The Accidental Techie

Issue #10 The Accidental Techie Radar Hey friends, 26NTC just wrapped, and the nonprofit technology community showed up. I joined virtually this year — Gozi and I presented our session remotely — but the energy from Detroit came through the screen loud and clear. The throughline this year was hard to miss: the sector is finally starting to name what so many of us have been living. The accidental techie experience in the AI era isn't a niche problem. It's everywhere. And more people are asking...

Issue #9 The Accidental Techie Radar Hey friends, This edition is a little different. No deep dive into a single framework today. Instead, consider this the kind of catch-up you'd have with a colleague over coffee. What I've been building, what I'm paying attention to, some reading worth your time, jobs worth considering, and books worth buying from an independent store. A lot is happening in the nonprofit tech world right now. Some of it is exciting. Some of it is worth watching carefully....

Issue #7 When Self-Serve IT Stops Working (And What Comes Next) How to choose the right IT support model as your nonprofit grows from 20 to 50+ people—without breaking your budget or your brain Welcome to The Accidental Techie Newsletter - Issue #7 Hey there, fellow accidental techie! 👋 Reader, I saw a post this week asking whether to hire an MSP or bring IT support in-house. The conversation in the comments went everywhere—budget constraints, organization size, whether part-time made sense,...

Issue #6 Debugging Your New Year's Resolutions Why your goals crash by February (and how to patch them for good) Welcome to The Accidental Techie Newsletter - Issue #6 Hey there, fellow accidental techie! 👋 Reader, as 2025 wraps up, I wanted to take a moment before we dive in. Thank you for being here. Whether you've been reading since the beginning or just found your way to this little corner of the internet, I'm grateful you're part of this community. Every time you open one of these...

Issue #4 From Firefighting to Forward Thinking: How Gratefulness Rewires Reactive Leadership Welcome to The Accidental Techie Newsletter - Issue #5 Hey there, fellow accidental techie! 👋 Reader, If this Thanksgiving season feels heavier than usual, you're not alone. Between political tensions, the exhaustion of navigating difficult family dynamics, and the weight of just... everything... this week might feel less like a celebration and more like something to survive. And that's okay. In the...

Issue #4 Did You Miss Cybersecurity Awareness Month? Here's Your Decision Matrix Welcome to The Accidental Techie Newsletter - Issue #4 Hey there, fellow accidental techie! 👋 Reader, Cybersecurity Awareness Month ended last week, and likely you didn't do a single thing about it. Not because you don't care - because October was budget season, three staff members quit, your grants system crashed twice, and you never found four spare hours for that security training you meant to schedule....

Issue #2 The Fiscal Year Tech Reset "Can we just add that to next year's budget? It's urgent but shouldn't cost much..." Welcome to The Accidental Techie Newsletter - Issue #3! Hey there, fellow accidental techie! 👋 Welcome to fiscal year planning season, where every "quick fix" suddenly needs funding and everyone assumes your tech budget is infinitely flexible. This is your strategic reset moment. Whether you control the budget or just influence it, fiscal year planning is when accidental...

Issue #2 The Leadership Skills You Didn't Know You Were Building A starting guide to move from accidental to intentional leadership Welcome to The Accidental Techie Newsletter - Issue #2! Hey there, fellow accidental techie! 👋 Remember that moment when your executive director pulled you aside and said, "We're promoting you to Operations Manager"? And your first thought was, "But I'm not leadership material. I'm just the person who fixes the WiFi and explains why the database crashed again."...

Issue #1 Why "It Should Be Simple" Is Never Actually Simple A Guide to Managing Tech Expectations (Without Losing Your Mind) Welcome to The Accidental Techie Newsletter! Hey there, fellow accidental techie! 👋 If you're reading this, chances are you never planned to become "the tech person" at your nonprofit. Maybe you started in finance, or program management, or you're an ED wearing seventeen different hats. But somewhere along the way, you said "yes" to fixing one printer problem, or...