Imagine a world in which all your apps and services worked seamlessly with all the data from your organization. A world in which you could quickly move from one app to another, and still see the same data, sitting gently in the proverbial cloud without time-sucking and soul-crushing imports and exports.
That’s just one of the many data dreams many have had in our sector for decades, and one that could be moving closer (though not completely) into reality.
Microsoft, in collaboration with non-profit organizations and other companies, have been leading an effort to develop the Nonprofit Common Data Model (CDM), with a goal of providing non-profit organizations, technology vendors, and technology consultants one common language to represent key data points and data entities within every non-profit organization.
Considering the huge array of nonprofit organizations, Is this something that could even be built? Even if this is technically feasible, how is it being built, and where can you better understand the benefits this could have for your organization?
We’re going to dive into some of the most common questions we’ve heard about Microsoft’s efforts around the Nonprofit CDM, share our own insights (though, we’re not Microsoft, so this is just our best interpretations), and provide some links to more details.