How Nonprofits Can Benefit from an LMS System in 2021

A wide variety of organizations, including nonprofit associations, can benefit from an LMS system this year and beyond. Organizational leaders who are striving to grow their nonprofit or recover from financial damage caused by the recent economic recession will find a solution in an LMS system. The first way an LMS can benefit nonprofits is by providing mobile training for all learners.

An LMS System Provides Essential Mobile Training for Nonprofits

COVID-19 has changed the needs of most nonprofit organizations. Many associations that used to provide in-person training must now train members, employees, and volunteers remotely. An LMS system makes remote training not only possible, but easy for learners.

In the post-COVID world, it is critical that associations offer mobile learning options to employees, members, and volunteers. Online learning platforms feature the mobile learning functionality nonprofits need. Benefits of mobile learning through an LMS system include:

A self-paced learning experience - Individuals often prefer to learn on their own time and according to their own schedule. Mobile learning provides this opportunity and allows learners to access training on their mobile devices when it is convenient for them. This may increase engagement with training. Training participation rates could also increase as learners have the option to learn from any location.
Reasonable training costs for the organization - Mobile learning ensures that there are no added hardware or connectivity charges. Also, most individuals already own smartphones or tablets. This saves organizations the expense of having to provide mobile devices to learners.
Increased productivity - Mobile learning provides something that learners value, which is flexibility and freedom outside of office hours. This helps learners become more productive in other areas of work as their time is freed up.

TOPYX LMS for nonprofits has built-in mobile learning functionality that serves remote learners well. LMS users can access training and collaboration materials from both their desktop and mobile devices. Also, TOPYX LMS:

Is compatible with iPhone, iPad, Android, and other smartphones and tablets
Has no added costs associated with mobile learning
Is committed to protecting your nonprofit’s information by storing organizational data on secure servers.

Additionally, TOPYX LMS system servers deliver reliable uptime with significant bandwidth.

Need an LMS that can train all of your volunteers, members, and employees remotely? Request a free LMS demo of TOPYX.

Keep Learning: “3 Ways a Nonprofit Can Drive Member Engagement”

How COVID-19 Affected Nonprofits Financially

In the aftermath of COVID-19, many nonprofits are suffering financially. Accounting Today stated, “Across the country, nonprofits are facing unprecedented financial challenges just when their services are needed most. Nonprofits contributed over $1 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2016, but nearly one-third expect to close within the year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, charitable giving declined 6 percent in the first quarter of 2020.”¹

Also, 75 percent of nonprofits have reported that COVID-19 negatively affected their funding and revenues, per BDO U.S.²

These statistics demonstrate the seriousness of the financial condition of many nonprofit associations. Thankfully, a learning management system can help nonprofits improve their bottom line by lowering the cost of training.

An LMS System Cuts Training Costs for Nonprofits

For a nonprofit, the primary purpose of an LMS system is to provide training for employees, members, and volunteers. It’s important to keep in mind that that’s not all an LMS can do for a nonprofit. In addition to providing training, an LMS system can also make a nonprofit’s bottom line healthier by reducing the cost of training.

Nonprofit training is central to a nonprofit’s success, so it should be a vital part of a nonprofit organization’s budget. The trouble is, training can be expensive. For example, classroom-based/traditional training can be a mammoth cost to nonprofits. “Benefits of E-Learning (Part Two)” revealed the true costs of traditional training:

“For any organization that conducts regular training, it is mandatory to maintain fully furnished training rooms at all the facilities where it needs to conduct training. The cost of hiring/maintaining a single training room can range from $5,000 to $20,000 (or even more) per year, depending on the location.”³

The article also mentioned that getting live trainers to and from a physical training location has a high price tag: about $400-$600 per session. Add in manpower costs and the loss of productivity and you have a heightened bottom line. What’s more, in-person training isn’t feasible for a great number of nonprofits at this time due to the global health crisis.

Organizations can save serious money by training individuals with an LMS. An LMS system eliminates the need for travel, in-person instructors, classroom rentals, and more. As a result, organizations will experience a healthier bottom line.

Another way LMS systems can boost a nonprofit’s bottom line is by increasing revenue through upskilling learners and enabling mobile donations.

Increase Your Nonprofit’s Revenue Using a Learning Management System

Nonprofit leaders may not know that an LMS system can help associations make money by simply and effectively training members, volunteers, and employees. The training offered to these individuals through a learning management system equips them with the skills and tools they need to generate income via fundraising.

An LMS also promotes better income for a nonprofit by enabling mobile donations. Nonprofits that don’t enable mobile donations are doing themselves a huge disservice. Digital Commerce 360 said,

“Over the course of 2012, donations to nonprofit organizations from mobile web sites increased 205%, according to fundraising technology and services provider Artez Interactive.”⁴

Mobile donations are critical to the survival of a nonprofit. That’s why it is vital that nonprofit administrators ask LMS vendors about how their product can help them enable mobile donations. The right LMS system should have this capability, and the right vendor should have a customer service team that can help clients in this area.

Increase Your ROI for Training with an LMS

Commonly, nonprofits will have huge amounts of volunteers, members, and employees. When training is delivered in a physical classroom, it can be a challenge to track the results. This is a problem because nonprofit leaders need to know how learners are faring in training. If training is ineffective, they need to find out why so that they can make corrections to improve their ROI for training.

Only a formal tracking system, such as one built into a learning management system, can provide the depth of training insights a nonprofit needs. An LMS not only makes it possible for a nonprofit association to “go mobile,” but it also tracks training through LMS reporting. This feature tells administrators what is working and what isn’t when it comes to training.

Insights related to learner engagement and participation help training administrators make changes to training that can increase the company’s ROI for its training investment. With an extended enterprise LMS, nonprofits can sell the training they’ve refined using LMS reporting to similar organizations. This is another viable way an LMS system can empower a nonprofit to boost its own revenue and have a better financial year.

TOPYX LMS is an Affordable Option for Nonprofit Associations

A learning management system is often the perfect solution to nonprofit organizations’ training issues. It can even help nonprofits increase revenue and improve their bottom line. However, nonprofit leaders may avoid implementing an LMS because they overestimate its cost. Some LMS systems may break the bank (per-user systems, for example), but this is not true of all platforms.

TOPYX LMS was created with nonprofits in mind. In fact, TOPYX offers discounted pricing for qualified nonprofits. Also, TOPYX never charges per-user fees. This means that whether your nonprofit has 100, 1,000 or 100,000 members, the flat rate stays the same. Additionally, TOPYX:

Enables mobile donations
Remotely trains members, staff, and volunteers through eLearning courses
Encourages collaboration with video conferencing, real-time chat, and other social learning features
Tracks training, providing administrators with the feedback they need to offer eLearning that effectively upskills individuals
Unites geographically separated association membership through language localization and anytime/anywhere online learning.

Find out exactly how TOPYX would work for your organization by requesting a FREE LMS demo today.

A nonprofit might uphold the noblest cause in the world, but without providing essential training to members, volunteers, and employees, it will not flourish. Use a learning management system to facilitate remote training and generate revenue in 2021.

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