustainability in the digital age. You can also improve your performance, efficiency, and quality across all aspects of your organization.

Conclusion

As you can see, an LMS is not just a tool for delivering programs or courses. It is a powerful platform that can help you achieve various goals and objectives for your nonprofit. Whether you want to scale your impact, increase your income, learn more about your community, foster engagement and dialogue, gather and analyse data, onboard and train your staff, or build digital capacity within your organisation, an LMS can help you.

If your organisation has been on the fence about an LMS, we hope these reasons can help you make a decision. An LMS is a way to become data driven, improve your services, and grow your community. It's not just the programs team that benefits from the purchase of an LMS; it's the whole organisation. 

Now, these benefits do not appear overnight. For those of you wondering about the feasibility of all of these wonderful “ideas”, adopting an LMS and seeing the benefits discussed in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series requires making this a strategic priority in your organisation. Perhaps some of these opportunities are more important for you than others. We recommend laying out a viable multi-year plan to support the implementation, change-management, and capacity building that comes along with this work.

If you are ready to explore the possibilities of an LMS for your nonprofit or already in the planning phase, we invite you to book a meeting with us. Our team can help you every step of the way, from understanding your needs and goals, to selecting the right LMS for your organisation (and getting the best price, too).