Your nonprofit organization may be neglecting an often underappreciated task: recording your history. Your organization's institutional memory — records of lessons learned, old but interesting ideas, potential contacts never pursued, the story of your organization's founding — can all be valuable information. Potentially valuable information that is not usually recorded may be lost forever when founders, staff, or board members leave the organization, move, or pass away.

Recognize the Value of Your Institutional Memory

Your organization's institutional memory may be valuable in the following ways:

• Insights and information from your organization's history can help you find new ways to raise more money.
• Information about your organization's past can help you avoid repeating mistakes.
• Stories from your organization's past can make excellent web content that draws more visitors. These new visitors could become members, donors, sponsors, or partners.

Build Your Story Over Time

You can approach the task of institutional memory-collecting like an oral history project. Recording the memories of founders and key past participants might be an ideal intern project as well as a fun team-building exercise.

Another great way to record your institutional memory is to write a history of your organization. Your organizational history can be a useful element of a strategic plan. It can also form the basis for web and newsletter content, fundraising requests, or even a magazine article or book. Your organization's history can serve as a critical element in grant proposals. Grant funders will want your organization to continually revisit and build your organization's story over time.

Identify Information That's Worth Saving

You will probably find it useful to record information that most organizations typically record, such as:

• Board agendas
• Meeting minutes
• Annual reports
• Financial records
• Other institutional data

Here are some examples of potentially valuable information that your organization may not be recording:

• All of your organization's fundraising ideas and outcomes to date
• Information about your members, past and present, including family information, affiliations, dollars contributed over time, their connections to public decision makers, and other data that could help you accomplish your strategic goals
• The story of your founding, including all of the players, contributors, and the historic context
• How your organization came to make key decisions in your history

Take Advantage of Data Storage Tools

Your nonprofit organization is in a better position than ever to record its institutional memory. The software programs that are designed to help organizations manage their members will store a large amount of data that you will want to keep.

To learn about the latest technology (some of it free) available to your organization, search the TechSoup website for "data storage" software and tools. Once you've identified the right software for your organization, find a volunteer to shepherd the data acquisition and entry. This is often a detailed and repetitive task, but it will pay off down the road.

Your organization also may be able to get assistance with digitizing your printed materials, such as newsletters, and posting them on Recollection Wisconsin.

Learn More

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