The weakening economy has created a ripple effect across all types of businesses, including the charitable sector. Due to funding uncertainties, many nonprofit organizations and government agencies are more hesitant about expenditures, and keeping a closer eye on budgets and cash flows.

Yet, they are under growing pressure to do more with fewer resources, and to provide more transparency and accountability to members, donors, and the people they serve. In addition to following increasingly complex accounting rules, they also have more competition for grants and contribution dollars.

Typically, systems are in place to help each department meet these challenges and work effectively. Key staff members enter, manage, and report on this data, but it can be difficult to pull together snapshots of progress quickly in order to make real-time course corrections.

To help relieve these demands, many organizations are turning to Business intelligence tools to retrieve, organize, and share knowledge for analysis and guided decision-making.