Cybersecurity for Nonprofits: 10 Easy Tips to Protect Donor Data

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California has nearly 200,000 nonprofit organizations. That’s 200,000 teams working to make the world a better place—and 200,000 targets for cybercriminals. Keeping sensitive data secure, including donors’ personal and financial information, should be a huge priority for nonprofits, but it can be difficult to dedicate the necessary time and resources to this protection.

Luckily, cybersecurity for nonprofits doesn’t have to be expensive or complex. Let’s take a look at these 10 simple ways you can boost your cybersecurity and safeguard your donor data.

Why Is Cybersecurity for Nonprofits Important?

Nonprofits often handle sensitive donor information, including names, addresses, financial information, etc., making them appealing targets for hackers. Protecting this data is essential to maintaining donor trust and a positive reputation—and consequently securing future donations so your organization can continue serving your community.

Breaches can also result in expensive downtime, legal fees if compliance regulations aren’t being met, and a lot of time and resources you could have dedicated to your normal operations. With strong cybersecurity measures, you can both safeguard donor information and keep your nonprofit open for years to come.

Protecting Donor Data: Best Practices

You might be thinking, “Protecting donor information sounds great, but how do I even do that?” We’ve got you covered—these cybersecurity tips for nonprofits are designed to boost your protection in simple, effective ways.

1. Train Staff

Human error is a leading cause of security breaches, but with a little training, you can lower your risk significantly. Hold regular cybersecurity training to teach employees and volunteers how to avoid, identify, and react to threats. Make training engaging and fun, and try including games and drills to help your team remember what they’re learning.

2. Establish Password Policies

Password hygiene is a huge concern in cybersecurity for nonprofits. Recent surveys found that 66% of Americans use the same password across multiple accounts, and 44% of employees use the same password for both work and personal accounts. This gives hackers a lot to work with if they can crack one password, leaving your organization exposed.

Teach employees and volunteers best practices for creating passwords, and implement policies such as using certain kinds of characters, changing passwords frequently, and creating unique passwords for different accounts. Password managers can help your team keep track of their login info as they adjust their credentials to be more secure.

3. Secure Your Network

Securing your network prevents unauthorized access to your systems, protecting both you and your donors. Network monitoring and security tools such as virtual private networks (VPNs), firewalls, and network segmentation can all be beneficial, depending on your current infrastructure. Consult an IT professional to figure out what will work best for your network.

4. Encrypt Sensitive Data

Encryption is crucial for effective cybersecurity for nonprofits. This process converts sensitive data into a code that can only be accessed and understood with the right decryption key. This means that even if donor data is intercepted, it will be more difficult to manipulate or use maliciously because it will be unreadable.

5. Get Your SSL Certificate

A secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate is a digital certificate that authenticates a website’s identity and enables an encrypted connection. It ensures that all data passed between the server and the user remains private. Having your SSL certificate can complement your existing encryption efforts and give donors a sense of security when they submit info through your site.

6. Update Software and Systems Often

Outdated software is like a hole at the base of a chain link fence, creating the perfect spot for hackers to sneak into your infrastructure. Make it a priority to run software updates—don’t click “ignore” when that annoying dialogue box pops up! Your IT team can also set up automatic patches and updates that will keep your systems current.

7. Develop an IRP

An incident response plan (IRP) is a game plan for recovering quickly and effectively from an attack or outage. It includes assigning specific tasks to team members, outlining plans for restoring operations, establishing communication protocols, and setting up data backups. This preparation increases your recovery speed and reduces your risk of data loss due to downtime.

8. Back Up Data Regularly

Establishing regular backup procedures will improve your data security and make it possible for you to recover information after an attack or system failure. Backup strategies can include storing duplicate data in the cloud, on a remote physical server, or a hybrid of both. Test your backup systems often to confirm data integrity and work out any bugs.

9. Implement Access Controls

Not everyone needs access to donor information to do their job. To keep sensitive information as secure as possible, limit donor data to need-to-know. Adding additional access controls, like multi-factor authentication (MFA) or session timeouts, to databases can improve cybersecurity for nonprofits even more and prevent unauthorized users from manipulating or viewing data.

10. Maintain Compliance

Compliance standards can be frustrating because of their complex and ever-changing requirements, but staying compliant is crucial for protecting donor information. Regulations such as PCI DSS or GDPR are designed to keep sensitive data private, and following these guidelines will help you maintain client trust and secure their personal information.

Keep Donor Data Secure with Twintel

As a nonprofit organization, donor relationships and support are some of your most important assets. With Twintel’s proactive cybersecurity for nonprofits and deep investment in your success, you can keep their data secure. Schedule a meeting with our team to get started.