Technology consultant
The expensive decisions are the early ones.
Most technology problems I'm called in for are really decisions someone made three years ago in a hurry.
I help mission-driven organizations choose the right systems, and then I build them. I've spent more than twenty years on both sides of the table: eleven inside a nonprofit using the software, thirteen building it.
At St Osyth Priory, Essex. Photograph: Lottie Photography.
years in nonprofit technology
projects, for more than 100 organizations
of records in the systems I've built, used by hundreds of people every day
years on staff at a nonprofit before I consulted to one
What I do
Decide
Work out what you actually need before anyone writes code or signs a contract. Which CRM, whether to build or buy, what the migration will really cost, and what your board needs to hear.
The Technology ReviewBuild
Databases, portals, migrations, integrations, websites. I do the work myself or lead the people doing it, and I build it so your team can run it after I've gone.
See the workStay
Most organizations don't need a full-time technology director. They need one every few weeks. I hold the roadmap, handle the vendors, and answer the question before it becomes a project.
Ongoing Technology PartnerSome of the organizations whose technology I've built or looked after. They include Madison Square Boys & Girls Club and its Foundation, part of Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
The Fresh Air Fund · Built from the inside.
I built it because I was the one re-typing the addresses.
Camp records lived in spreadsheets and filing cabinets, and every summer the same families were entered again by a different department. I was on the program side, so I felt it every year. Eventually I built the thing we all needed.
I left the organization in 2014. The system lives on as the live archive of all of their data.
Read the full caseWhere do you fit?
The work is the same underneath. What changes is the conversation we start with.
You run a nonprofit
Six systems that don't talk, a CRM nobody likes, and a board asking about AI. I've been the person on your side of that desk.
Start hereYou're building a company
You need a technical partner who stays past the launch and doesn't hand you something only they can maintain.
Start hereYou're a board or exec team
You need someone senior enough to read the contract, question the vendor, and say no in a way that holds up in the room.
Start hereYou serve nonprofits too
Agencies and software firms: I help build, integrate and improve the platforms you deliver. Or you build on the one I already own.
Build on what I've builtFree · eight questions · about three minutes
The Tech Check
How your systems work day to day: where data gets re-typed, what a board question costs you, who fixes it when it breaks. Answer honestly and I'll send you a written read on what I'd look at first and what I'd leave alone. One email, no sequence.
Start with a conversation.
I'm Jake. I've run Solve IT Simply since 2013 and built Simply360, the platform underneath a lot of this work. Before that I spent eleven years at The Fresh Air Fund, in roles from camping and youth programming to human resources and communications.
Thirty minutes, no pitch. Tell me what's not working and I'll tell you what I'd do about it.