Podcast Summary: Nonprofit Lowdown #357
Title: The Hidden Cost of Your Tech with Rachel Bearbower
Date: September 29, 2025
Host: Rhea Wong
Guest: Rachel Bearbower, Founder, Nonprofit Automation Agency
Episode Overview
This episode dives into essential but often overlooked questions for nonprofit leaders about their technology choices: What is your tech really costing you—not just in subscription fees, but in hidden costs like staff time, integrations (or lack thereof), and donor experience? Rhea Wong and expert guest Rachel Bearbower unpack practical frameworks and real-world traps nonprofits fall into when building, maintaining, or expanding their tech stack. They demystify the ROI of tech investments, debate the friction of processing fees, and introduce tools (including a detailed cost/time calculator) to help nonprofits make smarter, mission-aligned choices. The tone is candid, approachable, and lively, with a focus on actionable advice.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. The Tech Stack Mess: Why Nonprofit Tech Is Painful
- Many nonprofit leaders are stuck in suboptimal tech setups—either cobbling together too many loosely-connected tools or hiding in “safe” manual processes.
- Rachel stresses: “There is no perfect CRM. There is no perfect platform. And literally everyone has a different opinion…” (02:36)
- Nonprofits often accept siloed, all-in-one platforms that don’t integrate well, making data fragmented and operational processes clunky.
2. Integration is Everything
- Rachel’s philosophy: Your donor CRM should be your “source of truth,” and every other system (fundraising, email, etc.) should feed into or pull from it.
- “If it doesn’t integrate, then are you having to upload and download spreadsheets? That takes a lot of time. The hidden cost of time wasted with platforms is huge.” (10:07)
- For-profit companies often build tech stacks for integration—but nonprofit tools tend to be “walled gardens.”
3. Hidden Costs Beyond the Subscription
- Beyond obvious subscription or platform fees, real costs include:
- Training time
- Data cleanup and maintenance
- Manual work (e.g., uploading spreadsheets, tracking paper signups)
- Process disruptions when things stop working (e.g., missed receipts because of forgotten settings)
- “Organizations aren’t thinking of their tech stack as like a living, breathing thing within their organization… you have to care for it regularly.” (12:25)
4. The Credit Card Fee Conundrum
- Payment processing fees remain a major pain point for nonprofits; Rhea and Rachel debate the pros and cons.
- Rachel: “Fees, they’re so annoying. I don’t want to say arbitrary… it’s a cost of doing business… you have to decide: does it bother me more having the fees, or would I rather do additional work?” (14:44)
- Rhea: “If I’m donating $50, I will cover the fee, because in my mind, I would prefer that the nonprofit gets the full amount…” (18:08)
- Platforms like Zeffy instead give donors the option to cover fees (not the nonprofit)—but both host and guest agree donor experience and transparency are key.
5. Assessing ROI: What Justifies a Tech Tool?
- The goal of any tech tool is operational efficiency—making giving easier for the donor, and admin easier for the staff.
- Key considerations for ROI:
- Does it solve a real problem?
- Does it integrate, save staff time, and improve donor experience?
- “When I look at all of the different tech tools and I put a price on how much I’m paying for it, how do I assess whether or not it’s worth paying for?” (25:12)
- Evaluate by: actual use, ease of use, and positive impact on workflow.
6. Audit Everything: Know Your Tech Inventory
- Nonprofits routinely underestimate how much tech they have (and pay for), including forgotten subscriptions.
- Rachel recommends creating an inventory—including “hard” costs (subscriptions) and “soft” costs (staff time).
- Quote: “Make a list of all the different tech that you’re using… and then do a little audit: what does the tech do, and is it worth it?” – Rhea (24:06)
7. Quantifying Manual Labor
- Rachel introduces her Cost and Time Calculator (live demo begins at 33:23) showing how to tally:
- Each tool/platform, how much it costs, how often used, and crucially, how much staff time is involved
- “...When you add that up per year, that’s 260 hours. So then you’re back at your spreadsheet and you’ve got almost 500 hours of manual work… almost $18,000 in manual work.” (36:26)
- Often, staff labor costs far outweigh platform fees—a perspective most organizations miss.
8. Making Smart Tech Decisions
- Avoid “driving the Ferrari at 30mph”—don’t overbuy tech you won’t use.
- Be wary of chasing the shiny new thing if it doesn’t address a pressing problem or integrate with your “source of truth.”
- It’s valid to stay on spreadsheets if you’re really small (e.g., “If you are a super small organization with 100 donors, maybe you do hang out on a spreadsheet for a couple of years and you don’t invest in a big old CRM…” Rachel, 30:31)
9. Rachel’s Approach and Tools
- Rachel specializes in helping nonprofits automate donor stewardship and improving donor retention through strategic automation.
- Her approach:
- Audit your tech stack
- Identify integration and manual labor points
- Help implement automations and supporting tech
- Create (and write!) automated donor communications (e.g., welcome series)
- She’s offering a free, detailed tech cost/time calculator spreadsheet (details at 33:05 and [link in show notes]).
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
- Rhea: “I don’t know a single nonprofit executive director out here saying, ‘I got my tech unlocked.’” (01:46)
- Rachel: “There is no perfect CRM. There is no perfect platform. And literally everyone has a different opinion…” (02:36)
- Rachel: “Tech [in nonprofits]… should be thought of as a living, breathing thing you need to care for regularly.” (12:25)
- Rhea: “Fees are so annoying… yet we don’t actually recognize the cost of relying on staff labor to fix what could be a tech solution.” (37:41)
- Rachel: “Sometimes we jump from platform to platform trying to find the perfect one and sometimes we really just have to work within the tools that we have.” (28:27)
- Rachel: “Have some grace with yourself. It’s cool… there’s no one-size-fits-all.” (39:55)
- Rhea: “Facts not feelings. Because if you’re going off of vibes, you’re not going to make informed decisions.” (36:14)
Key Timestamps for Segments
- 01:37 — The universal tech struggle in nonprofits
- 04:10 — Platform silos and the “all-in-one” fallacy
- 06:21 — How tech adoption is shifting (and the “spreadsheet vs. appsumo” extremes)
- 08:24 — Rapid change in nonprofit tech landscape (“It’s been a wild time.”)
- 10:07 — “Source of truth” CRM: why integration matters most
- 14:33 — Real talk: payment processing and platform fees
- 16:43 — Debate: Should donors or orgs pay the fee, and why?
- 22:14 — Measuring ROI for tech tools (donor experience, recurring giving functionality)
- 24:06 — Building a tech inventory: what are you really using and paying for?
- 33:05 — Introduction and walkthrough of Rachel’s free cost and time calculator spreadsheet
- 36:14 — “Facts not feelings”—making data-driven tech decisions
- 39:55 — Closing thoughts: no silver bullet, grace for tech challenges
Actionable Takeaways
- Inventory all tech tools (incl. hidden subscriptions and soft costs)
- Prioritize integration—your CRM should be the hub
- Measure staff time as a major cost factor, not just software fees
- Challenge tech “shiny object syndrome”: only buy what solves a real problem
- Embrace the right-size solution—sometimes a spreadsheet suffices
- Check out Rachel’s Cost/Time Calculator (see show notes for link)
Additional Resources
- Rachel’s Cost & Time Calculator Spreadsheet: [Check show notes for the downloadable link]
- Connect with Rachel Bearbower / Nonprofit Automation Agency: [Show notes]